Monday, August 21, 2006

A new moment in the history of teaching

So, I went to open my classroom door to release my Period 3/4 class at the end of class, and something very strange happened. The handle turned, but it wouldn't open. It wouldn't even budge. I thought, "Hmmm...maybe I locked my door on accident," but then I realized I hadn't locked it, and even if I had, it wouldn't lock the inside. A couple of my 8th graders of course took a shot at trying to open it. A sudden realization came over me: I was locked in my room with twenty-two 8th graders!! I calmly (at least on the outside) called up to the office and informed them of my predicament. The lady working in the office laughed and sent down the custodian. She tried unlocking it from the outside, but to no avail, the door was still shut tight. She told me through the door that she would go and get tools and try to jimmy the door open. At this point, the kids have figured out that they're gonna be in my class awhile longer. And there are mixed emotions about it. Some were excited to be missing their next class, some were afraid that they would miss work in their next class, some were paranoid that there could be a fire (or at least a fire drill) and we couldn't get out, and some were just curious of how we would get out and how long we'd be stuck in there until that happened. I had no answers. After the custodian realized that she couldn't make progress on her side of the door, she goes into the room next door and climbs through the ceiling and drops down an Alan wrench and tells me to try to mess with the door. Yeah right. I am not at all mechanically inclined. But at the moment I start fidgeting cluelessly at the door, a maintenance man from the district is on the other side, messing with it. The kids are getting antsy and hyper and I am so ready for them to leave. Thank God it was my lunch and then my Planning Period, so I didn't have any other kids coming. Oh, and while all this is happening, teachers and students in the halls have noticed the commotion and are walking past and peering into my room with a dumbstruck curiosity, like we're a new breed of caged zoo animals that were just released to the public. Great. Kids were looking in, and I could hear teachers giggling to themselves--probably glad it didn't happen to them. To make a long story less long, the district maintenance guy climbed through the ceiling and ended up taking my entire doorknob off. From start to finish, this entire hassle took just about an entire extra period. Needless to say, as soon as that doorknob was yanked out, I was practically pushing my kids out the door. I had had them 3 periods straight and couldn't have been more glad for the whole fiasco to be over.

Has this ever happened to another teacher, ever, in the history of teaching? I've been locked out of my room, but never locked in.

2 comments:

* K * said...

HAH!

That's hilarious!

I'm sorry.

Mrs. Bluebird said...

Good Gracious!!!! That's quite an adventure!