just when i thought

I was having a rough morning, or so I thought. Then I overheard a story of another teacher having a worse day.

I'll start with me though.

It's picture day! Yay! Everyone is dressed to the nines. We're excited to go and smile in front of the cameras. We have an abundance of energy, but we're doing all right. All of the students ate their breakfast and then transitioned into their intervention groups without a problem. We came together for morning circle and made it though our calendar routine before we were called down to have priceless five and six year old smiles captured in front of the green screen.

The students did great. They waited patiently. They played along with the silly photographer's assistant and flashed big smiles to show their families when the proofs come back. Then we had to walk back to class. The line was a mess. Students were talking and touching the walls. When we got back into our classroom we couldn't remember what a circle looked like. But then, we settled in and finished our morning circle time. I saw my kindergarteners return. We successfully completed classify and categorize activities, finished our first official writing project of the quarter, and squeezed in group story time as well as silent reading.

Then I mentioned the R word - recess. I rang our class chimes. I asked the students to clean up their spaces and move to the brown rug. I turned my back to pick up some crayons and when I faced my class once again two of them were fighting. The two boys are good friends and had started out playing - then someone's hands were around someone else's throat and an a hand was pulling down the lower jaw and teeth of the throat grabbers mouth. Unacceptable. I had the boys sit down with their heads on the table. The other students lined up and went outside to play.

And then, I made my first trip to the office this year with students in tow. We discussed why fighting is unacceptable. We reviewed our classroom rules. We talked about what could have happened if the throat grabber had squeezed. Pretty much I pushed everything to the limit to get the point across that fighting is a big no-no and it would not be tolerated.

The students received in school suspension for the afternoon and I called their parents. Who laughed. Boys will be boys. If that is your attitude that is fine, but do not let it come into my classroom. I hung up after my final phone call and went back to the classroom to put together ISS work packets that could be done without much supervision from the office staff.

When I returned to the office, I overheard the story that made my little fight seem not so bad. Some older students had been fighting (according to one side of the story) and a pencil was shoved up another students nose. I had seen the result of this when walking back to my classroom, but I thought that it was just a bad bloody nose.

So, just when I thought I was having a rough morning, I had things put into perspective.