Today...

Every once in a while I have these days at work where I swear, if one more kid gets up out of his seat without permission, or one more child calls out whenever she feels like it, I will run out of my classroom screaming, never to return. Luckily that hasn't happened yet, but today we got pretty close!

Right after our last part of STAR testing today one of my students managed to spill half a bottle of his friend's red Gatorade onto our classroom carpet. Okay, so that's not that huge of a deal. I don't like stains, but I can deal since the carpet is already pretty gross. What bothered me most is that when I calmly declared that I learned my lesson and would no longer allow Gatorade in the classroom, the kid whose Gatorade was spilt started screaming and yelling at the kid who accidentally knocked it over. Anger problems are never good for keeping my students' attention.

Event two: After my students were coming back from recess, I had one of my favorite students say to me in a really rude and sassy tone, "Oh that's just messed up!" when I told her that her friend (who's also in our class) would not be allowed to go retrieve the sweater that she left on the soccer field. The kids know that if they take something out, they bring it with them when they line up, or the item stays till they can go and get it on their own time at lunch or after school. I hear those words "Oh that's messed up" from a few of my students, but I'd never heard this student say something like that to me before! So when they were all inside we had a lengthy talk about how "messed up" it is to have 9, 10 & 11 year old kids speaking so disrespectfully to their teacher. I don't think we'll be hearing those words again in Room 23, at least not directed at the teacher.

Another thing I noticed today was a bunch of shattered glass outside my classroom. A lot goes down at recess, let me tell ya! Marbles has been a pretty harmless activity thus far, but the 4th graders have put a new spin on marbles where you're not just trying to hit the other person's marble, you're actually trying to shatter it. When I found this out, I was infuriated and told my students that if I ever saw any of them doing this, I'd make sure to ban marbles from the whole school. The boys that had actually been shattering other students' marbles were from next door, so I went to talk to them and their teacher. The teacher didn't really think it was that big of a deal (he's a guy, which I think has something to do with it!) until I mentioned to him the fact that the glass could fly up and hit someone's eye and make them blind!!! It's hard, because I feel such responsibility for everything that happens to these kids while they're at school, and this marble shattering business just shouldn't be allowed!

And for the picture. That's how I felt today while grading papers at lunch. And this photo actually really resembles a couple of kids in my class, one of which whose anger issues were mentioned above!