Schlepping and Learning

By Sam Boykin

Jodi McKay was a homeless teacher.

Like many schools, Coulwood Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina, was overcrowded, and McKay became a “floater” there: a teacher without a permanent room. That meant she had to lug around everything she needed to teach social studies—books, a CD player, art supplies, maps, pens, pencils, and the rest—in a duffel bag or on a metal audiovisual cart as she dashed from room to room. It was, as she recalls,...