Different Reactions

Today a little twister (well, a powerful gust of swirling wind which was kicking up lots of dust) passed by my school right as the time came to start our afternoon exams. I was with my third years as the dust came in through the windows and several of us were a bit blinded. Many of the windows slammed shut, and I tried to close the ones that were still open in case another one came along, but the students complained of the heat, so I left them open. Then, we all heard the sound of glass shattering. I motioned to my students to continue their exams and went out to investigate.

I found that one of the panes had come loose in the first year classroom and had fallen to the ground. My first instinct was to go to the first years and make sure that no one was injured. Fortunately, all of the glass fell outside of the classroom, so there was nothing to do except sweep up the shards. However, before I could do that, I saw the reactions of other people.

The students were somewhat startled by this, but much more anxious about their imminent exam. Some of the other teachers came out of the staff room to gawk and then blithely returned to their crossword puzzles (others didn't even bother to see what had happened). The headmaster was the only other person who reacted with the urgency that I did. He hurried from his office to the classroom and informed the students nearest to the window that they would be paying to replace the window. Everyone laughed until they realized he was serious. Then he marched back to his office.

I went back to my third years to borrow my broom and reflected a bit on the situation. The first years are a rather docile class, which means they have the least discipline cases, but it also means that they don't raise issue when the headmaster puts out these ukazis (tsarist decrees which were known for their unpopularity). I swept the glass as best as I could and thought about trying to have a little discussion with the class about how they felt about this. Unfortunately, since it is exam week, I knew that they wouldn't appreciate any additional distractions, so I put it off for another day.

After I finished sweeping and checked on my third years, I went to speak with the headmaster about this. I knocked on the door to his office and realized that if he was in there, he was not giving the second years their history exam (15 minutes after it was supposed to start). When I heard his voice inside, I forgot my initial purpose and instead collected his exams and handed them to him and politely reminded him that the second years were waiting for him to give the exam. He thanked me and sent me away. I began to worry that he was going to wait for me to finish supervising my exam and then ask me to supervise for him (again), but I was relieved when I heard him walk into the classroom next to me ten minutes later to give the exam.

And my shirt ripped on the door handle today while I was rushing into the headmaster's office earlier. One of my favorite shirts no less. Oh well, exams finish tomorrow, so things should get better.