La, La, La, Strolling Along....

I walked out to my car to get my soda.


As I was walking back in...




Yep. That's a pitbull. Nope. I didn't notice him the first time I walked by. I actually said to it, "Uh, have you been there the whole time?" Then I saw he was tied up...so I was less freaked out but still confused. I went inside and soon the whole school heard this announcement:

"Whoever has the animal out front please return to the office."

Weird. Weird. Weird.

This Place Is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S

So, first off, I want to say that you might get the impression that my school is completely nutso all the time. This is not true. In fact, if you strolled through at just the right time, you might think we are on the verge of normalcy. You might say to yourself, "that classroom is a little noisy" or "those two boys probably shouldn't be in the hallway" but---most of the time---you wouldn't recoil in horror at whatever it is you're seeing. Things can be downright pleasant sometimes. And a lot of what I write about are incidents that affect maybe a classroom or two...sometimes other people in the building don't even know about it.
NOT LATELY. We finished up the standardized testing Wednesday morning. It was the Math section this week and it was incredibly hard. Our kids FLIPPED THEIR SHIT. I am telling you, I haven't seen things quite like this in a long, long time. On top of that, it's beautiful outside--sunny and 70 degrees. Meanwhile, our heat is still on, so it's stifling in there.
First, there was that incident with the 6th graders I wrote about already. Then, yesterday, I broke up FOUR fights in the space of an hour. FOUR. When you hear screaming, you just have to run to it and get them apart. Those fights were pretty minor. It was just a lot of posturing and mouthing off then they would wait to really start shoving until they saw a teacher getting close. (This is so they can give the impression that they really would have beaten the shit of out of so-and-so if Miss Vinson wasn't holding them back.) But it still meant there was a lot of hostility in the air and too many kids riled up and excited.
Today I broke up two more and they were a lot worse. The first was between two girls and I could not for the life of me get the one girl to let go of the other girls hair. The teacher who actually teaches that class was just standing there the whole time and me and one of the other students were trying to pull them apart. The little girl helping me got blood all over her shirt.
About an hour later it was 7th grade girls and again with the hair pulling. This time it took me and another teacher to get them apart, and then one of the girls kicked the other teacher in the stomach!
Both times I had to drag one of the offenders to the office; so I'm lugging a good 80 pounds of uncooperative child down the hallway. It was exhausting!

And THEN, after school, one of the teachers calls me. He had already left for the day and saw a huge commotion at the intersection by our school. I went and told the office and they called the police officers to go down there. At this point, ANOTHER teacher calls me and tells me she sees something crazy going on too. Turns out, an eighth grade girl had been having some problems with two other girls--so she called her family to come up to the school and beat them up. And that they did. This will be the second day this week a child gets carted off to the hospital in an ambulance.

The general consensus among the staff is that this isn't near as bad as the other day because this girl "deserved it" and "needed to get her ass whooped." Apparently they had been walking down to this girls house and threatening her. The girl in the hospital IS pretty rude and disrespectful...but nobody deserves that. And also...(I feel like I say this a lot, but)...she's always been nice to me.

So, anyway, tomorrow is Friday. It's supposed to be hot and sunny. Lord help us make it through!

From The Fists of Babes

I was inside the building during this incident, so we have a guest blogger today. He's a sixth grade teacher at my school and I stole this off HIS blog. (Thanks, Mr. G):


Samsara is a heavy-set girl who is impossibly sweet-natured. She is at most 5 foot tall and likely weighs 170 pounds. She always accessorizes colored hair bands with rings and bracelets and bows. She is gentle and silly. Today she got beat-down after school and was left lying in a pool of her own blood, twitching, as several dozen students stood around and laughed at her and pointed. All because a bigger tougher girl got the idea that Samsara was "running her mouth." Likely second-hand information, and likely from an instigator who just wanted to cause turmoil. I doubt Samsara said a word until she was confronted for saying things she never said, and then she likely tried to give as good as she got. Once she got knocked down, there was a free-for-all of head-stomping, which is the unfortunate and merciless MO of City middle-schoolers, whether they are beating random adults at bus stops, or each other. And the girls are often worse than the boys.

