Onze Setmana (Week eleven)

            Overall the beginning of the week was pretty cut and dry. Monday I gave out spelling words, we did math, gym, lunch, computer time I let them research their social studies projects, then James and the Giant Peach to finish the day. Tuesday was much the same, Math, gym, lunch, music, computers for social studies, James and the Giant Peach to end the day again. Nothing very eventful happened either day.

            Wednesday was where things started to go a little off the tracks. We had our 3^rd quarter reward celebration at the end of the day. I was observed in the morning and the students were great. I passed out the handout for the reading we did the day before and had them work on that before the reward because after the math lesson between gym, lunch, and art that was all we had time for.

            Thursday was going along fine, nothing uneventful until after art. Then the train started going more off the tracks. We were on our way back and about to go on the bathroom break. I had a student who wasn’t doing anything all day and so I was asking the teacher how he was in art while Mrs. Z. was taking them. I could hear the guys all the way on the other end of the building. I walked back and took all the guys into the classroom and had it out with them. I had to put the fear of the Lord in them again. I told them that just because spring break was around the corner we were still in school and if they were that loud that they were disrupting the whole school from being able to learn. I asked them that if I had to send a note home or call their mom or dad and tell them that their child is disrupting the whole school if they would be happy? I have never heard a group of guys so quiet in my life. So for the rest of the week they do not get a group bathroom break, they are sent out one at a time. We finished the day by reading James and the Giant Peach.

            Friday was the epitome of a train wreck. If we continue to use the train metaphor, It’s off the tracks, on its side, on fire, blowing up, with another train about to crash into it and blow it up further.  We started the day and took our spelling test. That was normal. Then they went to gym and that started out normal. During gym we had a meeting with the principal about a parent who is giving us some trouble. Then the classroom just turned upside down. They came back from gym and I saw 2 kids sort of going at it in what looked like a pretty heated argument and these 2 have had problems inn the past. I pulled them outside to talk to them and it turns out another student was calling them names and hitting them in the head with dodge balls. I pulled him out and it turned out to be this big hoopla involving 7 guys all ticked off at each other for the most part.   So I pulled them all to the front of the class while the rest were working (not to make an example out of them just to have a talk by my desk) and as I was going to inform Mrs. Z. of what was going on and while I was doing that one of the female students told me she was moving to Texas during spring break, and she is one of the best kids in class both academically, socially, and overall a really nice girl. Then I told Mrs. Z. what was happening just to keep her in the loop and she said she wanted to handle it because this sort of thing has been happening all year. Then after she had finished we were having what we call “talk time” which is just something once or twice a week where the students can just talk to us about random things related to school. They were complaining about a certain lunch lady who is either eating off their plates, pinching kids, pushing kids, yelling at them to be quiet for no reason, it was bad. So we said we would talk to the principal about it. Mrs. Z. has also been in the principal’s office laying on his couch twice so far because she’s extremely light headed, felt like she was going to pass out, and had no color in her face. Turns out he had talked to the lunch monitor about these things that very morning. This is ALL BEFORE LUNCH! During lunch we find out that a teacher from another school in the district was walked out of the building. Then after lunch I was running up money to the office for some poster boards and I see Mrs. Z. walking in to the principal’s office with one of the sweetest girls in the class. Apparently the lunch lady had heard her yelling from all the way across the loud lunch room with over 150 kids in it (this is the girl who sits 7 feet away from me and I can’t hear). She made her stand in the corner of the lunch room with her nose against the wall in front of everyone. So she was walked out. Then Mrs. Z. stayed up there because she was feeling sick again. I had them clean out their desks while I graded the first part of their social studies project and one of my guys started having a meltdown right as we were about to go to the movie (the whole school was watching it before spring break). Turn out he was extremely upset about the girl moving to Texas because out of all the girls in the class she’s the nicest to him and his best friend in the class who’s a girl. Then once we got him good to go we had a meeting with the social worker about the child and his parent we’ve been having problems with, then met with the principal about the parent again, then one of our students who is a diabetic had his sugar CRASH, then finally we got a class that one girl’s mother was going into labor so she had to go about an hour early. Then after school we were talking to a teacher who didn’t have his class there because he never got the permission slips (which out students were in charge of passing out) because they didn’t want to go in there when there was no teacher there. The problem was they didn’t tell us and they didn’t have more than 5 left over so we had no idea. And then finally, it was spring break…