EFFICIENCY EXPERTS

So, I'm working quietly at my desk during my prep on a new assessment. Just me, no students.
About ten minutes into this exercise, the lights go out. The district, when it "modernized" the classroom, installed a sensor that automatically kills the lights in the absence of motion. Wow! It has the added plus of looking like a certain homicidal computer in a Kubrick film.

Call it Hal 2.0....

And, frankly, even if I opened my blinds at the top of the north wall, very little light comes in from the outside: it's a typical Fresno winter, shrouded in gloomy fog. Kind of like a Bergman film, without all the sunny moments:

Thus, my productivity grinds to a halt until I can get the sensor to detect my presence. Sometimes I can trigger it from my desk by waving my arms. Usually, though, I have to get up and walk around the perimeter of the classroom. By the time the lights are on and I am back in my seat, a minute of prep time has vanished. This will happen every ten minutes, so I could lose as much as four minutes of prep time if I stayed in the classroom, working quietly at my desk.

No doubt some bean counter factored this modest loss of productivity as an acceptable tradeoff for x number of kilowatt-minutes saved by this exercise per classroom per instructional day. Just like they figured that any discomfort experienced by teachers unable to set the thermostat in their own classrooms (previous practice) is outweighed by their ability to save coin by remotely managing the temp from downtown (another "modernization" wonder).

On a similar topic, my district-supplied laptop (a Compaq 6715b) doesn't work all that fast, because of all the district-mandated software running in the background of the underpowered bargain board slows down its performance. Sure, I lose productivity when Power Points crash, data entry doesn't "take" or when a video won't stream properly at a resolution sufficient to make its use worthwhile. But at least the district can keep an eye on me and others using the system! Besides, I can just make up the lost workplace productivity by either staying after school or working x number of hours at home on a real computer, that actually works.

And....the lights just went out again. Hurrah! THE SAVINGS!!!