Emergency Preparedness

Friday was faculty meeting at WPJH. During the meeting, the administration informed us that there will be a state-wide earthquake drill on Tuesday. (Yes, every school in the state will have a drill on Tuesday. The state legislature has finally realized that we live along a fault line and it might be a good idea to train teachers on how to handle this not so unimaginable emergency.) After some earthquake evacuation training, the administration asked the teachers to examine their classrooms for any earthquake dangers and create a plan for the worst case scenario.

This is the ceiling in my room.

Honestly, you can't even see the worst of it. There's three rows of those metal hanging lights, a maze of ventilation pipes (for chemical spills), skylight windows, and the janitors store building supplies in that gap in the drywall in the ceiling. (P.S. That's just the ceiling. I've got cupboards lining the walls full of rocks and chemicals. There's a radioactive storage bin behind my desk, glassware throughout the room, and I'm on the top floor of the school.) Forget worst case scenario-realistically, I think it's safe to say that everyone in my classroom during a earthquake is doomed to die.

So I called Dex to let him know that I've learned how my life will end-in a bloodbath earthquake at school. How does he respond? By buying me this:

That's a plastic hard hat that he found at the dollar store. Sometimes, my husband is too sarcastic for his own good. He wants me to wear it during the drill on Tuesday. Think I should?

Some of you have asked what my students do in class. So I thought that I'd share. Here's my 8th graders Rube Goldberg Machine designs. They had to design a machine that could do a simple task.

This is a gravity powered salad maker.

This one is a specialized toilet flusher.

Here's a water cycle mural. It hangs above my desk.

Last one. Here's my 7th grade students. Well their highly creative self portraits at least.

Sometimes, I suspect that I would've made a better art teacher... At the very least, I think it would be safer.