A Posh Life:: Yesterday's Feelings

I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but I'm working at the elementary school again. Mostly, it's wonderful . . . per usual.

However,

yesterday happened.

Yesterday was BAD.

It was raining and it was sports day. Never a good sign.

So we had to stay inside and halved half of the gym with the 3-6 grade sports class (yes halved half . . . 1/4 of the gym for 18 running, screaming, antsy, short attention-spanned K-2 graders).

Before we even made it over to the other half of the gym two girls got in a fight. Not a verbal fight, a physical one. There were tears and time outs and apologies.

While calling role one girl stepped on another girl (whether intentional or not I have been unable to determine). There were more tears and another apology.

Then we played dodgeball. One boy got hit with the ball and a combination of that and his disgust with dodgeball because he got out so soon made him cry . . . more tears. The same kid got quite disgruntled later when he had difficulty with bowling. It resulted in him throwing a ball at me, having to apologize and getting sent to time out.

Things went smoothly for a bit until I was informed that two girls had stolen gum from my backpack. I was slightly confused because my backpack was clear on the other side of the gym. Turns out, it was one of the volunteers' backpacks and incidentally it was his first day. Some impression he must have got of us. I had been screaming myself hoarse half the class and then he gets his stuff stolen.

But what he must've thought of us unruly heathens!

There were two more apologies and some chewed gym spit into my hand. I momentarily forgot that while that's ok with Gage it probably isn't the best idea with a student who is not related to me.

Then we took a water/bathroom break. Two of my girls pushed each other's faces into the water fountain. Two more sets of tears, apologies and time outs.

(Side note: When I was in 5th grade I pushed a boy named James' face into a water fountain when he cut me in line on a field trip to Sandy Springs Park. I felt slightly inclined to laugh when this situation arose yesterday because I had been there and done that before. I am sure if I told the kids about it they would either promptly disbelieve that I was ever a child or lose all respect for me so I decided to just keep it to myself.)

As if it could get any worse, things got even more out of hand. I finally decided to mandate that anyone I saw not keeping their hands to themselves was out for the rest of the day. I ended up sending 6 kids to time out.

Whew . . . that hour went on for far too long.

To sum it up:

Kids in tears: 6

Thieves: 2

Time outs: 10

Apologies: 7

ABC gum in my hand: 1

On the bright side, the class did eventually end. And as far as I can tell not a single one of those kids remembered the slightest thing about how bad yesterday was.

Here are some pictures from happier days of my 3-6 graders doing abstract art a la Jackson Pollock a few weeks ago: