Third Week of School - Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Interesting day at school today. Around 12:15pm, the principal got on the loudspeaker system and announced that the school was going into "lockdown." Since our class is located in a portable building, away from the main building, we were a bit removed from the action, although we secured all the doors and windows quickly. It was hard to tell whether this was a test or not, but the kids had a bunch of questions related to the lockdown, so Mr. M decided to turn it into a "teachable" moment (although we did not find out the specific details until later - apparently an armed robbery at a neaby bank). Some of the kids were obviously anxious about the lockdown, and the teacher did a good job allaying fears while at the same time emphasizing the importance of following procedures and protocol. However, something interesting happened when one of our students started knocking on the door a couple of minutes after the lockdown started, and said that a teacher told him to return to his room (even though it meant going outside to get back to the portable). Mr. M wasn't angry (since the student was only following a teacher's instructions) but he said that in certain instances (like this one) ignore the teacher's directions when they are so obviously wrong, and that he should have just gone to the nearest classroom. So in one fell swoop, Mr. M taught both the importance of proper procedure while at the same time demonstrating the fallability of adults and teachers.

Also, as a postscript to yesterday's posting, with reference to Mr. M's admonition to the sixth graders to be more restrained and respectful, I noted how quietly the kids filed in this morning, and how quickly they took their seats and took out their books (well, most of them anyway).