Audience..

Today, my assistant principal walked in right as a crisis was beginning. She observed the whole thing. We're talking a category 5 hurricane within my classroom, complete with screaming, running, and an attempt at destroying my classroom.

For some odd reason, I was totally nervous during the whole thing. I am confident in my skills in dealing with these behaviors within my classroom, but it's a completely different story when your boss is watching you deal with the melt down in real time. What if I handled it differently than she would have? What if I was too hard on the kid, or showed too much empathy? What if I didn't send the student out of the room when I should have? I was able to talk the student through it and handle the situation safely. It just was really strange having an audience watching me deal with the crisis. Even though I regularly deal with these situations and my assistant, the social worker, or the psychologist is watching, there was just something about having my boss right there.
Teachers are observed doing what we were hired to do, teach. We plan lessons, our administrators come watch, and voila! We're told we're awesome, somewhat awesome, or kinda stinky (my technical terms, not theirs..). We're observed in our interactions with kids at times. Usually these are our abilities to manage our classrooms or deal effectively with discipline in our rooms. It's not often that we're "observed" during a total crisis.

I'm hoping she thought I was awesome.