It’s always nice when I get to see skills that I’ve taught become applicable to real-life scenarios. I’ve been a schoolteacher for 6 years now, teaching English, History, Heath, and Theatre. This is a feeling that I know well.
Yesterday was the start of our back-to-school inservice. For many teachers, this is nothing but a day of boring meetings. Fortunately, I teach at a uniquely independent school. So what would be a boring staff meeting had goodie bags, build-a-bouquet, bracelet making, and several raffles; followed by a catered Chipotle lunch. If any of my administrators are reading this, thank you for spoiling us!
After lunch was our emergency drill. We do these every year, with some curveballs thrown in. Sure every school runs fire, tornado, and lockdown drills, but how many practice for a cyber attack?
This year, our drill was a tornado drill! Easy enough, accept we have a few modifications. We had missing staff members, as well as injured ones to take care of, while maintaining our own personal safety. As many of you know, the first step in an emergency is to avoid making yourself the next victim.
This is where the theatre training comes in. One of my colleagues and I were selected to be injured teachers. Our backstory? We slipped down a flight of stairs while running to take cover. Some drama club sfx makeup helped us sell this story! Our staff is instructed to react how they would in a true emergency.
One of our staffers jumped into action. She was the first one on our staff to get trained in the Heartsaver First Aid Course this year, having been trained last week! She immediately followed her training and started to bandage my wounds. What a proud teacher moment (with another teacher)!
I commend my staff colleagues for running such great safety drills. One of the many hats that teachers wear is “protector”. We have to keep our kiddos safe! Great job, team!