I'm Going Home, Bye

Saturday, September 15, 2018, also my date of origination.

Monday morning and academics was about to start when OtherT4 stepped inside the classroom and got T4's attention.  I can't recall what OtherT4 said to T4 but shortly after speaking T4 turned to me and said, "I know this is short notice but I need to go with OtherT4 to a case conference.  Can you stay with the scholars until I get back?"  "Sure," I said, "I'll read a story."  T4 then walked across the classroom selected a book, Thank You, Mr. Fallker, by Patricia Polacco, handed it to me, and then two teachers left the classroom.

As I walked toward the hexagon to sit down, the scholars suggested two other books for me to read.  One was The Book With No Pictures, by BJ Novak and the other was Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, by Alvin Schwartz.  With three books in my hands I sat down on the hexagon and asked for the scholars to vote on what book I should read.  That was a huge mistake on my part I now realize as I should have just read Thank You, Mr. Fallker.

Before I continue I need to mention this as the person that handed me, Thank You, Mr. Fallker has no idea what went on when I started reading to her class.  In fact, I hesitated about even mentioning what happened on this particular Monday morning as it was not a good day for me but decided to write about it because what happened is the reality of what goes on in a classroom.  I also need to say this, this is water under the bridge, it's over, and I think we can both agree, we had a pretty good week.

I decided to read one short story from Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark and then switch over to Thank You, Mr. Fallker.  As soon as I started to read, hands went up.  "Mr. Schultz, can we turn out the lights."  Before I could respond the lights were turned off.  "T4-F turn one of the lights back on please," I said.  No attempt was made to turn one light back on so I repeated myself and still nothing.  On the third try to get a light turned back on I stood up, made eye contact with T4-F and said, "turn one light on or I don't read."  One light was turned on.  The room was too loud so I raised my voice to be heard and said, "it's too loud, lower your voices.  It took two more attempts before the room got quiet.  I only read about two paragraphs when GBT.J, who was in the room to do an observation, addressed the class. "You are being very disrespectful as Mr. Schultz is trying to read."

After starting again, I'm distracted by a noise.  While sitting on the hexagon, I looked to my right, approximately at one o'clock, and see two T4-M's raising up their desks with their knees and then dropping their desks on the floor.  Again, I stopped reading to address the noise then started again.
More noise, this time on my right hand side at about three o'clock as four T4-F's are sitting on the floor having a conversation among themselves.  Again, GBT.J addresses the class, "you being very disrespectful while Mr. Schultz is reading."  There were a few more disruptions but for the sake of time I'll move on.

When I finished the short story, approximately two pages long, I asked this question, "How did the story end?"  While a few hands went up I chose not to call on any of them because I knew exactly who I wanted to answer the question.  I asked the question three times, directed at scholars that I knew would have no idea how the story ended.  After each scholar failed to tell me how the story ended I said to each of them, "next time I read maybe you should stop talking and listen to the story."

It's now 10:30am and the scholars needed to line up at the door and head to the Art classroom.  I let the boys go out the classroom door first and the girls would follow.  As the front of the boys line exited the classroom the front group thought it would be fun to run down the hallway to the Art classroom.

With all the scholars now in the Art classroom I'm back in my classroom putting my three books back in their proper location when IA-Life steps into the doorway to the classroom.  "Mr. Schultz, your class is so loud in the Art class that I had to take my scholar out of the classroom."  I thanked IA-Life for letting me know and I headed to the Art classroom.  When I arrived the Art classroom was so noisy that the teacher was using a microphone so he could be heard.  From what I could tell, the Art teacher was assigning seats for the scholars and several were being defiant as they wanted to sit elsewhere and refused to sit at all.

Sunday, September 16, 2018, and I'm one day older.

I hesitated at the door for a moment.  I was outside my element and was uncertain as to how the Art teacher would react to me entering the classroom and getting involved.  Finally, after watching continued disrespectful behavior, behavior that had been going on for well over an hour, I walked into the Art classroom.  My first target was three T4-M's, the defiant scholars that were not going to sit in their assigned seat but chose to stand in a corner.  The second target was the usual gaggle of four T4-F's that were thoroughly enjoying their chat festival.  At some point during my crowd control efforts the Art teacher moved to the front of his classroom and started his lesson for the day.  As I stood in the back of the classroom I looked at the clock, 11:00am.  Thirty minutes of a forty-five minute block of time was lost due to behavior issues.  As the Art teacher taught his lesson the voice volume was increasing.  Once again I got involved and moved around the classroom trying to control the conversations.  At 11:10am I had enough.  Out came the cellphone.  The text message read, "behavior is ridiculous, I'm going home, bye.

The next morning, Tuesday, as I was entering the school I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked through the classroom door.  When I did walk into the classroom it was pretty quiet.  T4 saw me enter and said, "good morning."  I responded, "good morning," and took my seat at the back of the classroom.  As T4 was introducing the daily math lesson T4-M got up from his desk and walked over to me.  "Are you going to tell us story today, Mr. Schultz," he said.  My response was one word, "no."  "Is that because we were bad, Mr. Schultz."  "You need to return to your desk and sit down," is all I said.

Since the start of the school year this group of sixty scholars has been a challenge.  In fact this group has a history of being a challenge, in some cases, going as far back as second grade.  I don't know what T4 said to the scholars following the Monday incident but I do know this, on Tuesday morning, when I walked through the classroom door, it was real quiet so I'm certain there were consequences for their behavior.  There are also additional consequences for their behavior, silent consequences from me.  Every morning I participated in the morning check-in writing assignment.  I would sit on the hexagon, read what I wrote and try and have some fun with the scholars.  I'm not participating in the morning check-in going forward.  It's been fairly common for the scholars to ask me to tell them a story about my granddaughter with an accompanying picture.  This is another fun activity, a brain break from doing math, and I'm not doing that any more.  It's also fairly common for the scholars to ask me to read them a story.  This is another fun activity, another brain break, and my response will be, "no," with one exception, if T4 asks me to read I will read because it will be a much needed brain break for her.

As I said way back at the top of this blog, Monday was a tough day.  That day is over, water under the bridge, and we've moved on.  Tuesday through Friday were pretty good days.  Slowly, ever so slowly, the scholars are showing improvement in their math abilities and it is this improvement that brings a smile to my face and will keep me coming back into this classroom.

Thanks for following the musings of a gray haired, wrinkly faced old fart that just turned sixty-nine, and who has a really swell view from the back of the room.  On Monday morning I'll return again to the classroom but for only a short time.  Why a short time?  As T4 has done for a number of years she has made arrangements for every fourth grade scholar to attend a day camp and, after being repeatedly badgered by her, I agreed to go along for the day and the bus departs at 8:30am.