With Shattuck’s renovation looming, Nobles’ faculty prepares to say goodbye to their classrooms and offices in the building. Here are reflections of some of the space’s longest-standing occupants:
Maura Sullivan – 205
“The second floor of Shattuck is a very collegial place[…] because, as the school has grown, what has happened in this hallway is that people’s [offices] have been added in places that don’t really have a whole lot of logic to them[…] This renovation allows us to reconfigure things in a way that makes a little bit more sense, but I do think that what is nice on this floor is the collegiality that happens because people are spread out, and so people are constantly walking the hallways.”
“I guess I would like it to be a student space where every grade gathers, and you get to see different groups of people and different groups of friends. That’s what it feels like up here on the second floor of Shattuck. It’s different disciplines, some faculty, some staff, people who have been here for a long time, people who have been here for a little time, and we all interact together because we’re all traveling the same hallway. It’s nice that you get to see people outside of your department.”
“I hope that that collegiality will remain. I hope that’s something that doesn’t get lost.”
Gia Batty – 229
“I love this room for so many reasons. First of all, it’s off the beaten path. There are no distractions. Second of all, my sister-in-law, Mary Batty, has her office right there, so I have that. If anyone gets upset, I have the counselors, they can just go talk to the counselors. And I love this room in the rain, I love this room in the snow, I love this room when the leaves are changing, it’s just a cozy space. Once I heard that they were destroying it, I got permission to write on the walls.”
“It’s a real gift. Not a lot of teachers just have one room and have taught in that room for a bunch of years.”
“I have never taught in a fancy room, and I feel like every room is going to be kind of fancy after the renovation, you know, like whiteboard walls and good technology…”
“During the renovation, they’re going to be putting us in weird places. So I told them that I just want the weirdest place. Put me in the warming room of the rink or the yoga studio down by the water. Just put me somewhere weird because I am so sad about losing this room. It’s like a part of me, honestly. It’s a big part of my teaching, so I feel like I’m grieving.”
“The WiFi doesn’t really work that well up here, and I like that. I would be so happy to not have any WiFi up here because my class is really analog. This space very much suits what I’m trying to do, which is to read books and talk about the words.”
Mary Batty – 227
“I love that you don’t have to come here just because you’re looking for counseling. You might just be walking.”
“My favorite thing is this right here (a bulletin board of student quotes). It’s kids from over the years putting quotes up there, and I’m trying to decide when I move, which ones move with me.”
“Last year, I would be in here, and all of a sudden he’d (referring to a mouse in Shattuck) just run by. Sometimes it would be funny, and sometimes he’d come by when someone was actually really upset. He did not have good timing.”
C-Traz – 007
“007, ‘Double-O-Seven’ if you will, is a hidden gem of a classroom. It’s the same reason I like houses on dead-end streets. No one passes by. You only go to 006 and 007 if you’re going there, so there are actually lots of people who don’t even know the classroom exists. Getting there is bizarro. It’s like going down into a dungeon, and the hallway wiggles a couple of times. There are bizarre doors to who knows what, and then when you walk into 007, it’s a corner room with windows on two sides of the building that look out into the forest. It’s beautiful, it’s sunny, it’s light, it’s airy[…] I love it.”
“I believe strongly in classroom culture and the power of that, but I don’t think that it’s dependent upon any particular space. You can create that wherever you are. The magic happens among people in a particular space.”
Ms. Harrington – Math Office (200)
“Underneath Mr. Harrington’s room was where the main system connections were hidden, and B&G came in and opened a hole in it. So when Dr. Hall was visiting everybody’s classes (she was new to Nobles) to get a feel for the school, she came into his room, and he had to warn her not to fall into the hole. The rug was open[…] if you go into that room and you go by the radiator, you’ll feel the floor dip because they just covered it up kind of cosmetically and didn’t really reinforce it, which is part of the renovation.”
“The hole was there for a long time before Dr. Hall came to visit[…] and then she saw it and it was closed.”
