There Should Be A Stirring Song Or Poem...

Today was the day. I know you all look forward to it. You probably didn't sleep much last night wondering how it would all come together. It's kind of like Christmas Eve except for the presents, carols, food and happiness...

Every year certain schools in our district must perform Evacuation Drills. In the event that we ever need to flee the building to safety, it is important that we know how to walk five thousand children in a line down the road. So we practice it.

There is a great deal of pre-evacuation activity prior to the actual forced march. We get a lot of emails and reminders. This does no good since we all forget about the drill until ten minutes before it is time to drag the kids down the road. Then we have to close all the windows, shut off our computers and try to figure out how to adjust our lesson plans to account for the lost time. Grade level teams will change their schedules at the last minute and no one will know where they are going for the rest of the day.

Today's drill did not go badly if you put it all in perspective. Frankly it's the perspective that keeps me from dodging into the woods and running until I can run no further. First, we all assemble in the parking lot with our respective students. We stand there for a while until someone decides we should start marching and then we begin the trek down the road to the Grade 5/6 school. Some staff people are given bright orange vests and red signs. They have to stop traffic so passers-by can all get a nice view of us huffing and puffing along.

These people are also part of the perspective process because getting that job would be the last thing this school district would ever do to me. Right after they handed me my vest, I'd be locked in the bathroom trying to drown myself in the toilet.

We make a fine sight, all moving along in coordinated chaos and with the school nurse bringing up the rear toting her emergency kit. We march down the road, yell at the children to get out of the road, cross another road (thanks to the vested people and a police car complete with flashing blue lights) then we traverse a dirt road. From there, it is a short hop to the parking lot of the other school and another long wait in the gymnasium where all children in wet sneakers will use them to make piercing squeaky sounds on the freshly waxed floor.

When it has been determined that we have not lost any of the children in spite of our best efforts, we exit the gym and begin the return trip. We make our way through the parking lot, travel the dirt road so the kids can find the puddles they missed on the first trip and cross the street where traffic is now hopelessly backed up and drivers are getting cranky with the vested people. Now we are back on the first road and, after a fashion, the middle school is in sight. All that is left is a short trip to our own gymnasium where we are told how we did.

There is a time limit on this, you see. We get 48 minutes. If we fail to manage this exercise in pretend panic within the stated time frame, we have to do it again on another day. A day which we will forget about as quickly as we did the first one. The final review is a tense thing indeed.

You will be pleased to know that we met our deadline and are now fully approved to drag children down the road to safety should the need arise. The community breathes a sigh of relief knowing that their children are protected from all possible harm unless they keep walking in the middle of the road during evacuation drills like we kept telling them not to.

We were almost back at the middle school when the Cheerful Teaching Assistant commented that this might replace going to the gym today. I quickly agreed and began recounting all the ways marching down the road with middle school students could benefit the body. I was really just looking for a diversion at that point. My sandals were giving me a nasty blister and my stomach had begun making gurgling noises which could only be described as ominous. I knew that my tummy pills were waiting for me in my purse back at school and that I could make it if I just didn't think about it all too much. A little lecture on the benefits of enforced cardio during the workday was just the thing.

Even with the extra walking I did today, I still came home and rode the little exercise bike, though. My tummy troubles were over thanks to the little pink tablets and I really didn't have a good excuse for not doing it. I also wanted to knit another repeat on the Invisibility Shawl and the little exercise bike is quite inspiring for that. I'm stuck pedaling away for thirty or forty minutes and need something to do that will help me forget about the exercise.

There are no people in vests or children running into the road to distract me when I ride the little bike, you see. I'm not complaining about that, mind you. I'm just making the point.

SA