The Chaos that is a Fire Drill

I'm not sure who decided that 10 fire drills a year was a grand number, but I have to say I disagree. Yep. I am not a fan.

Now, usually, my students are well-behaved middle schoolers who will follow me and get into a straight line and follow directions, etc. There is something, however, about being in a different location that seems to have scrambled their brains.

We were in the library on Wednesday, which is normal because we are in the library every other Wednesday (as I've mentioned before on this blog). It was 6th hour--my largest and most talkative class. Things were going pretty well. The hour was halfway over. Everyone had checked out a book. They were working well on their own. Then, came the warning from the librarian that we were about to have a fire drill. She usually gets a tiny bit of advanced notice as she is in charge of checking out the library and the computer labs and a lot of times we'll have other people from the district check them out. This way she can warn them of the procedure.

Well, this time she warned my class of the procedure. They were quiet. They seemed attentive. They seemed calm. And then the fire drill rang.

I start walking out the door and notice several different things.

1. The librarian has disappeared. Which was bad. Very bad. I've only ever had a fire drill once when we were in the library and that was last year. I head out where I remember to go, my folder held high in the air. Hey, I'm 5'3" and the only way for my kids to find me in a crowd is to follow the bouncing folder.

Then, I notice . . .

2. About six of my kids have decided to follow the whole big crowd of people instead of following me. Which was bad. Very bad. It was like they were lemmings following their leaders over a cliff. They were following the eighth graders. We weren't supposed to be in the same place as the eight graders!!!!! I had to veer off of my true course and cart all of the other kids after me so that I could pick up the rest. We trucked ourselves over to the top of the bleachers so that I could discover . . .

3. My CWC teacher was gone. Yep, she didn't make it all of the way out there with us. Which was also bad. Very bad. With CWC classes in our district half of the students are on one teacher's roster and the other half are on the other teacher's roster. Since we had no advanced notice of the fire drill (we usually know at least what day we'll have one), I didn't have the emergency folder with me. Which means that I didn't have her half of the roster on me. I ended up having to use the seating chart to take attendance. Which worked, but not well.

All in all, a chaotic day. My sixth hour got the fear of Ms. Autry put into them and then the bell rang. A most eventful hour.

So, fire drills in January. Bad idea.