I Wandered Into Heaven

Medieval Manor in the Making

So there’s this place. It’s five minutes from my school, and from the outside it looks like a warehouse. From the inside, it looks like an Alice-in-Wonderland-Dr. Seuss mash-up. The corridors are unexpectedly filled with big red booths, antique-looking wooden tables and crazily spaced chairs. A room with large checkered black-and-white-tile floor boasts a cluster of chandeliers. The pianos ranged around the walls stand sentinel over coveys of sofas, grouped cunningly for gossip or the lone armchair awaiting its napper. The kitchen is just short of industrial, but with the feel of a classroom to its arrangement. Enormous paintings, each one unique but all framed alike, and all larger than me, adorn the walls at regular intervals. A peek into the door to the left shows a gym—to the right is an art studio. It twists into room after room, nook after nook, all startlingly equipped with whatever a person could dream of for learning, socializing, or entertainment. As a crew of gangly teenagers peeled off into the different doorways, pausing to nod or shake my hand, I decided to call it heaven.

How’d I find it? I followed a student.

Yesterday one of my students stayed for tutoring. He completed a project on the Middle Ages and then asked for a ride to his gym. I tagged another teacher to accompany us, and we drove him to a building near our school that looks like a warehouse.

They seem to have taken defense to heart...

“Do you want to meet my coach?” he asked me. I checked that the other teacher had time, and we went inside. We followed him from room to room, marveling at the beauty and size of the space. It’s a gigantic gamehouse for teenagers, but in ways that clearly train them for the world. By the time I shook his coach’s hand, I was speechless with admiration. If all my kids had places like this to go to, I wouldn’t worry about them after the bell rings. (Turns out, it’s called 2xSalt Ministry, a Christian outreach community center. Cool).

Today was a short day—we got hit by the snow around 11 am. Students were building beautiful models of Medieval manors, and then drawing up contracts in their groups between the lord and his vassals. They were delightful as they worked, especially after yesterday’s chaos (teachers were trading students as though they were playing cards, trying to get our classes to settle, but nothing took). We listened to some light Medieval choral chants and drum beats as they worked.

All the elements of a manor, including Crayola

As I drove home, I saw one of my students from last semester trying to cross the road, hunched into his jacket beneath the onslaught of snow. He’s a massive football player, and even though I usually pass him walking home through all sorts of weather, something ate at me when I saw his huge frame curled in on itself like a vulnerable child in the snow. I swung my car around and stopped to give him a lift home. Don’t tell admin. We’re not supposed to give our students rides alone.

Tomorrow is a snow day. Which means…

PJs.

Hot chocolate.

Snow hike.

Plan, grade, write, call parents, apply… knock off my to-do list.

And, REAAAAAAD! Oh, joyous joyous snow days.