Blackout
Teaching January 10th. 2009, 10:00pmI had a totally acceptable day at work, except for the occasional power outages that keep occurring due to the heaters and numerous computers blowing the fuses. My director warned me that in my second class the power would be out for five minutes while an electrician worked to fix the problem.
I told my students that the power would go out, and they shouldn’t freak out or anything. It’s a planned power outage. To prepare, I opened up the window shutters to let light in so that they could read by sunlight until the power came back on. If I hadn’t been in a room with a window I would have had to stop my classes for the power outage.
Since I had warned them before the outage occurred, the students only briefly celebrated the oddity. One student said, “Oh no! No lights! Now we can play! With no power, how can they stop us now?”
I responded, “No lights mean that the closed circuit television camera isn’t working. That means that any problems you make can be fixed…the old fashion way,” then I reached in my box for a pair of rulers and held them up menacingly. This was a bluff, but they totally bought it.
There was a collective “gulp” of pure fear, as they don’t remember that I don’t hit students. I guess with the right kind of lighting I can look really menacing with a pair of rulers in my hand. If they got the impression that the reason I didn’t hit students was because I would be recorded on the camera, instead out of basic human dignity, perhaps I deceived them to further my own agenda. I certainly wasn’t goint to give them another impression while it was working. No one acted out of line for the entire power outage and we worked the entire time productively despite the lack of heat and power.
The lights are back on, obviously, and the school hasn’t blown a fuse since. Hopefully the electrician actually fixed the problem this time.
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