My colleagues were strangely animated in our little kitchen, I was curious before I heard what it was about. Then I got even more curious: a fire drill! I’ve never done that as a teacher! I will actually have to lead people, and worse, little people. How will it go?
We practiced it ourselves, it looked easy enough, there should be no problem.
“What’s fire drill in Spanish again?”
“I’ll come up to tell the kids” our Spanish administrator (not sure what job title to give her, she’s so much more than a receptionist, she’s the heart of our language school really!) told me.
“I can do it” I said, “I’ve 10 and 13-year-olds today, their English isn’t too bad.”
So off I went, what went, marched proudly that yeah man, my Spanish is good enough to say “Today fire drill. Practise not real!”
It wasn’t bad actually. I did surprise my students enough with speaking Spanish (I never do) that they paid attention and understood everything.
First class, done. Second class done. Teenagers, no problem. Adults? Well… I was so into my motherly shepherding the little ones behaviour, I forgot to turn it off.
“Line up in front of the door, leave the bags and we’ll go together.”
We went. We arrived. There’s no-one else.
Whaaaaat? ??
Off I go to find our office angel (yes, I think that’s an appropriate title for her) to find out what’s happening.
“You don’t do the simulation with the adults, remember?”
I don’t.
“We just show them this is the sound, and you explain them what to do.”
Oh.
Well, we’ve done a little but more, but hey!
“That’s it,” I tell my group, “we’re in the clear. We’ve survived.”
I don’t tell them why the other groups didn’t do it. You gotta save face after all.
—-
Picture sourced from Vector Magz. I’d credit the creator but couldn’t find it.
The Sunny Days of an English teacher 
Hahahaha well done!! Danielle was our Office Angel in Madrid she was amazing! but yeah doesn’t hurt for the adults to know too, lets face it we all think we’ve got it under control but when its the real thing panic will kick in so your demo might help them too!! #welldoneyou 👏👏👏
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Hi,
Sounds like you did a great job. It took me back to my Elementary School days and made me wonder, how many teachers actually felt that way during a fire drill.
All I remember they were real serious. 😀
Nice piece of writing,
Vernon
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Thank you for visiting Vernon and I’m glad you liked it 😊 yes, I was thinking about my old teachers too. I used to like fire drills as a kid (anything’s better than studying) but it’s very different from this point of view lol
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I love this. Better safe than sorry! Your class got the full training!
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Lol thank you 😊
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oh my — I was in charge of safety at schools after Columbine. Research out of Harvard shows that we have to DO the drill in order to “re-wire” our brains’ wired response (FREEZE). Talking is only step one.
Hundreds of kids died in the US from school fires until drills were mandated. People died in 9/11 and in other emergencies because they froze instead of evacuating (or whatever the incident called for). Your adult students were extremely fortunate to have you as their teacher.
Kudos!! Well done! (and your admins need to learn a bit more about safety!!)
Carla over at justmecoloringoutsidethelines.com
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Thanks for the visit, and your professional feedback, I appreciate it!
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