Crane Crash & Cager

Every day spent teaching is filled with new experiences, but today was an even more extreme case of that. We heard last night on the news that a "wind storm" was blowing in, literally. I didn't think a whole lot of it because, let's face it, I'm coming from Morris - the land of all that is windy. But throughout the day today it definitely did blow in! I'm in the desert, also surrounded by mountains that are really quite beautiful. But the way that the wind picks up that sand can hurt when it hits your face and gets in your eyes! Apparently, it can also be pretty dangerous.

Currently at Scotsdale, my school, they are doing construction. We're adding onto the school to make a bigger & better cafeteria with an improved kitchen. (Then the old spaces will be converted into classrooms.) Lately, they've started working on the roof, which they continued doing today. It seems that this may have not been the wisest choice with the forecast. About an hour after we got back from lunch our principal told us over the PA system that we had to leave our classroom and to bring what we needed for the rest of the day. My kids were just finishing their weekly math test! So, we got everything that we needed for their remaining assignments and moved to the gym.

It was then that we heard what happened (plus what I've heard since then): a crane fell on our school! One of the two cranes located on our site was lifting a large piece of aluminum to be used on the roof. It must not have been cantilevered enough / at all because the wind caught hold of it and started pulling. It pulled with such force that this multi-ton crane actually tipped over and fell on our building (and the construction site)! Thank God that no one was hurt. They evacuated 2 of the hallways near the damage. So, we spent the rest of our afternoon on the stage in the gym with two other 4th grade classes. Whew! It was very interesting to give a spelling test with 120 screaming 3rd graders next door and 40 other 4th graders 5 feet away. Ah, the joy of being flexible! It was mostly just entertaining, I couldn't help but laugh. I also attempted to read out loud to them from Maniac Magee, my pick for our read aloud.

The other exciting thing that happened today was that we had a visitor in school: Willie Cager. He is a former basketball star from the first integrated team in NCAA history: El Paso's own Texas Western University (now University of Texas - El Paso: UTEP). This may sound familiar to some people... it should. This is the team that the film "Glory Road" was made about. He is actually one of the players who was more featured in the story of the team. We were walking to lunch and a couple of my boys started freaking out. We saw a tall, older, African-American man coming towards us in the hallway in his wheelchair. "Ah! That's Willie Cager! Oh my gosh! It's Willie Cager! What's he doing here?" I think that some of my students had seen him at UTEP Miner games. (A lot of the players and former coach Don Haskins still attend the games.) When I came home, I did some research and found out that he's been hired by our district to help lead the after-school basketball program for 3rd - 8th grade. Pretty cool! Maybe we'll see more of him. :)