Goin' Rogue

     On a beautiful fall day like today, my thoughts are taken back to my days as a public school teacher.  My classroom was a windowless dungeon; the unintended consequence of  progressive education theory sold to our school system in the 1970s.  "Pod" schools, as they were termed, erupted on the landscape of my county like clusters of giant mushrooms.  Some were rounded, others geodesic like the building housing my pie-slice-shaped classroom.  The trippy-dippy theories that drove the architectural designs failed to work out the way the progressives predicted, leaving our county with never-ending renovation projects on all our miserable, stinky, leaky, dark, asbestos caked "pod" institutions.  Of course, blame for the failure was placed squarely on the backs of the teachers.  I wish I were kidding!

     There were days that I just couldn't face the confinement.  I'd tell the kids, "Guys, today I think we're goin' rogue!"  I'd call the office and let them know my class would be meeting on the back lawn, or the ball field.  I'd send a student to the gym teacher with a note asking for a kick-ball and jump ropes, and we'd make our escape.  My cell-mates fellow teachers would hear us outside, and inevitably, a few would join us.  Those days are the best memories I have in education.  In the years since I quit teaching, I've had the sad experience of reading about the untimely deaths, or incarceration of my former students.  I often wondered what good in the world was served by my efforts to teach Reading, Geography, or TN History, but I've never regretted the days of goin' rogue.  You're only 12 once.  I'm thankful for the hours of blue sky, orange trees, or Spring scented breezes we enjoyed together on the back lawn of that cavernous school.  Those were days of being silly, being rowdy, just... being.