Old-School Lockers

     Yesterday afternoon I asked one of my piano students if she was excited about starting middle school.  She said she was, and was especially looking forward to having a locker even though at her first middle school orientation a few weeks ago she had a really hard time with her locker, couldn't get the lock to cooperate and then she had to yank and pull at the door to get it opened.
     I chuckled that it sounded like lockers hadn't improved since I was in high school.
     But then it hit me:  is it possible that lockers really hadn't improved since I was in high school?
     I  asked my student what lockers look like nowadays and how you open them.
     Along with her description she drew me a little illustration of the locker. 

   The type of locker she depicted immediately resonated with me,

......as the descendant of the old twist-and-yank variety from back in my day, shown here in a detail from my high school's 1968 yearbook.

     Nor does the modus operandi used to open a school locker in 2016 appear to have evolved since my day.  According to my student you still have to:
    1. Twirl the dial half a dozen times to the right to clear the lock's brain and get it in the mood, then
    2.  Twist the dial to the right, stop on the first number.
    3.  Twist the dial to the left past the first number then stop on the second number.
    4.  Twist the dial to the right and stop on the third number.
    5.  Yank the handle up and pull open, unless you've been cursed with a moody or recalcitrant locker  - as my student was on her maiden locker experience - in which case you must:    
    6.  Yank the handle up and pull  again.
    7.  Repeat numbers 5 and 6 several times, moan, then
    8. repeat numbers 1 through 7 until the door finally gives and opens a little,

...then yank the begeezes out of that bad boy until you get it,

...or it gets you.

      And so one must ponder that well into the 21st Century, when schools are such avid consumers of cutting-edge technology,

...some ambitious entrepreneur has not come up with a more high-tech - and user-friendly - school locker design, like maybe one that uses a key pad,  or a swipe-card,  or one that take commands from an ipad, or something.

  Ah, well, maybe it's not a bad thing that our technologically  plugged-in students must still use lockers that are the  functional equivalent of the rotary phone.

     In fact maybe a bit of old-school experience is a valuable part of the learning process.

       As long as they don't bring back penmanship (see post from 8/23/2015).