2010 is going to be a big year for my school as it will be the last time the school is officially known as Boort Secondary College. By the final stages of first semester work will commence on a brand new school on our existing campus that will eventually house both the Primary and Secondary schools within our town. I personally am over the moon at the prospect of receiving an entirely new school that incorporates cutting edge designs and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
However, as you could imagine the new school, and the subsequent demolition of our existing school, is causing quite a lot of worry amongst some of our staff. In some cases, there expertise into their own teaching areas has been highly valuable, and has contributed towards healthy discussions about what would work best. However in recent meetings, I have grown frustrated with the utterly pointless conversation that is happening between the staff.
The basis for the conversation have been around the lack of storage space within the new school. In direct comparison the storage is around 50% of the capacity of the existing school. The argument from some of the older staff is that the new school will not be able to house all of the stuff we currently have and we will be forced to throw things out. Now while this is a major concern for some I really couldn’t care the slightest about something as trivial as the size of the cupboards or how many filing cabinets it can store.I especially couldnt care when the teaching resources the staff are holding onto have been around since the 50’s and havnt been used in a classroom since the 80’s.
I say this forced clearance of our school, will be a great opportunity to sort through the junk and keep the stuff that is actually worthwhile. Anyway so after one of the meetings I was asked by a senior member of the staff if I would have enough time to move my teaching resources from the existing school to the new school, if a wrecking ball was to come crashing down by weeks end. To her amazement I replied with… “ I wouldnt have to take anythying, as everything I’ve ever used in class or created is online for me to access from anywhere in the world”.
I’ve heard the saying that “Teachers don’t like change” but to be honest this has gotten to the point of being ridiculous. It’s time to move on…
So if anyone from my school is reading this, promise me one thing, that we will NOT talk about the size of the store rooms in future meetings, but use the time to talk about the reasons we cannot wait to enter the new school.
For our students sake I hope this happens……