I know indirectly of a family who has decreed that every Friday is "Natural Light Day" in their home. It means exactly what it sounds like: no artificial light, which includes anything except sunshine. If it's raining, tough noogies. I laughed hysterically at this family's expense, and probably made some joke about natural light being better for hemp braiding, clothes making, organic garden growing and other such hippie-ish activities.
Today, I'm not laughing, I'm filling out a form to nominate these wise parents for the Nobel Peace Prize, because I'm convinced that they were on to something. Today we were under a wind advisory all day long, and at about 9:30 the strong winds knocked out the power at the building where my school meets. The powers that be decided that it would be more trouble to try to call parents to come pick up their children (with all phones down and all parent info inaccessibly organized on computer databases) than it would be just to try to keep educating them with no electricity. So the instructions trickled down: continue class as usual.
My class has been bordering on the brink of insanity for about two weeks now, and I would have guessed that such an unprecedented and out-of-the-routine event such as an hours-long power outage would tip all of us over the edge. However, I was glad to be wrong.
The power was out for about three hours, and thanks to the big windows along my eastern wall, we were able to continue class without a hitch. Oddly enough, it was the best-behaved that my class has been all week! We came back from lunch to find the power back on, and my students begged me to turn the lights back off.
I was not sure if that was a good idea, until one of my students (you might know him as Loki, and also as Student A-N from the previous post) commented, "I like it with the lights off. It makes me want to just sit still and listen."
I think that I jumped over three rows of desks in a single bound to reach the light switch in as few seconds as possible, and the lights stayed off for the rest of the day. And maybe for the rest of the year, if it continues its magical effects.
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12 comments:
Wait, so Loki is all the children mentioned in your previous post? So he is yelling at himself and going to find himself, and his alter-ego is telling you what to do, and he's riding on his own backpack?
(That's what you get for pointing out spelling mistakes on my blog.)
Okay, fine. He is students A, D, E, F, G, K, and N, to be exact.
Grr...
Wow... I'm still amazed that one student required all those reprimands. I guess you get one of those every year... the "challenge." Will you turn off the lights today?
Haha! That is great! Yesterday it was very windy here too and every time they got quiet to work on something, the wind howled down the courtyard which is right outside my wall of windows and all the kids got excited and started talking about how they almost got blown away on the way to school. You would think that they had seen wind before...
Or rather heard wind.
L, I know a special ed teacher who always keeps the lights off, using only daylight for illumination. And I have noticed the same effect you mentioned even with my adult students. I think the fluorescent lights in a store, business, school, etc. is part of the cause of our hyperactivity syndromes ... it messes with our internal electrical circuits.
I'm a fan of the farmer's time: up with the sun and down with it. We got our electricity bill yesterday, and it was so wonderful, we vowed never to turn our heater/AC on again. :) Maybe I'll include the lights in that list as well. :)
We were having trouble with headaches and lack of attention in my classroom the last year I taught. Our assistant principal suggested I put pink saran wrap in the lights. I thought it was looney, but gave it a try. It cancels out something in the flourescent lights and seriously made a difference. I told the kids it was just to help with headaches -- I didn't mention the lack of attention part. So, it wasn't just the power of suggestion.
Anyway, you just pop open the covers and lay the saran wrap inside. I put a bit of tape around the edge to hold it in place. Anyone know why this would have worked?
Well, flourescent light is green/blue, so the red of the saran wrap would cancel that out and make for a whiter light.
This is a very interesting conversation! I wonder why schools even use flourescent lights, when all the teachers here know that it affects attention spans! I wonder if there's been an official study on it, or if any school has taken steps to use better lighting.
We use those natural light blueish light bulbs in our house. John says they make a huge difference. I can't really tell all that much... except it made our red wall look different!
Hey Miss I'm-on-vacation-this-whole-week, you should POST something... NOT about school! :-)
Sorry...I've been so busy putting up Christmas decorations!!
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