The classroom will be in the nineties by afternoon, maybe in the morning. My patience is challenged in those temperatures, the same temperatures that lead bookless students to nod off at their desks (that locker’s a long ways away when the hallways are 85 degrees or more). I keep trying to push the train forward while students stare blankly and ask to get water. A few go to the nurse.

I have to remember to keep my personal cool. I also have to plan lessons that don’t require books and that can be conducted around the fallen, those who will not wake up no matter how much I sing at them.