Written by Jensen Garcia |

The Morgan School is no different from any other place. There are distractions that cause the students and sometimes the teachers to get off task or annoyed. There are the distractions that we just can’t avoid such as announcements in the middle of class or people coming into class late without a pass. But there are also the distractions that are unique to each part of school.

The English wing is the well-known for its distractions. Most students and teachers in that area agree that no one can teach when it is pouring rain due to the tin roof. According to English teacher Julie Frydenborg , “lawn mowers and delivery trucks” are the most distracting to her students. To prevent this, she has to shut the blinds which she should not have to do.

Mathematics teacher Michael Underwood said that the most common distraction is “traffic to the computer lab,” which is next door to his classroom.

Social Studies teacher Christopher Zawadski claims buses are the biggest distraction. He states, “As soon as the buses start coming, students start to think the day is over. The other day, we spent 23 minutes breathing in bus exhaust.” Being on the main road is also a distraction.

The most common distraction period reported  was E period since this is the period when students transfer in and out of lunch.  World Language teacher Laura Luther states, “E period is a distraction in itself.” With lunch crowds passing throughout E period, the world language and mathematics wing share this problem. Ms. Frydenborg said that announcements during E period are a big distraction to her E period class.

However, though some distractions are irritating, there are some moments with distractions that you can laugh at in future years. Ms. Frydenborg states that the funniest memory of a distraction is “when a construction worker backed into a colleague’s car” during one of her English classes. The man driving the vehicle mistook the students’ flailing movements to warn the man as just waving.

Mr. Zawadski says that in a previous year when he taught Civics, a few of his students were staring at the Ethan Allen across the street from Morgan. When he called the students out on this, one of the students claimed that there was a fire in one of the bushes. After seeing that one of the trees in front of Ethan Allen was indeed on fire, he proceeded to call the office and watch with his class as someone came to put out the fire.

Though most classes get distracted at some point, World Language teacher Kathleen Barrett does whatever she can to keep distractions from interrupting her class. Recently, she found a dead mouse in the middle of her room during her free period. She called the office in an effort to get someone to remove it from her class before her next class, but as the bell rang, she kicked the dead mouse under the TV cart allowing the janitor to discreetly remove it  preventing the disruption of her class.

Even though, Ms. Barrett has shown skill in preventing distractions in her classroom, she admits that the heater gets so loud that she “can’t teach.”

In 2016, The Morgan School community will leave behind the distractions of the current Morgan school to move to the new Morgan.  Perhaps the new Morgan will be distraction free.