On a Lighter Note . . .

The day before the students come, we always have a three-hour staff meeting that is a rollercoaster of topics, tones, and emotions: without transition, we move from teachers who have gotten married; to introductions of new teachers; to teachers who have had babies; to how important classroom climate is; to bloodborne pathogens; to the budget for building a new high school; and then, just when we were getting sleepy the SSO (Special Security Officer) did a presentation about school-shootings and the utilitarian calculus you have to do once a lockdown is implemented: if you have a classroom full of students hidden in the appropriate place and some slow-moving student knocks on your locked door, they are shit-out-of-luck (and if the intruder does get into your classroom, his final advice was: throw shit at him) and you have to endure this three-hour rollercoaster ride while sitting on immobile backless plastic cafeteria seats . . . people leave on the brink of madness.