The Staff Room

Walked in, said good morning, signed in “The Book” to show later teachers that I was here early. I have a love/hate relationahip with that book. You showcase your punctuality but at the same time you have people arriving before you, sparking that “I wanna be here first!!” competitive feeling, wanting everyone to see your signature first thing in the morning. Then when that happens, you end up sitting alone in the staff room, yawning and wishing you’d hit that damned snooze button when you had the chance.

Walked into the staff room… said my hellos and good mornings, sat at my desk and pulled out my laptop and its wire. Plugged everything in, opened iTunes and Adobe Photoshop. Turned on some Corinne Bailey Rae, India.Arie and Zero 7, turning down the volume just a tiny bit, enough to create some calm soothing background music and sitting back on my swivley twirlie chair…

I just sat there and stared at our staff room… man, it’s so messy and crappy… I really really really want to re-design the whole room… here’s what I want to do:

1- Re-paint it since it’s pink and it makes me feel like a 5 year old… maybe paint it light blue or off-white with a small light design or maybe even wallpaper, something feminine and light but won’t make me feel like a 3 year old ballet dancer…

2- Make all the desks match, all with working drawers and locks and remove the old crappy wooden desks…

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3- Everybody gets a comfy twirlie chair so no more hard-backed class chairs that make you forget you have a butt..

4- Put a big library section on the side for all the dictionaries, thesaureses and hopefully more novels or books for dyslexic students.. Maybe even convince the teachers to put all their exercises in those clear folders, so some teachers can photocopy and re-use them.. that’ll even look better in the library since they’re going to be labelled and color-coordinated (i’m getting giddy just thinking about it!!)..

5- Put a big comfy couch (or maybe two, if there’s space) next to it.. the color matches the paint of course.. a tiny coffee table in front of them for the staff phone.. (it’s stuck behind the Senior Teacher’s desk and when she’s not there we have to twirl her chair around and get stuck behind it in order to pick up the damned fon)..

6- Which reminds me, get a new phone for the staff room! A phone that wouldn’t make you want to punch kittens in the face everytime it rang.. one that doesn’t have a cord that’s in love with itself and gets tangled so much, ur face has to be stuck to the numbers everytime you pick up..

7- Have the “badala” phone numbers’ list on the staff phone’s coffee table, taped down and covered with a plastic table cover so nobody loses it or colors on it..

8- Make the kitchen/food area easily cleanable by putting one big table with drawers for all the coffee cups/mugs/tea bags/sugar/tiny spoons/extra plastic bags and other kitchen shenanigins that are always forgotten on the worktop and make the place so messy and sticky… and a drawer for small cloths would be great, just wet those cloths and wipe the worktop…

9- Design and install an “island” for the middle of the staff room for all the files/books/extra board markers/extra red pens/extra pencils.. easily organized and cleaned, especially for exam times when we stay at school til 5 just to correct all those classes on time… now THAT’s when the couches would be comfy, change of place would make the day less boring..

10- Maybe have tall stools around the island? so nobody gets tired from standing..

11- Remove all the old useless student paintings (remember when the painting would be really good and the teacher would insist on keeping it, I HATED THAT, I wanted to show off my art at home, not leave it at school so they can be hung in staff rooms where teachers who think about re-designing the room want to throw them away), and have the clean painted walls covered with just one big calendar for the whole school year and maybe some of the certificates the department recieves from the school…

12- Clean our white board and get all matching magnets, NO broken ones or magnets shaped like fruit!!

13- Remove both clocks that don’t work and still insist that it’s either 12:36 PM or 5:08 AM… Get one big clock from Ikea…

*sighs* I can dream… especially since the staff would laugh in my face if i even suggest new paint.. i’ll definitely get one of those “It’ll cost too much money” excuses.. I know that the whole staff is made out of expatriots and that they might be transferred or travelling at any time, so why pay good money on a staff room they wouldn’t fully enjoy?…

Hmm.. General question:

Would an all-kuwaiti staff still re-design their staff room?

I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been in an all-kuwaiti staff room (i think the only all-kuwaiti staffs are usually for the Social Studies/ Ejtema3iyat subject)…