In MY room

I know someone has written a song already called, “In my room.” I’ve no idea what prompted him to write it, but I often consider my own room and how I’d pen my song, if ever I were to do such a thing. I’m no lyricist, for one thing, and tunes are nowhere to be found in my head in any original form, for another thing, but perhaps those matters could be worked out later. Like any editor worth his salt, I’ll leave the pruning to someone else.

Boy, that didn’t make any sense at all. 

In my room there’s a double sink. It used to be the culinary classroom. Then it was the GED and mountaineering room. The east wall is covered by a mural of the North Woods gone wild. It begins in melancholy and ends on steroids. Fugly is too kind a word for it. Like gazing on a train wreck, I can’t bear the thought of having it painted over for off-white blankness. 

The west wall is windows, which I’ve smothered with pictures and memes. Bad Dad Jokes galore, interspersed with landscapes of Japan and old calendar pages. Giant posters fill panes on each end of the wall; I pretend they’re there legitimately to advertise my educational programs, while everyone knows I’m just hiding from the world. 

To the north are my whiteboard and green bulletin board. The latter has a timeline of American economic history and a homemade poster of the Four Sentence Structures attached to it, and an enormous map of the USA propped against it. Tables shoved to the wall below are covered with laptops and their charge cords, much like the ones under the hideous mural on the Eastern Front. 

The Southern Side possesses the sink, above which are bookshelves. It’s the only part of the room that actually resembles a classroom, except for the plumbing. The shelves are stuffed with encyclopedias and textbooks that typically collect dust and little use. 

My desk is under the windows, along the Western Bank, with a workstation that faces the east wall and the student areas. The physical design is secondary to the tasks at hand, of course, but contribute to the daily work of teaching and learning. In my room, day in and day out, I deal with the inquisitive and the dull, the smart and the stupid, the ambitious and the lazy. I see men that toil with limited means and others that spoil ample brains; men that sponge up every learning opportunity, and others that scoff at the chances they’re given, too stupid to know how stupid they are. There are men always willing to talk, and there are others willing to shut up and learn. 

Which will you be? Which will I be, in my room?