ChicagoCares at/about our school.

I'm at school this morning, even though yesterday was the last day of the school year and I should be sleeping or drinking or somehow celebrating. Volunteers from ChicagoCares are here painting some of our classrooms and all of our student lockers. It's a welcome change to just sit back and watch some other adults work for a change. And these volunteers aren't all jaded and depressed like us teachers :)

And talk about a transformation! Check out our current flourescentgross yellow lockers. They're painting over that wreck with a nice, soothing green. And they're painting many of our classrooms a nice, calming blue--replacing the "off-white/beige-paint-our-whole-school-this color-because-it's-the-same-color-as-dirty-so-we-wont'-ever-have-to-clean-our-walls" color.

I helped groups get started by hooking up speakers to student computers and logging in to pandora.com radio. And now I'm hiding out in my classroom trying to get the rest of my mess put away. At some point in the next few weeks, the maintenance staff will come into my classroom and drag everything into the hallway so they can clean and wax my floor. So I have to have everything put away in closets and desks or I risk losing it. It's a very cleansing process to go through piles of paper and realize I only need to save a few things here and there.

I have one week away from school before I return for a few afternoons a week for about half of the summer to lead a summer program called "Freshman Connections." Basically, we hang out with the new freshmen and get them into the frame of mind that high school isn't scary (even though we know it is) and that they can be confident coming on the first day. I'm looking forward to it, because I like kids to know who I am and that there are teachers here that care openly about them.

Time to go check on the painters and take some more pictures.