Wednesday, June 3, 2009

dead messages

This is the email that I sent to the teachers:
I'd like to thank all of you for a great year. As we move ever-closer to the celebratory last day, and as you begin the process of collecting text books and other items distributed to the students, I'd like to remind you about bringing order and closure to your classroom set of laptops.

Please insure that all laptops are in their correct locations in the cart. Additionally, please make sure that all power cords are placed on their appropriate shelves, and that they are plugged in to the computers.

In advance, I thank you for maintaining the presentation and physical condition of your classroom set of laptops.
This the email I would have sent to my colleagues if I still taught a class:
Some of your laptops see those books on the other side of the room. They've noticed that when you collected them, you put them in neat stacks. In fact, they've noticed that you went so far as to take your left hand and smooth the stack from top to bottom, just to make sure that the books were in perfect order.

But some of your laptops are blind. Some of them are powerless. Some of them are lost. Let's listen to computer CFF-5:

Where am I? What shelf is this? I'm so tired. I'm running out of energy. Usually, I'm on a shelf, feeling myself getting stronger every minute, but recently, I feel depleted and soporific. And I can't see. There are all these cords dangling in front of me. But as bad as I have it, my buddy CFF-20, well, he's facing the wrong way. He can't even see out of this cart. And CFF-12, he's put one of his corners on me and he won't move. He can't move. He's not even in straight.

Why are those books treated so well? Don't we deserve equal treatment?
There are some parts of my new job that I dread. It's killing the joy of composing emails.

2 comments:

Joanne Romano said...

Ken, why remove insight, humor and reality because of your change in role? Send the second as a follow-up. Your teachers surely will appreciate you wit and wisdom!
Joanne

Dina said...

SEND IT! At the very least, it will be a litmus test for those who are at least as warped as you. I think this is the first step to developing your PLN,isn't it?