Just a Little More Excitement for the Day

I have to admit, my kids have kept their excitement in check this last week of school before the most-anticipated Christmas and Christmas break. Chatty, yes...misbehaved, not really. So this morning, just as I was thinking how nice it was to have a peaceful, well-organized last couple of days....they announced an internal lockdown over the PA system. Post -9/11, schools were required to create and put in writing a very precise set of instructions for various emergency situations. This resulted in schools coming up with code words for given crisises: Code Red, Code Blue, Code Orange, Code Green, Code Yellow, etc.. This looks like a wonderful idea on paper, but in reality becomes very confusing when, in a crisis situation, the teacher is frantically trying to remember what a Code Aqua means and act accordingly. Thus, many schools, including mine, have gone back to merely announcing the situation over the PA, no code words involved.

Today, an announcement of the above sort came over at about 9:00am. "Teachers, we are currently going into internal lockdown. Please keep all students in the classrooms and continue going about your day." This basically meant I locked my classroom door from the outside and we went on with our reading centers. My kids handled this situation very well. There was some initial excitement and speculation, but they quickly settled into our routine. That is, however, until I was working with a small reading group by the window, which looks out towards the school's back lawn. Helicopters started circling low overhead and my 3 boys in that group got all excited. "What if it lands in the yard?" "Who are the looking for?" "Maybe somebody escaped from jail!" "Do you think we'll see him?!?"

The rather unexciting end to this story is that we never saw anything to truly satisfy these boys' curiousity. The lockdown lasted an hour and then was lifted? What caused it? Beats me. Rumor says a local bank robbery. Who knows. But it's just a little bit more excitement to add to this week.

Proof that life is never boring.