Teaching is Hazardous

Now follow me here. It's the second day of school. I've had a child screaming her head off all morning. She manages to get out of the PE building onto the playground with her brother and is fine. Mean teacher (me) comes to get her and makes her go inside with our class. Up the steep staircase. She's going along complacently, still screaming, but moving. Her brother calls her name from the playground. Midway up the stairs she turns and starts moving back down. I take a step backwards to block her. Backwards--on a steep stair case. My foot hits air. I quickly shift my weight forward to the other foot. Another child is standing still on the stairs in front of me. I shift sideways and back to aviod stepping on him. Again, my foot meets air. There is no saving me now. I'm going down. Sideways and down. I see the railing below me and have time to think, "Well, that was stupid! Oh this is going to really hurt!"

I was right. I have badly bruised ribs, my left arm has deep bruises from underarm to elbow and I have some torn cartilage in my chest. But nothing's broken.

So I returned to school the next day and have gritted my teeth and am making it through most of my normal activites.

The bright side...

The little girl hasn't tried to run away from me since then.