TIME!

Whenever one of my group of friend would cross one of those "boundaries" in a conversation, my buddy Stence would call "Time!" As in, time out. As coaches, this phrase made sense--we'd all needed to call a time-out in a game.
Today, after the Cambridge Education auditors wrapped up their visit, I had felt a need to call "TIME." I wasn't observed, and their visit to our school had very little impact on me. In fact, I wouldn't have known they were there had we not been informed about it. It does seem strange that we all weren't interviewed or observed.
But I felt the need for a timeout because from my point of view, the school is not functioning as a team. It's one of those moments when each team member is off doing their own thing. We have a mission, a game plan, but the game plan isn't working.
As a coach, I have certainly found that my plans for a game weren't going to work. So I called timeout to bring the team together, take a deep breath, and rework the plan. Fortunately for a basketball team, timeouts can happen. And fortunately for a basketball team, it can take a thirty second timeout or a full minute, depending on the need.
The reality of education disallows any extended time to revisit and change the gameplan during the year. Though, wouldn't it be nice if timeouts existed?