Girl Drama - A Theory Behind the Madness?

As you know doubt have read over my past few posts, we've just had an amazing amount of girl drama this year.  We are not alone.  The eighth grade as well as the sixth grade report mass amounts of girl drama as well.  It's almost as if a damn has broke and we're just flooded with girls gossiping, arguing, threatening, fighting and just generally acting like a bunch of horrid little brats.

It really takes the fun out of everything, truth be told.  But there's always hope.  We did have one nice day this week when our main instigator was absent and all the girls were, surprisingly, well mannered and actually kind of nice.  But she came back the next day to stir the pot and life was hell again.

So, I'm on the telephone the other night talking to my cousin who lives in Colorado.  We call about every other week or so and chat and catch up on what's going on and all that sort of thing.  Like me, she doesn't have any kids of her own, but she's the favorite aunt for her sister's three children so she does have some kid experience.  I began to tell her about all the girl drama we were having and she commiserated.  And then she said something that had never, ever occurred to me.

"Did you ever wonder if all this increase in girl drama is a result of too much reality TV?  I mean after all, that's all it is, a bunch of grown women running around fighting with each other and acting horrible."

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I think she may be on to something here.  I have NEVER watched a reality television show.  EVER.  (They hold absolutely not interest for me.  None at all.  I teach middle school, why would I want to subject myself to the same bad behavior but this time in adults?)   Although I've never seen one of these shows, I've seen enough advertisements for them to realize that they seem to have a bunch of grown ups acting like children.  Badly behaved children.

It's often been said that kids model what they see.  Well, if all our kids are doing is watching sitcoms where people are rude to each other and reality television where they fight and argue with each other all the time, is it any wonder they act like this themselves?

Counting the days...one and a half to go.

Girl Drama

I hate middle school girl drama.

I realize that as a female I was once myself a middle school girl, and although my memories of that era are long ago and quite foggy (probably by choice, middle school is a miserable time), I'm sure I had my share of drama as well.  That doesn't mean I have to like it.  Especially when it's causing so many issues in our classrooms this week.

Remember how good they were for field day?  Well it was a one-time thing, I'm afraid.  Since then we've had fights pop up all over the place, good kids doing the most outrageously stupid things (shooting straightened staples out of click pencils comes to mind), and just general mayhem.

And of course we've had the girl drama.

You gotta like boys.  They get annoyed at someone, they'll duke it out, then shake hands and be best buds afterwards.  It's forgotten.  They move on.  Girls on the other hand will stir the pot over and over and over and over, making threats, telling tales, dragging in other girls and pretty soon you have a team in an uproar.  And Mrs. Eagle's team in an uproar because we're getting "cross-team pollination" between our girls.  Apparently the trash talking starts in their elective classes, where the teams are merged together, then spills over.

It's enough to make me want to pull my hair out.

It got particularly bad on Friday.  Mrs. Social Studies and I had a number of girls request to talk to a guidance counselor about "issues" they were having with other girls.  Unfortunately, guidance was buried in end of the year crap, we were one counselor short, and they had to deal with fall out of actual fights. As far as guidance and the admins were concerned (they'd been mediating all sorts of girl drama that day among other things), if they couldn't get along, and caused trouble, it was a big time write up and it wouldn't be pretty.  So, the girls didn't get called in, and Mrs. Social Studies and I decided to take things in our own hands.  We actually ended up moving kids between our classrooms to separate some of the girls, but felt we needed to take more action.

We yanked a few out in the hallway for some candid discussion, took names, got different sides of the stories, and realized that we had Had It Up To Here with the disruption and the drama.  This is your typical girl drama story:

"Well Girl A is mad at me because she said I stole her boyfriend, but I didn't, he's just a creep, and she told Girl B and Girl B told Girl C and now Girl C and Girl D along with Girl A and Girl B are threatening to jump me and I can't go in your class because Girl A and Girl D are there."

That's just the tip of the iceberg.  Seriously.

By the way, Mrs. Social Studies and I have rooms that are next to each other and have doors that are separated by a mere 14".  When we take kids out in the hall for a chat, and close the doors, it's amazing how well behaved the kids in the rooms are (we can see them through the glass).  Why?  They're desperately trying to hear the conversation.  Cracks me up every time.

So, we called Mr. Math, who has an inclusion teacher during sixth period, and asked if he'd watch our rooms while we went around to the other team classrooms and basically laid it on the line.  We have six days of school left and by golly, they weren't going to make it a living hell for the teachers and other students.  Two of our team classes had subs (who were probably a bit surprised to see the two of us at the door, asking for a minute with the kids), but they seemed really happy to turn the room over to us for a few minutes.  The girls were warned (and so were the boys, we told them the same deal held for them although they've been a lot better behaved than the girls - however, Monday is another day) and as far as everyone is concerned, that was a final warning.

Let's hope it works.  But I'm not placing any bets on it.