About a year ago I wrote a piece about what architects should consider when planning an elementary school. They need to remember that most elementary teachers are female and not quite as tall as most windows and accessories require. I joked about having to push a chair up to the collar of counters, climb on our knees to pry open the windows, that is if they aren’t locked. The guys who came to change the screens couldn’t pull them down from the top, either. I understood. To open those, you have to take a long pole with a hook and insert it into a loop about 15’ up in the air. Then you’re supposed to pull. It looks like a bad Cirque du Soleil act if they are stuck. Your feet come off the ground and you pull down with all your might. When you’re exhausted, you just pull and dangle while you catch your breath. All this, on a 45° angle.
Well, it happened. My colleague across the hall slipped off the top of the counter and broke her wrist in so many pieces she has to have surgery. It is in her old bones’ memory I write this rant. There are few viable solutions to this problem, but anyone in the newly added part of the building has it. I offer these suggestions:
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Hire as many tall people as there are dunce rooms. Assign them accordingly.
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Get those boingy leg extenders that were worn in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. We’ll be able to reach the windows to open them but we may have to lower a gymnast to get the top ones.
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Remove the counters and send them to people who have things to hide; politicians, maybe.
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Install a ladder that slides back and forth like those in really cool old libraries.
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Build a staircase to the countertops. · Hire someone whose job it is to open and close windows all day.
After this gets done, how about lowering the bulletin boards, postings, white boards and chalkboards so the kids can actually reach them, and then let’s get those TV’s off the ceiling so students don’t have to lie on the floor to see them?
I have to put on my helmet, wrist and knee pads now. I’m about to head over to school.
