It's Monday and I say good morning and welcome to Room 106. We're doing math and after you hang up your coat you can stop by my desk and pick up your work sheet. The scholar stops at my desk and picks up the math worksheet and says to me, there is no way I'm doing that work it's to hard. My response, you are allowed to us a calculator. His response, that's cheating. Ok, I say but we need to get started. The scholar responds to me, there is no way you can get me to do that math. Well you just can't stand there and do nothing we have to get to work. You don't think I can't just stand here? Just watch me, I can stand in this exact spot all day and there is nothing you can do about it. You just met Wide our new fourth grade scholar and a truly wonderful addition to our already intense and over populated classroom. Lord, please give me the strength to carry on.
In addition to his presence in the room Wide brings an additional complication. He has a speech impediment and a very unusual voice. One of the scholars, Yo!, picked up on it immediately and said out loud he talks funny. Gnu shut that comment down quickly and aggressively. Fortunately Wide did not hear the comment as he also has limited hearing in one ear.
Tuesday of this past week was a frustrating day. First our special for the day was PE but the gym was occupied as it was Election Day and our school is a voting site so no PE. That stinks as PE is a running outlet for our scholars and they have energy to burn. No running today. Fortunately the weather was decent and we could get outside for recess. The scholars pick up a couple basketballs and before we head outside I give them instructions. People are arriving to vote so don't dribble the basketball until you enter the playground area. I might as well give those instructions to the brick wall we pass on the way to the playground. After twenty minutes of constant bicker as we have two basketballs and four scholars we head back in for our reading block. I have control of the basketballs but in doing so I can't get to my ID badge that is clipped to my shirt collar. I get EM's attention and tell him to take my ID badge from my collar and scan open the front door. He does as directed and you hear the door click. Immediately MiniJ and NoFouls start pushing and shoving for the right to open the door. MiniJ gets in first and NoFouls body language tell me bads things are about to happen. Sure enough the fight starts just inside the front door. Why? Because in NoFouls mind he is in charge of everything. It is done his way only, no questions asked. If he doesn't get what he wants he my charge someone. As a reminder he is in the second grade.
Fast forward about eighty minutes and we are in the classroom in our reading block. Yo! and the collector are working independent. Gnu has MiniJ and NoFouls. I'm with EM and Uh-Uh-Uh. There is commotion in front of me as MiniJ and NoFouls are at it. From what I hear MiniJ is upset because NoFouls moved his desk. How upset? He attacks NoFouls and lands a punch that hit NoFouls so hard in the chest I heard the thud. The classroom is evacuated. I'm blocking NoFouls to keep him from attacking MiniJ. Gnu is quickly moving everyone else to our safe room. I'm alone in the room with NoFouls. That is not supposed to happen when a scholar erupts. I hit the intercom button that goes to the front office and I request a crisis team member for support and to be a witness as NoFouls is so volatile I moved him to the time out room.
A few minutes pass and the Big B walks into the room. She looks at me and calmly says what happened. I explain what happened and find myself defending NoFouls a little as I don't know why hit got punched. I then do something I rarely do, I called the Big B by here first name and tell her this. The volatility in this room is excessive. If we want to keep our scholars safe either MiniJ or NoFouls needs to go. The Big B asks me if she needs to stay. I say no, NoFouls has tears running down his cheeks and that means the anger subsided. As she is leaving she says to me I'm emailing downtown and let them know what this room is like.
One suspension down and it's MiniJ and there are three to go. To quote Arnold, "I'll be back" soon to tell you about the next three. Any takers on who they will be?
No comments:
Post a Comment