[Miscellany]

The artist turned up, so I didn't have to 'make it up' at all. Thank god.

Thursdays are a drainer. It's the day when I have all the grade 5/6 classes. Although they are charming and fun they are also extremely loud and lazy. Many of them have voices louder than mine which is a pain in the AR, a room where the echoes bounce of the laminex and walls. On Thursdays I can feel my energy depleating with every class. By the time I get to the last grade I'm always in a bad mood and just feeling like the world's worst teacher. Since I only ever see them once a week for an hour it can be hard to follow up punishments and keep things always under strict control. To be honest..I hate it when things are too structured anyway, but I guess this is also my problem.

Today there was an incident where one particular child punched Cal. The child who did the punching has been doing it other classes and outside - and really is an ongoing issue in the school for many years. It seems he's getting worse every year. He's one of those children that is extremely defiant. Often when you have an altercation between children there is remorse or some feeling of guilt/tears/sadness/anger/etc on the part of one of the chidlren. Puncher is not like that. Even if you saw it happen (which I did) then he will flat out deny it happening to your face (which he did). His parents *always* back up his word, even when the situation has many different witnesses. Puncher knows that whatever he does wrong he will always have an out (his parents). I think parents in general need to let their kids know when something just isn't on. I know there *are* two sides to every story, but I've also known this child for 5 years and I know what I saw. If I had *ever* come home with a bad report from a teacher about my behaviour I would have been in so much trouble. I knew this, end of story - there was no way I was going to fuck up at school (or anywhere really). There's no use denying the bad stuff. Not all children are angels (some are).

Anyway, after this happened I sent Cal to the Prin and puncher back to his teacher (I knew that puncher wouldn't go to Prin because the exact same incident happened a couple of days ago and puncher refused to go to the Prin - so I didn't even bother). It was about 3 minutes before the end of class so there was no point in getting into punishments etc, but Puncher of course refused to go to his teacher. He, surprsingly waited outside the AR where I could still see him though and so I walked them all back to their classroom and let his teacher know what was going on.

This kid has every single one of his teachers running around in circles. Even prin, who is very strong is in a tiz about it. I've seen Prin handle children who would make your hair curl - and I've seen children who have faces of stone crumble in tears at being called to her office. Prin is no pushover and certainly not with the parents. This time it's different. How do you handle a child who never thinks he's doing anything wrong? Ever!

*edit* have just found one last stick of a kit kat in my handbag - I was so happy I almost cried - thats how good my day has been*

posted by M at 3:18 pm 5 comments