FIRE!

It finally happened.  I finally subbed for a class during a fire drill.  Well, not exactly a "drill."  There was not a scheduled fire drill, but sometimes strange things do happen.  I had made it successfully to fourth period without any major mishaps.  Technology was even obeying my every command today.  It really was too good to be true, and I should have expected that something big was going to happen.  I was half way through the class and the students had just settled into their assigned reading.  Then one loud beep.  There was a pause and I thought the alarm was just a mistake.  Then there was a second loud beep.  After two or three more intermittent beeps, the alarm began to wail in earnest.  Now it was buzzing with regularly accompanied by the blazing flash.  I tell the class to exit the building and follow protocol which I'm sure they've been trained to follow. 

I quickly look around the room searching for the emergency backpack, bucket, or whatever else I may have to bring me.  I spot a backpack on top of a bucket in the corner near the door and ask the nearest students which I'm supposed to take with me.  After a few varied answers the students seem to come to the conclusion that I only need to take the backpack.  I grab it, the attendance sheets for the class as well as the clipboard hanging above the backpack that looks important and follow the flow of students outside the building.

I shuffle through the pages of the clipboard hoping to find more detailed instructions as I follow the crowd around the building.  This would be the one day I didn't look for emergency procedures in the sub folder.  I locate the list of teachers and where they line-up on the football field and hear from the students around me that everyone is supposed to go to their second period class for attendance.  I locate a class roster and continue around the building wondering just how far the football field is from my classroom.  Turns out, all the classes on my side of the building have to go around the school, around  two sets of portables, down a path and into the football field which is behind the school.  I find my class on line number eight and ask the first student if everyone is in alphabetical order.  She informs me they don't have to line up in alphabetical order and that the teacher just marks them off the list.  I didn't bring a pencil.  I can't believe with all the stuff I grabbed I didn't get a pencil.  I finally find a student with one to borrow and go down the line asking all thirty kids what their name is so I can cross them off my list.  Turns out it's hard to hear names when 500 people are talking.  People also have a tendency to give you their first name when asked their name which is hard to find on an alphabetical list.  Somehow I make it through the list and find all my students and figure out to show the green sign instead of the red sign on my clipboard to show the administrators that the class is all here.

After a few minutes, I get the word that students should return to their fourth period class or lunch depending on where they were before the fire alarm.  On my return to the classroom I hear that the kitchen in the cafeteria was remodelled and an overly-sensitive smoke detector was put in an often smokey part of the kitchen.  This apparently wasn't the first false alarm of the school year.  I got all my students back to their classroom and somehow got them settled back into their reading for the last ten minutes of class.  Overall, I consider my first fire exercise to be a success, though I hope I'll remember a pencil next time.