This is likely the last Thursday 13 I'll do before our next school break (Thanksgiving week). And as back-to-school is in my thoughts, I think back to various classrooms that no longer exist.
When I started adding images to my blog, I started taking pictures of the classrooms I was working in (before school, before students were in the room). Over the years, teachers have moved, classes have shifted, and many rooms are configured differently than the first time I entered them.
Here's 13 random photos of rooms that no longer look like this.
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| 1. This was about ten years ago now. I started the year in a vacant math class. This room has since been home to at least three other teachers. |
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| 2. This room really had a nice setup for desktop computers. This room literally doesn't exist anymore as they actually tore down this building to build a new STEAM building (that just opened for classes at the beginning of this school year). |
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| 3. This was a government classroom. This teacher retired long enough ago that the second teacher to use this classroom after him is now an assistant principal at the school. |
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| 4. This was a French classroom. Madame A retired several years ago, and now an English teacher uses this room. (The school still has a French class, but that teacher is in a different room.) |
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| 5. This classroom is no longer a classroom. Last I looked, they were using this room for "tardy sweep", although that might not still be the case. |
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| 6. Another room where the teacher retired, and they did not replace her. This room is still at the continuation high school, but no one uses it any more. |
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| 7. This is another classroom that was torn down to make way for the STEAM building. Good riddance, actually. The room was in terrible disrepair. This teacher is still at the school, but she has a much nicer room now. |
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| 8. When they tore down some of the above classrooms, they set up some bungalows for the teachers who were displaced. They have since gotten rid of those bungalows. I can't remember if this room was over by the athletic fields or in the parking lot. All I do know is all of those temporary buildings are gone again. |
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| 9. This room was set up like this for a long, long time. (At the continuation high school.) Last school year, they got rid of the desks along the wall, and then they moved the teacher out (to the room #10) and they moved another teacher (from room #10) into this room. It looks completely different now. |
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| 10. I haven't been in this room since this teacher moved into the room in picture #9. Eventually I'll see how this room is set up now. |
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| 11. Another of the rooms they tore down for the STEAM building. This teacher has since retired as well. (Good riddance to this room, too. It needed to go.) |
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| 12. 2020. The teacher who used this room retired at the end of the 2019-20 school year. For distance learning, we subs were given this room to work out of. Until we worked from home. The room now is home to a different special ed teacher, and she's set up the room nicely. Completely different from how it looks here. |
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| 13. Spring 2021, when we were doing hybrid (some doing school virtually and some in person), this was the room I worked out of (I was covering a maternity leave). Ms. R has since set up her room the way she likes, with couches and all the desks in place. It was quite homey the last time I was in there. |
It's weird to go into classrooms and remember how they used to be. It's even weirder to know some of those buildings were demolished and replaced by a whole new building.
HI Liz - an interesting range of 13 classrooms ... and yes I can see the changes over the years. You've been there a long time ... cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteIt makes me think back to the classrooms and desks I used. I bet they might be in some museum now...hahaha
ReplyDeleteThere was a teacher (now retired) who deliberately sought out the oldest desks on campus. In fact, I think he told me he had to find then off campus. They were practically antiques. I think I have that picture somewhere...
DeleteIt is weird how much rooms can change over time. Do people still call the rooms what they used to be? That was the thing when I worked in the courthouse; people would call current offices things like "the old library."
ReplyDeleteNot really. Only if the room hasn't gotten a new purpose.
DeleteThat last photo …
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so long ago.
DeleteChange through the years can be fascinating. I can remember wooden desks with a hole for your ink bottle (fountain pen ink) during my younger years. Those desks must have been ancient. For all I know, that being the NYC school system, some of those desks may still be in use.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they have less clunky desks now, but who knows?
DeleteCalifornia had those old ink bottle holed desks too! Those desks were so heavy. I remember the last day of school chore of cleaning out the desks. Some kids had been stuffing them full all year with papers, and trash, and who know what. Mostly boys. The girls liked to organize theirs. Not meaning to stereotype boys, but in '60s, in my elementary school, the boys were messier than the girls!
DeleteGenerally speaking, this is still true.
DeleteI've not seen desks like those in photo #2. Other than that one, take away the computers those rooms don't look much different from decades ago. The desks and chairs haven't changed much.
ReplyDeleteThose desks were high tech for the 2000s.
DeleteI can't believe you have classrooms going unused. Out here, there aren't enough to the point some classes are having to go in the cafeteria.
ReplyDeleteI had that same thought. And I must ask, what is a 'tardy sweep'?
DeleteTardy sweep is when students are tardy and they must go elsewhere rather than to class. This is being phased out, though.
Deletethanks to Darla for asking the question on my mind, and your answer to that.. have to ask my kids if there was something like this in their schools now..
ReplyDeleteYes, nothing stays forever!
ReplyDelete