When You Don't Think They are Looking

I knew it was about to happen, but I still jumped out of my body. The deafening sudden buzz of the fire alarm went off. My students had practiced and after the initial shock of what seemed to be percussion grenades going off in my room, we all came to our senses and scurried into drill formation for our first official fire drill of the year. My students "walked with a purpose" down the ramp and the door and lights were taken care of swiftly by some very responsible students. When I reached the bottom of the ramp, I saw the lead student from the classroom next to me on a head-on collision course with another outbound class of sixth graders. It seemed like a game of "chicken" when I hollered, "We turn left. Go left!" Fortunately she made the turn at the last possible moment and we were off in two side by side lines headed to the white top of the playground. All of the sixth grade classes arrived and stood precisely with feet pointed straight and shoulders facing front. I was amazed that in under two minutes the entire group had evacuated the building and were standing in ABC order. I noticed the alarm continued to sound and the administrators were outside the building as well. I thought, "I wonder if the building is REALLY on fire?" A few moments later, the alarm was silenced and we were motioned back to class.

Later I took my students on a restroom break. One of my little "talkers" tugged on me, "Hey, that's my sister in the purple shirt." About that time I turned and saw this sweet little girl come out of the jungle room in third grade. She was trying to juggle her binder, water bottle, and bag of grapes. Her big brother stepped out of line and helped her get situated. It just made me smile all over to watch him help her.

During lunch, the first grade teacher came over to me and said, "Look at all my guys mesmerized by the 6th graders." I looked over to see such great role models in line and the little eyes looking up to them. At the end of lunch, we take all the classes to the restroom. One of my kids pulled me aside and said, "Thanks for the shirt." This was a rough and tough boy that had a reputation for getting into trouble all over the building. I was amazed to hear how grateful he was. A few minutes later I had to get onto him for making an aggressive move, and another teacher took up his cell phone he shouldn't have had, but hey, he had such wonderful manners for a few moments. Maybe we can pull more moments like that one out of him.

On the way back from lunch a swarm of yellow jackets decided to hang out around my portable door. We had to walk in the front of another class going on to take an alternate route inside my room. The teacher commented on how each child walked through without any issues. The overhead was on and I secretly held my breath expecting some little shadow animals to appear, but they walked through without any interruptions.

The more the day went on, the more I saw my students learning and displaying such wonderful behavior. There were a couple of students that gave me a couple of challenges, but for the most part, they had listened. They were in their routine and on a day that was already cut short with minor interruptions, I was still able to get everything taught. When the final dismissal bell rang, there was a little boy that came up to me, the one I had commented to a colleague earlier "he is standing on my very last nerve,"...he said, "I'm sorry for all the talking. I'll try to do better tomorrow." Wow! What a great day!

Do you want to know how to make someone a thief? Tell him, "You're a thief, you're a thief, you're a thief." Eventually, he will be a thief. If you want to make a child good and achieve more, tell them how good they are, how important they are." They will never let you down.