Classroom Fast-forward Twenty
Years
Wight Session 5 Digital Presentation

My mother is
seventy two years
old. By day she is a
full-time
occupational
therapist at a
nursing home. By
night she is a parttime home health
occupational
therapist.

On the side, she is a
Master Gardener working
in demonstration
gardens, speaking to the
public about gardening issues and attending
classes and meetings.

On the other
side, she is a
clown. She can
be hired to twist
balloons, face
paint and
entertain
children with
silly games and
tricks.

She sleeps alternate Thursdays and hangs out
with me on the weekends.

So what might I be doing twenty years from now
when I am seventy two? If I’m anything like my
mom, I’ll be doing something that I love,
teaching.

In twenty years from now, the construction at
my school will be done and I’ll have snagged
the classroom next to mine with the three
window mountain view.

I sit next to the three windows
in my motorized scooter,
because unlike my mother,
my knees are shot. But that's okay because
after school I’m stopping by the clinic to get a
double knee replacement just in time for the
weekend’s marathon.

Pictures of former
students and former
students’ students
plaster the walls next to
digital posters displaying
current students’
classroom work.

On the wall across from the windows, my
aide and I have painted a jungle mural
including a waterfall. Below the mural ,the
empty computer cart
sits because its ten
laptops with the
latest operating
system and technology
are in front of my
students.

The students are
building a cooperative
data base with
Malaysia, Mali and
Mexico. The server
never kicks them off or
slows down due to the
super high speed, free
internet. They have
headphones with mics
and the class in noisy.

All students are well fed, clean and have
everything they need . No one has suspicious
bruises or rotted teeth or jailed parents.

Next to me sits
Jewel. We are
reading The
Chronicles of
Vladimir Tod. We
are on book three of
five. Actually, I’m
doing most of the
reading, but if I lose
my place, she
supplies the word,
so I know she’s
listening.

Jewel decided she wanted to read instead of
working on the collaborative database with
her peers because she can take the laptop
home, 25 miles out of town, and complete
the project there. The entire county is
wired, free high speed internet for all.

The bell rings and the class is like whirling
autumn leaves in the wind as students
scurry to straighten up their work spaces,
gather their
belongings
and leave for
the evening.

Jewel places her bookmark and lays the book
on my desk. We will read again tomorrow.

Quiet.

As I gaze out the window
watching the last bus leave,
I am grateful. I am doing
what I love, just like my
mom.

I am a teacher.