Fire Drill!

So, Thursday was our first fire drill of the year. I received an email about 5 minutes before it was going to happen. Of course, I hadn't even thought to review those procedures with the kids. I flashed back in my mind to the madness that was a fire drill last year. I took a deep breath and looked around the room for the green shirts that told me who was in leadership this year. I chose a guy and a girl to be our class captains for the fire drill. I told the students that when the alarm went off, we would line up single-file, move quickly down the hall, down the staircase and out to the recess field. The girls were to line up behind the girl captain and the boys behind the boy captain.

When the alarm sounded, I was looking down at my textbook. By the time I looked up, I had two lines in my room, each behind the appropriate captain. The boys filed out, immediately followed by the girls. I was beaming! I stayed behind as hall captain to make sure the whole hall cleared out. I was extremely impressed at how the whole grade walked single file, doing exactly as their teachers asked.

I followed the last group out the door and walked by the new principal quietly watching it all. I reached for my radio and realized I had forgotten my new responsibility. Strike one. I looked out at the field and felt instant panic. I did not see my captains or my class anywhere! I quickly looked over the 7th grade area again. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw four arms frantically waving. It was my captains waiting for me. All 28 kids were lined up, just as I'd asked...right in the middle of the 6th grade area. I laughed and invited them to join me in the 7th grade area. Those 6th grade teachers sure knew how to train them last year!

Who isn't advanced anyway?

So, it's back to school, and I've spent the last two weeks getting to know my classes in their two different personalities: individual and as a whole class. And any teacher knows, a class definitely has a personality all its own. I have three very different classes. One is an on-grade level class, with some ESL support needed. Another class is what we call a class-within-a-class, which means students with special needs have been integrated into a regular ed class, with both a general ed teacher and a special ed teacher. Finally, I have an advanced skills class with the highest scores I've had the opportunity to teach in seven years of teaching.

On the first day, I made a really big deal about my advanced skills class being advanced and that I would be a difficult teacher, but that they would learn to love the class as much as I did. They left beaming.

Three days later, I was at the 7th grade back to school assembly. A 7th grader asked if I taught 8th grade because she didn't recognize me. I explained that I was the other 7th grade language arts teacher. One of my students smiled big and said, "She's the advanced skills teacher." I do in fact have this student in advanced skills, so I nodded and moved on.

At the end of the day through a discussion with the other language arts teacher, a good friend of mine, I discovered that my students all thought that I taught advanced skills all day and that she taught on-grade level all day. They were getting upset when a schedule change moved them from my class to hers, thinking they were being moved out of advanced skills. While I quickly realized that we needed to make sure that all of our kids felt special and realized that her class was just as smart as ours, I couldn't help but smile when I realized that my children with special needs were proudly coming to Ms. Bennett's class for advanced skills each day. May they never know any differently.