A teacher wears many hats. Today: Glorified Sheep Herder

Okay...funny thing happened at school yesterday. If you are a teacher, or have experience in the schools herding little kids like sheep, you will think my story is funny. If, however, you are a parent, try to see it from a teacher's point of view-and don't judge me because you don't know what it's like. ;)

So we had a fire drill today-we have one every month. My classroom is the absolute farthest away of all the classrooms, so we are always the last class to line up when there's a fire drill. There are two fire lanes that go down the left and right side of the school, and we walk up the right side all the time. We never go left.

So the bell is ringing, and the line leader starts walking and obviously isn't thinking and starts walking down the left fire lane. By the time I make sure all the kids got out of the room and shut the door, the class is long gone going the opposite way they are supposed to. I know that if we go this way, 1. it will take much longer, and 2. we will have to cross the whole school's traffic (900 kids-my school is huge) to get where we are supposed to line up. So I am yelling at them to stop and turn around, but of course there is a huge mass of kids, so no one can hear me. I am running and yelling, yelling and running, for the kids to stop. I finally chase them all down, get them all to stop, turn them all around, and we finally start going the correct way. Now someone else is the line leader. Problem solved.

So then we are walking towards the parking lot where everyone is already lined up and waiting. Every class has a designated parking stall to line up in. My new line leader (and the rest of the class) walk towards the wrong part of the parking lot-again, the complete opposite direction! So I start yelling again, and of course the WHOLE SCHOOL is already lined up and waiting for us......

So now that the kids are all in the correct parking stall, you'd think the chaos would be over...NOPE! Not yet! They have to line up in abc order (just like they do for lunch every day!!!!) so I can easily tell who is here and who isn't.

You'd think I'd just asked them to do it blindfolded! They just stood there, "What do we do now?" and I'm yelling "You get in number order!! Now!!!! Do it!!!!" (still in front of the whole school, don't forget!) I am so embarassed b/c we are ssssooooooooo late and I am yelling like a giant doofus in front of the whole world. I rarely yell but this time I sure did.

It was so bad that I overheard one of the kids in my neighbors class ask his teacher "What is taking so long??"

So when we got back to class I told the kids that I was so mad I couldn't think of the words to say. So as I was trying to think of something to say, I just busted up laughing! We were able to joke about it, but needless to say we will be practicing our fire drill every day next week!

I guess it was one of those days.....good thing I'm able to laugh about it! Hope you did too!