Field Day? Without a Hitch? Really?

All the seventh grade teachers had been dreading Field Day this year.  After all, our kids have been absolutely wild since we finished The Very Big Deal Government Mandated Testing.  We had a really nice day during testing week, took them outside to blow off steam, and ended up breaking up fights left and right.  (The upside to that was some of our biggest pains in the rear ended up getting suspended for about ten days which was a nice break for everyone.)

So, to say that we were NOT looking forward to Field Day was an understatement.

And now that it's all said and done (on a lovely day in the low 70's with NO TORNADOES), it turned out to be one of the Best. Field. Days. Ever.

Strange.

These kids, who prior to field day were doing everything in their power to cause drama and stir up fights were actually well behaved.  We had Mrs. Reading's substitute (Mrs. Reading had a baby a few weeks ago) stay inside in a "holding room" where trouble-makers got sent and they could spend the rest of the day reading or doing piles of worksheets.  She had only four customers and these were kids who got sent to her by The Enforcer after doing something stupid at breakfast.

Seriously.  We didn't have to send a single kid in for getting into trouble.  Not.  One.  The Enforcer told me he kept checking the holding room to see how many kids were stacked in there and he was astounded to see that the only kids in there were the ones he'd put in.

What's kind of funny is that after we practically had to threaten kids to sign up for events, we ended up having kids begging to participate (once they saw how fun it was).  We had some new events this year and they were a lot of fun, for both the kids participating and those watching (and some of them were a lot harder than we expected).

So it went off without a hitch.  Which is almost scary considering this group.  We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did.

But never fear...we may have had a wonderful field day on Friday, but on Monday they were back to their old tricks and they celebrated by having a knock down drag out fight between a couple of our boys in between 2nd and 3rd period.

Counting the days...just counting the days.

It's Not Size, It's Guts

So yesterday one of our boys, Big Boy, came into homeroom crying his eyes out because he'd been punched in the face by another kid on the team. He's in Mr. Math's homeroom so he hustled him across the hall to Guidance so we could figure out what happened. Apparently some sort of altercation happened outside the cafeteria on the way from breakfast to the homerooms before school started.

Now Big Boy, as far as I know, doesn't have a beef with anyone. He's not a great student by any means, but definitely not a trouble maker. He has the motivation of a slug and moves just as fast. He's just one of those kids you notice more because of his size and the fact that you put a lot of zeros in the columns across from his name.

It took a while to figure out what had happened and who the culprit was. At first we only had initials so Mrs. Social Studies and I took my gradebook, as we were doing hall duty, and went through the names to see who we had with those initials. We came up with two, one an honor student with impeccable manners who wouldn't dream of punching another kid, and the other a little guy about 80 pounds soaking wet who is about a quarter of Big Boy's size (and who could best be described as a "fart in a skillet"). Nah, couldn't be either one of those two, we figured.

We figured wrong.

It was Tiny Tyke. Amazing. I'm not sure how he even managed to reach up high enough to smack Big Boy in the face, but Tiny Tyke was apparently the little villain who took on a kid four times his size. Why? I have no idea. But it is a bit amazing how fearless this little guy apparently is.

Losing Their Minds

Tuesday was, shall we say, interesting.

We had Kagan training going on in the school, so a lot of teachers were off doing that (I'd already gone through it). As a result, we had a lot of subs in the building. Usually that's a sign that those of us who aren't subs need to stay on our toes because the kids seem to get a little wiggy. It's like there's this undercurrent of mania that strikes them when they see unfamiliar faces in the classroom. That being said, we only had one sub on the team (for Mrs. Social Studies) so you would think our kids would be a little better than those who had more than one.

As usual, I was wrong.

We took our kids to lunch and dropped them off in the cafeteria and then went to enjoy our 30 minute duty free lunch. The first hint I had that something was amiss was when one of the teachers from Mrs. Eagle's team came in towards the end of lunch and mentioned that she thought a few of my girls may had got into a fight during lunch.

Mr. Math looked at me, "I didn't hear anything in there, did you?" he asked. Usually when there's a fight in the cafeteria next door we can hear it (and we'll run in and try to calm things down.) I hadn't heard anything either. Which was a bit weird. Maybe they're just so loud anyway, what with the countdown to the end of school, that we didn't notice.

So I go to pick up my kids to walk them back to class and my class looks, suddenly, a lot smaller. I always check with Mrs. Wonderful Aide about whether or not they'd been good (this is, after all, my Fifth Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself, so it's worth checking) and she kind of rolled her eyes at me.

"Oh dear," I said, "that bad?"

"That bad," she answered.

We walk back to class and the kids are more subdued than usual (they probably guessed they were going to get barked at when we got back to class - again), and as we walk past the Guidance office - which is surrounded by lots of glass windows - I see not one, not two, but six of my kids sitting in there.

This is not good.

Turns out that two of my girls were in there because they had gotten into a fight over - what else? - a boy. The fact that these two are best friends makes it more interesting. Three more were writing witness statements. (On a side note, I've often contended that if we made all our writing prompts witness statements, we'd get some of the best writing ever out of these kids - amazing how well they write when they're reporting one of their peers screwing up big time.) Another, Little Big Boy, was in there for a SEPARATE fight because he apparently was getting teased by one of Mrs. Eagle's kids and went nuts and started throwing forks and slinging chocolate milk all over, although for the looks of him, it landed mostly on him and not the other kids.

And then when we get back to class one girl breaks down crying because "people are cruel" and "fights scare me", and she wanted to go see a guidance counselor (she's a high stress kid and spends a lot of time with anxiety issues in guidance anyway.)

Oh wonderful.

Fifteen days. If they can just hold it together for 15 days.

Are We There Yet?

I worked with a delightful lady Up North who once described the last few weeks of school as one very long car ride with a bunch of kids. "They all get along pretty good at the beginning of the trip, but by the time you get to your destination, they're all sick and tired of each other and are fussing and squabbling in the back seat."

She's right. And I wish I could reach into the back seat and slap some sense into them all.

We finished our Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests last week, so that's no longer hanging on the horizon like a vulture waiting for some road kill. Although we all sort of feel like road kill at this point in time. We are having our reward party tomorrow (lucky me, I'm getting to work the pizza booth), which should be fun for the kids and tolerable for the adults. We get to wear jeans (always a happy day), and basically just shovel food and games at the kids while they run crazy and spend their reward tickets on things like cotton candy, door prizes, and hair painting.

Personally, I love the idea of getting them all hyped up on sugar, loading them on the buses and sending them home.

However, we still have five weeks of school. I am still assigning work. I am still taking grades. And some of these kids still need to bust their tails in order to pass. Yet, for some reason, some of them decided earlier this week that bringing paper, pencil, their binder, agenda or book was just Too Much Work, and they began to show up to class with nothing. They'd sit there empty handed and just look at us as if they expected us to entertain them by pulling rabbits out of a hat or something.

So, we entertained those that brought their materials to class by watching those that didn't clean out their lockers and lose locker privileges for a few days. (It worked, they now are showing up, for the most part, prepared.)

And if that isn't enough, the kids are all getting really annoyed and fussy with each other. It's spring so it must be Fight Season. Lovely. Hall duty is never as much fun as it is this time of year. This week alone we had a fight in the 8th grade hall, another in PE, another at lunch, and a few down in the sixth grade. And those are just the ones that I know about.

So the question is....are we there yet? And will we make it there in one piece?