Working

 All the little cracks can be seen at this time of the year. Nowhere is this more evident than during standardized testing when half the school spends each morning in front of a Chromebook, quietly clicking and scrolling. 

"Mister Caven, my computer doesn't work."

The good news is that most of these machine failures have pretty common solution: Turn them off. Wait. Turn them back on again. I launch into these events with a sigh and a resignation engendered by decades of managing technology for this little slice of heaven I all school. 

There are moments when the quick fix that I do out of reflex is insufficient to the challenge. In these cases, I tend to repeat the process: Turn it off. Wait. Turn it back on again. A vast majority of the time, this second trip down reset lane is rewarded with a return to service. Just as showing students and teachers both where to find the volume control before tossing a pair of headphones because they "did not work." 

This experience extends to copy machines. And coffee makers. I make very few copies. I never drink coffee. This does not relieve my responsibility to these apparatus. They have electricity in them and are therefore under my purvey as "tech." Electric pencil sharpeners are another matter. They don't tend to need a system reset as much as extrication: removal of any and all foreign bodies other than the tips of pencils that were meant for sharpening. Erasers do not require sharpening, contrary to the belief and understanding of your average second grader. 

And why are all these little bits making themselves more prominent in our collective eyes and therefore landing on my desk on this page of the calendar? Because most if not all of the hardware that is being thrust in front of me will not be replaced next year. We don't lave a line item in our school's budget for miscellaneous scratches, dents and jammed copy machines. We do, however, have someone on staff who stretches his job description to include all god's devices, great and small. 

That would be me. And once I get the soccer balls off the roof and the breakfast distributed, I will be mashing on that power button and imploring the spirits to help me heal the tired, poor, and wretched refuse yearning to breathe free. Or just turn back on again.