mobile?

I'm teaching in a mobile classroom today. Mobile 5. I'm never quite sure why they're called that - they're not very mobile. In my opinion anything that requires a plumber, an electrician, a crane, several labourers, a fleet of HGVs and a cement truck to install cannot be called portable, handipack, funsize, or mobile. If it came with its own wheels, steering wheel, and wasn't the width of three buses then maybe, just maybe, I would be happy to call it a mobile - but it doesn't. This one is much bigger than most of the classrooms inside the actual school building, is wired into the phone system, electricity, computer network, water pipes, and has been here longer than four generations of pupils have; and it's not going anywhere anytime soon... Mobile?!

So where was I? Today I'm teaching in a hut, a prefab, a portakabin, a (relatively) temporary, an outdoor, a cardboard classroom. And I must say that I quite like the experience. Yes it goes through temperature extremes with frightening speed; yes there is a weird musty smell; yes you have to stumble over snow banks to get to and from it - but I can forgive all of that.

There is a wonderful sense of isolation out here. It's like a tiny school on its own rather than just another little brick in a big pile of bricks. And the fact that I don't share a wall with anyone means that my classes can be as noisy as I like without worrying about distracting someone else's lesson. I can have pupils shout and stamp and sing and clap without that nagging feeling that my next door neighbour disapproves of my teaching methods.
I should probably have the confidence to teach the way I feel is right whether people can hear me or not - it's just easier this way. But it's much bigger than that.
It's the sense that civilisation ends at the doorway - beyond only wilderness, long stretches of uneducated wilderness - unknowns. But here, in our little cardboard oasis of culture we are safe - safe and civilised. This little island of learning with extreme temperatures and a musty smell becomes the last outpost for true education of the soul.

Is that roof leaking?