Hot hot hot

_{“Hot! Hot! Hot! Is it hot enough for you?” The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7}

This year, school opened during a heat wave. Teachers were instructed via memo to “drink plenty of fluids” and “wear lightweight and loose clothing.” We got helpful recommendations like, “Where possible, open the windows first ting in the morning and close them mid-morning as it starts to get hot outside” and “Keep the blinds/curtains closed during the day.” Reader, these things did not help.

On Wednesday, I greeted my grade 9 class in the sweltering semi-dark of my sauna-classroom. Outside, the air was already sticky with humidity, so I decided not to open the two small windows, instead making sure the blinds were closed. (In one case, this meant unclipping the binder clips that hold the broken blinds up when necessary.) I didn’t turn on the fluorescent overhead lights; we couldn’t afford any extra heat.

Students swam through the air into the classroom, and slid into their seats. I tried for an opening “seating challenge” (it’s a game, I swear) but by second period, when I met my first class, we were already struggling to think. My carefully planned opening activities quickly fell by the wayside in favour of melting slowly into our desks. Students asked each other not how to get to the nearest washroom but which water fountain offered the coldest water. “None of them,” sighed one student. “All the cold’s already used up.”

I stood in front of the students, sweating. During my first class, I sweat through my underclothes and then through the top of my (lightweight, loose) dress. I gathered what I could of my short hair and pulled it into a ridiculously tiny ponytail, just to get it off my neck. Sweat trickled down my back.

While the actual temperature (32C or 90F) was not completely shocking for Ottawa, the “feels like” temperature (up to 42C or 107F) was. Just across the river, in Quebec, the beginning of the school year was delayed. In Ontario, school started as planned.

Now, if you live in South Carolina – where I grew up – you may be unimpressed by these temperatures, so let me add that we have no air conditioning in our building. If you live in California – where I attended 3rd and 4th grade – you may *still* be unimpressed, so let me also add that we do not have fans in our classrooms.

I mean, we can bring in our own. Here’s what that (not very helpful) memo we get every year tells us: “Portable fans may be employed to help manage the heat. Any portable fans brought from home by staff must be CSA-approved and must be guarded properly and reviewed by the principal/ vice principal/ manager prior to use in classrooms or offices. It is the responsibility of the owner/ staff to clean, and maintain the portable fan.”

We have very, very few fans in our school. At lunchtime, teachers gathered in our office, taking turns near the lone fan. We didn’t talk much. My – blessedly cold – salad and cold water provided short-lived relief. The memo told us that we should find the cool areas in the school, but our air-conditioned conference room had been in use for a meeting all morning, and the library (lightly air-conditioned) could only really accommodate one class at a time. There was no respite.

Then it was time to teach again. The classroom was even hotter than it had been in the morning. My dress was visibly wet before the class was half over. I wiped sweat off of my forehead before it dripped into my eyes. The students draped languidly over their desks. One student briefly considered misbehaving, but when I plopped down next to him to offer help, he reconsidered, too hot to protest.

I dripped my way through inventorying Chromebooks in a closet with another teacher, trying to prepare them for students to use. We drained our water bottles more than once, sweating out every drop we took in. Finally, the final bell rang and students seeped out of the school, exhausted.

Teachers, too, left for the day. Then, we did it again on Thursday. That afternoon I tried to take the dog for a walk after school. Partway around the block, I realized I was actually overheated. Andre came to walk us home, and I – like many other teachers, it turns out – immersed myself in a cool bath. Heat exhaustion. I went to bed early and slept hard.

On Friday, the rain came and the weather finally broke. Week one was done.