Friday, August 22, 2014

Trial By Kindle Fire

It's back-to-school season. And you know that THAT means!

DRILLS!

Uh huh. What better time to cram in all the emergency drill procedures that the first full week of classes? Gotta get those kiddos ready to run. Never mind that I have yet to talk to a kid that remembers the first week of school.

So we had an intruder drill on Monday, after which a young man declared, "I never want to stand that close to Bob again!" Let the record show that the name has been changed to protect the obnoxious.

Throughout the week, we also evaded a tornado, dashed from a faux burning building, and survived a New-Madrid-level tremor. Those poor freshmen must think we are the unluckiest campus in the world.

It's the fire escape that commanded my attention. All because of The Pony. He stuck his Kindle Fire under my nose last night. "Look at this." I was in the middle of something which I can't remember, but nothing more important than interacting with my youngest son, who rarely comes forward and shares with me, preferring to have information drug out of him by hook or by crook.

"Oh. That's nice." It was one of his classmates, standing in front of a whiteboard in The Pony's last class of the day. I was surprised that he had bothered to take a picture on his Kindle Fire. Which is kind of ironic, I suppose. You be the judge when you hear all the facts. If there's one thing Val's not an expert on, it's irony.

"Look at her."

"I did. Why did you have your Kindle out taking pictures? I thought that wasn't allowed."

"It was this time. See?"

I looked again. The poor little gal had a sign around her neck. A homemade laminated sign. Which declared that she had just burned to death in a fire, and nobody even noticed. Then I understood. When we have drills, the drill-holders spirit away a few kids and hide them. Just to test us. One year a big strapping basketball player was told to lay down in the classroom during an earthquake drill, and refuse to leave the building. "I'm hurt!" he declared. "My leg is broken. I can't walk." The teacher thought he was pulling a prank. She grew quite agitated. Demanded that he get up, the fun was over. She tried to pull him out the door. He screamed that she was hurting his broken leg. By the time the support staff came by to check her room, she was in tears, almost hysterical. But she received high praise, because she did not abandon her student.

"How did that happen? Didn't you tell the teacher that she was missing?"

"Not my job."

"What about her friends?"

"No. They didn't say a word. And they're her really good friends, too."

"I guess they WERE. Now she's burned up. How could your teacher not know? We have to take our rosters and take roll."

"Our teacher is also in charge of the kids in the room next door. The ones who take web classes. She got all of them. She took a picture of her seating chart so she would have it on her phone when she went out, but the phone cut the little burned-up girl's name off the picture."

Huh. Technology failed us this week. A student fake-burned-up. But one thing held constant.

The Pony really does not care very much about helping people.

10 comments:

  1. We used to have to crawl under our desks and interlock our fingers around the back of our neck. At the time it was felt that interlocking fingers would block out an atomic bomb.

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  2. Hey, c'mon, he's a budding journalist. He got the picture, didn't he?

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  3. I agree with Catalyst/Taylor. The Pony might take a picture some day that makes him famous.

    Hey, he's just chronicling the events. Madame Defarge (spelling?) did the same with knitting needles and yarn...

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  4. Grew up in the same era as joeh. Even a fifth grader could see the folly of hiding under the desk from an atomic bomb. We just thought it was a great way to get out of another lesson on long division. No, the drill that traumatized me was in first grade when I understood the teacher to say they were going to set the school on fire and we all had to get outside as fast as we could. I didn't understand the logic of that one either but I took by new box of crayons with me when we left the building.

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  5. Bruce is correct, he got the picture. As a journalist and a photographer, he has to stay somewhat removed, above the fray as it were.

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  6. (crosses fingers) Please don't let my principal see this. All I need is to have to drag a student out of the building during a drill while trying to ensure the safety of the others.
    As I tell my students, I have weak wrists and no upper body strength. If they get hurt while goofing off during a drill, I can't carry them.

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    Replies
    1. After reading my reply this afternoon, I'm confused at my own reply from last night. (This is what happens to a teacher's brain after the first few weeks of school.) What I meant to say is: please don't let my principal see this post about putting decoys in the building during a fire drill. (because I can totally see my principal doing this) Trying to deal with that and elementary kids in the first few days would be a disaster.

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    2. Well...that's exactly what I THOUGHT you meant, so I was just taunting you, like I might go out and tell ALL principals about this little tactic. I'd even take along my blog buddy Sioux as my partner in crime, if I could pry her head out of her faculty restroom sink. It's gonna be really hard, now that she's taken to wearing a hardhat and toolbelt to teach writing.

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  7. He's a photo-documentarian. I hope you have a restful weekend.

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  8. joeh,
    Are you sure you're not getting that fingers/atomic bomb thing confused with the sugar cubes that prevent polio?

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    Catalyst,
    Yes, he got the picture. But he's not the one who put it on Facebook (he doesn't have an account) and caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Maybe he can write a song about it...kind of like "I Shot the Sheriff."

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    Sioux,
    I am not well-schooled in Dickens, but I will take your word for your fellow Madame. The Pony is a chronicler from a short line of chroniclers.

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    Leenie,
    I hope you learned your lesson about rolling your eyes, too. They'll get stuck like that, you know, and THEN what will you do?

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    Fish More,
    The Pony DOES have a habit of keeping himself removed from the fray. I suppose his ACT interest inventory was quite prophetic. He has shown nary an urge to help anyone since we saw the results. Not that he exhibited such an urge before the inventory, either...

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    Melissa,
    Okay. I'll respect your panicky wishes. Thought I HAD been considering taking my show on the road. Sort of a stand-up act with a message: "Don't let students burn up in a blazing schoolhouse, or remain trapped in earthquake rubble." People would be rolling in the aisles listening to my riffs on that subject matter, don't you think? Because what's more humorous than a teacher who doesn't take care of her students? Yeah. The teachers would be yucking it up, but the political correctness police would see that my license was yanked away faster than a buttered biscuit from the dinner plate of Paula Deen's dining companion.

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    Stephen,
    That has a nice ring to it: Pony Thevictorian, photo-documentarian. I'll see if I can get him some business cards printed up.

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