Thursday, September 07, 2006

Something

I need to do something.
Yesterday after school one of my kids climbed on top of our tin roof and proceeded to run around/riverdance on top of the building. The janitor brought him down and reminded me that, in a month, it will be a funny story.
Today one of my kids broke the mirror on a teacher's car. He then stabbed another student with a piece of the window. The student was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
My student was brought in, yelled at, and sent back to class.
In the last 2 hours of the day there were 11 fights in my room. I removed 2 kids for fighting and disrupting our learning environment and they came back from our discipline room with comics and smiles on their faces.
There is no system for major misbehavior in my school.
My kids can NOT be punching each other all day. How do you rely on classroom culture to fix these problems when you can't do team buildeing or culture building activities without students punching each other? How do you use the 'don't do this because you'll get in trouble' approach when there really isn't any trouble to get in to?
Call parents.
No working phone.
Visit parents.
Students are bussed and school doesn't have record of current address.
Someone knows where that kid lives.
I need to do something.
We will not learn in this environment.
The behavior of a few cannot hinder the education of the rest.
How do I balance reaching the disrupters with rewarding the workers?
How do I react out respect and not anger and how do I teach my kids to do the same?
Surviving isn't good enough.
"Bad day?" a veteran teacher asked me today.
"Yeah," I said, realizing that it was really only a bad afternoon and I should give my kids credit for a great morning.
"Don't worry," she comforted. "It's not you, it's them."
I couldn't decide if she was just trying to make me feel better or if she really believed that.
There is something I can do to change this situation, I just don't know what.
Veteran teachers, help!!!

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