What do you get when you put 25 five and six year olds in a room with a teacher they don’t care to listen to?
The day starts as the students file in and sit in their seats ready to learn. For the first hour and a half we all learn together and are listening and participating. It seems after lunch is when everything always falls apart. Kindergarten is the only grade that gets an occasional recess, but at recess there is constant pushing and fighting that there are always at least four students out against the wall. We come back in the classroom to a student flicking people off and yelling cuss words. As I try and remove her from the situation she goes limp and kicks while she cries for being in trouble (so much for the “don’t touch students” due to fear of lawsuits). The class is now chaos and no one will listen or sit in their seats, some jumping over tables and chairs and one student throwing books. It takes about 5 minutes to restore ‘order’ and most of the students get into their seats, two decide to fight over a pencil, a real tug of war. One gives up and pushes the other as she turns to walk away, the other student then takes the won pencil and stabs (and I don’t use that word often to describe actions) the other girl in the back!
After the students are removed, partial order is restored. One student even walks up to me and says “I feel bad for her, she got hurt really bad. Jesus doesn’t want us to treat people that way, we are supposed to be nice to everyone.” This from one of the boys who is constantly in trouble! (Maybe there is hope!) Empathy is something I rarely see in these children.
I then have a student from a 4th grade classroom come in and ask me if she can help in the class. When I ask why she isn’t in her own classroom, she informs me that her class also has a substitute and they are acting crazy.
I announce my last resort for any type of order for the last 2 hours of school…I will bring in treats for those students who cause no problems for the rest of the day, and/or those who have been behaving throughout the day. I had most of the class on my side for the rest of the day, and as promised I did bring them treats the next day (rule #1 of promises to any child is that you MUST follow through, you have to build up their trust in you, just as they have to do the same with you!).
The kids are then lined up outside the room to await their parents/grandparents/sibling/ or cousin to come and pick them up to go home. I retire to the classroom, to cleanup the destruction, and leave my note to the teacher in the hopes they will follow through with discipline the next day!
