Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The Hatchling Shows His True Feathers

Well, I may not be seeing the Hatchling again.  Which is fine with me.  Yet another example of why I should keep my mouth closed and not volunteer for anything.

He did pretty well this week until today.  Well if you can discount the battle over gum, kicking his desk, not doing work, and lying.  My favorite was when he decided he wanted to move his desk so i couldn't see him behind a partition.  Not going to work buddy. He didn't want me watching him and by golly I was going to watch him.

Today was yet another day.  Came in with gum.  Told him to spit it out.  He didn't (he faked it) and then I busted him out and he lied and FINALLY spit it out.  (I'm usually not such a gum freak but it was a wad that made him look like he had chewing tobacco in and he snapped it which is aggravating.  And I have carpet.)  Said he didn't have any work.  Had him show me his agenda where he had written "nothing" for all his classes.  Sadly he apparently is one of those kids who don't seem to think that teachers actually talk with each other and I mentioned that I happened to know for a fact that he had science and social students homework.

"No I don't," he said.

"Really?  That's not what your teachers said when they emailed me earlier."

"But it's done."

"Show me."

He brought it up and it was, of course, not finished.  Not even started.  Told him he needed to do it.  He didn't have a book.  One of my regular kids was using my copy of the book so I sent him in the building to his locker to get his social studies book.  So he got his science book.  (This kid isn't stupid by any means...sneaky and very capable of doing things so he doesn't have to do what you want him to.)

So since he brought his science, he worked on that.  But instead of that, he decided to mess with the globe on the shelf above his desk.  Then he kicked at his desk.  And then he carved the word "savage" into the wall of the cubicle next to him.

"Well that's interesting," I said when I saw the vandalism.  "Did you do that?"  

"Yes," he admitted.  

"Oh good, well, let's get a picture," I said as I took out my phone.  At that point, once I was photographing it, he decided that maybe he didn't do it.  By this time I was done playing his games, had my own kids to deal with, and just walked away and wrote him up for vandalism.  He kicked at his desk for the remaining 15 minutes.  The other kids ignored him best they could.  

I did tell the Guidance Goober and Coach Cool that I was done.  I didn't want him back.  He is too high maintenance for me to deal with him every second of the time he's there to make sure he's not into something he shouldn't be, talking back, engaging my own kids, whatever.  And even though he's supposed to act as an aide, I don't trust him unsupervised in the building.  He lies too much.  And after spending quite a few hours this summer repainting the cubicles, I didn't appreciate the vandalism.  My busiest times of the day are in the morning and in the afternoon when I'm processing kids and their work in and out of ISS.  I don't have an aide this year in the afternoon to help me, and I just don't need the additional aggravation.

Not sure what the final result will be, but Coach Cool pulled him off the bus and was marching him to the front office last I saw.

So this is what happens when you open your mouth in a meeting.  I think I'm done volunteering for a while.

1 comment:

Mrs. Gumby said...

You volunteer, Mrs. B, because you care deeply about kids. It's your gift to the world.
Your friend, Mrs. Gumby