A Scary Day on Campus

Today was a "Lock Down" day on campus, and it wasn't a drill. It was scary for me because I saw what was happening outside my window. Thankfully my guys are really little and I kept them distracted, so they had no idea anything was wrong. They heard the intercoms about keeping our doors locked, but I told them it's just a rule or a practice or something... I honestly don't know what I said, but either way they listened and weren't the least bit concerned. Such precious little ones!

I teach at a K-12 school, and a high school student had a meltdown... a very big student, was very, very agitated. I am close friends with the school counselor who I could see was trying to calm him down as I looked through my window. It wasn't working, then they were out of my sight. I was having a panic attack as I used my most chipper happy voice every for everything I said to my students to keep them calm and perky. The PE teacher was with me and read them a story and let them play inside since they were missing their PE time. I was so relieved when we got the "all clear." Everyone was safe, and no one was hurt. The student can be the sweetest teddy bear of a kid when he's in a normal state. We do not have violent students at our school, so this was a very unexpected occurrence. The student felt very bad when he calmed down and was very apologetic. I'm so glad it ended well, but I was still very shaken up as I pretended to be fine for the sake of my class. I'll be honest, now that I'm home I've already poured myself a big glass of wine!!

I somehow got through most of my plans, mainly for a hope that normalcy would make me feel normal again. Plus I gave the kids an extra recess and prizes for being so AWESOME today!! They rolled with every twist and turn I threw at them! No tantrums, except when a kid smashed his finger in a door, but that doesn't count! He's fine and didn't even remember it by the time mom picked him up. I'm off to decompress... I'll post actually teaching stuff this weekend...