Beware the fury of a first grader scorched.
For a class of students at Public School 1 in Manhattan, this week’s heat wave was a lesson in what it meant to be a have-not. Their peers across the hall had air-conditioning; they did not.
So when it came time to practice writing persuasive essays, the students in Karin Ma’s class had an obvious injustice in mind (their sweaty brows, dampened spirits) and an equally clear target (their principal, Amy Hom).
“We need an air conditioner we are dieing pleause let us have a air conditioner,” Nicole Mei wrote. “We can’t read if we are so hot water/are going to be in our eyes. if we don’t have one I can’t write, read or listen.”
“If we don’t have an air conditioner I will be seweting like a bear,” Jayla Pecheco warned.
Ms. Ma said she let her students pick their own essay topics.
“For first graders,” she said, “we want them to move up and write to the president and talk about the war, but in reality, that’s not what they’re thinking about — this is what they’re thinking about. It’s about their immediate lives.”
And their immediate lives were uncomfortable, as they graphically explained, with first-grader spelling and all. With several days of summerlike temperatures, their only relief came Thursday, which was a professional development day when only teachers and administrators had to come to school.
Like many of the city’s public schools, P.S. 1 is partly air-conditioned, but 15 of its classrooms either have broken units or none at all. A Department of Education official said 61 percent of the city’s classrooms were air-conditioned. Schools that were built more recently have central air, but older ones like P.S. 1, which is the city’s first public school, do not.
Ms. Hom said she found the students’ letters amusing and said they had a point — she wished she could squeeze a few air conditioners out of her budget.
Ms. Ma’s class of 6- and 7-year-olds illustrated their pain. One drew a split image of happy students in a classroom with air-conditioning, and themselves sweating and passed out on the floor with X’s over their eyes.
Tracy Liu drew an image of herself, mouth turned down, sweat (or tear) drops falling off. “It’s not fair,” the girl wails. |
