On Wednesday when I said the week is all "downhill from here," I had no idea how right I was. Yesterday was madness, but it was nothing compared to today. The mom of the girl who had a mini panic attack yesterday came in the this morning, really unhappy. I guess no one called her to explain the situation and her daughter was really upset all night. I felt like the worst person on the entire planet in that moment. I wanted to go cry in the corner like my kids do when they get into trouble! I don't think that I necessarily did anything wrong (in fact, I KNOW I did the right thing and said all the right things to her when we were talking about it), but I still felt like I should have done something different. Oh, I don't know anymore. Can I honestly learn to teach?
I didn't think it could get any more downhill than that. But boy, does life have fun little surprises for us. Later, one child in our class threatened another child with physical harm, so that merited a trip to the principal and a discussion with the counselor and a calling of the parents...it was dramatic.
And then the lockdown. Yes, it really happened -- we went into lockdown. Lights off, door locked, curtains closed, kids in the corner with us around them, sitting...silently. I have always been prepared for things like this mentally (and I wasn't scared or anything) but it was hard to sit there and not know what was happening. I'm sure the kids felt this, too -- but more so. We sat there for what felt like forever but could not have been more than 20 minutes. Thankfully, all 26 children were in the classroom when we went into lockdown, so we didn't have to worry about where they were. The only "scary" moment was when the principal came to check on each class and she knocked on the door. We weren't expecting it, and it was pretty loud, so I think all three of us (the teachers) jumped about a foot into the air. I guess we were all a little more nervous than we let on.
After the lockdown was let up, we still had to keep our kids in the classroom. This meant they had to be escorted to the bathroom and we had to do a double knock on the door to be let back in. Luckily since it was Friday, we were just doing Fun Friday rotations so the three of us could be in, out, and all around the classroom as needed. Of course today was the day I did the messiest craft with my group, so I had hands covered in paint and liquid starch, running around the room. Then, when we finally finished our rotations and were ready to have snack, we were told that school would be dismissed at 2:55 instead of the usual 3:10/3:15... so we were rushing, running, trying to get coats on and backpacks zipped and snacks eaten and tables cleaned and chairs stacked. I'm exhausted just thinking about how absolutely ridiculous today was. I even got to leave at 3:00 because all the children were gone by then, but it still feels like the longest day of my 40 days so far.
This day was banana sandwich. And I am thankful that it is over. I am thankful that all of the children are safe, and that even though it wasn't a drill, we could tell them that it was. Because nothing happened to us. It's scary these days to sit there picturing what could happen. I wish I didn't have to seriously plan how to get kids out of the room and away if I need to. But I do. And I guess that is a good thing. Just a sad one.
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