Well, folks, the honeymoon is over.
On this Monday morning, the sixth graders were acting like, well, middle schoolers. The school day hadn't even officially started when a girl dropped the f-bomb over her shoulder as she sauntered down the hall. She seemed surprised that I objected to her language. "Really?" I asked. "Do you talk like that around your parents?"
She shrugged.
A little while later I asked another student to change seats so she could collaborate with a small group, and at first, she flat-out refused. I was pretty insistent, but I could see her sizing me up and calculating whether it was worth the hassle, before she slowly moved over.
Then, after the brain break, a young man sat red-faced at his table, tears rolling down his cheeks. The three-minute activity had only involved bouncing ping-pong balls into solo cups with a partner, and so I was unsure about his situation. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"My partner threw the ping pong ball really hard and hit me in the groin," he sniffled. Upon return from the clinic, he had the only thing they prescribe, a baggy of ice wrapped in a paper towel. I can only assume it was a comfort to him as he applied it to the affected area under the table. I didn't really need to see it for myself.
And that was all before 9:30.
No comments:
Post a Comment