Friday, March 19, 2010

Is it Friday yet?

I just got hit in the head with the teacher's lounge door.

And I mean, I got hit with some considerable force! The teacher coming out of the lounge was on the run, having dashed to the restroom between classes. She was hurrying back to meet her class of twenty first-graders, and I was walking with a hand on my little repeat-offender runaway's shoulder to make sure I didn't lose him, when I spotted one of my other students hiding behind a door down a hallway.

I knew he was supposed to be with the speech therapist, who was standing nearby, seemingly looking for him. Because this child is also a repeat-offender runaway (I have three runners this year), I knew I needed to check with the speech therapist and make sure she knew where he had gone.

Let me paint the picture for you. Second-grader darts full-speed down one hallway. First-grader hides behind a door down a different hallway. Special education teacher, in heels and a skirt, charges full-speed after the second-grader while looking over her shoulder to check on the first-grader. First-grade teacher bursts from the teacher's lounge at top speed. Speech therapist shouts a belated warning.

Door collides with special education teacher. Door wins. Teacher nearly falls.

Second-grader stops running and first-grader comes out of hiding -- they are laughing too hard to continue plotting escape.

My ears have been ringing ever since. Or maybe they were already. So far today, I've broken up two fights and three screaming arguments, taken the same child to the office twice, been shouted at by an irate parent, kept two kids in at recess to finish a test (which is totally against my religion, so you know I had to be desperate) -- and then watched a third-grader LITERALLY EAT the test paper he'd just stayed inside twenty minutes to complete.

And then I ran into a door.

So let me ask again: Is it Friday? Because I barely know where I am at this point, let alone what day it is! Please tell me it's Friday!

It is? Pshew!

Uh oh, I pshewed too early. Here comes my next group. Too bad that door didn't knock me out!

3 comments:

Rena Jones said...

Yikes! Hope your head is feeling better now.

Janet said...

I'm glad it was Friday and hope you are feeling better.

Mary Witzl said...

It's Friday, sweetie. Go and have a drink! I will, and I'm as close to a teetotaler as you can get.

Last term, I played tug-of-war over a cell phone with a boy from Azerbaijan who outweighed me by about 80 pounds. I won, but only because he was laughing too hard to put his heart and soul into it. Back then I'd have run into doors on purpose.