The girl who knocked Samsara down is in my homeroom. She was talking smack in the hallway after last period and I pulled her up about it, and pulled her aside for counseling, and another teacher joined me, and we thought we had cooled things down. Obviously not. By that point the news of a fight had spread through the school, and once you're billed as the main attraction, failure to perform is not an option. So Nike, the girl in my homeroom, had to step up and punch her target, and once her target was down Nike's "crew" had to stomp her face in. If they didn't stomp her face then they might be targeted themselves. They waited until they were a few feet off campus and in the alley which leads to the school. Some teachers rushed out and chased the belligerents away but the damage had been done.

A sixth grader should never get her face stomped into concrete. A sixth grade girl fight should be over when somebody is knocked down and crying. The ambulance should not have to come and fetch a sixth grade girl off the driveway of her school, brace her neck and put her on a back board and restrain her while her legs and arms are twitching and she is saying "I can't open my eyes. My eyes don't work. What happened to my face?" Her class mates should not find this entertaining. Her mother should not have to come up there and see it, and the elementary kids next door should not have to leave school and step over pooled blood on their way home.

Days like today make me want to take a couple percocet with a couple whiskys. Days like today make me wonder what the fuck I am doing here, instead of living in Vancouver or some place where this shit doesn't happen.

THIS GUY.....

There is a psychiatrist that comes to my school to work with like 5 kids in the building. He sees them on a one-to-one basis and rarely leaves his room otherwise. On his way in or out of the building, he'll yell at random children, calling them "smart asses" and randomly telling them to go away.
I don't really know him...nobody does. He keeps to himself.
They put him in my room for standardized testing to "proctor" or help me out with pencil passing out and whatever else. He came in 30 seconds before the test started, walked over to MY desk, sat in MY chair and read a book the entire time. He did not speak to me or the children even during breaks or after the test was over.
The next morning he came to my room before school to tell me that my children were "terrible" and he could have my tests invalidated because of their behavior.
I had NO clue what he was talking about. I've seen bad behavior too many times to count; my kids were great. I asked him what on earth he meant.
"While you weren't looking, the tall boy and the tall girl were hitting at each other."
Why didn't you say anything to them?
This man says to me, "They weren't trying to usurp MY authority, they were trying to usurp yours. It had nothing to do with me."
WELL CONSIDERING YOU SAID YOU WOULD INVALIDATE THEIR TEST SCORES MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING.
And also, I'm soooo glad you have all those degrees Mr. Psychiatrist, but I'm fairly certain that two 8th graders flirting with each other has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME.

I asked him if there was anything else considering they were so "terrible." Nope..they're just terrible. Looking at each other. Nodding. "Supposedly" someone had their cellphone out but I don't know how I--the person who stared at them the whole time they were testing--didn't see it but he--the person who read a book the whole time they were testing--did.

They should really be ashamed of themselves.

He also said that he wouldn't speak to them because they don't know who he is. Hey, I'm no genius but I have an idea. Maybe if you speak to them they'll know who you are? Crazy, I know.

F is for Failure (Us, Not Her)

This girl, Ashley. She has some serrrrrrrrrrrious issues. I don't really know what I"m talking about, but she seems pretty manic to me. She's either incredibly morose and quiet, barely talking and not very communicative.
Other times (sometimes the next day, sometimes the next hour, sometimes the next minute) she is completely uncontrollable, running around with a crazy look in her eyes. She'll scream and yell and pull her hair. You can't touch her or talk to her. It's so bad even the other kids ignore her when she gets like that. "She wants you to chase her, Miss Vinson."
I don't have any idea what kind of help she needs but I'm 100% certain she needs some.
I was told today that the only way she can get any help whatsoever is if she fails all her classes next quarter.

%@*#!!!!

A couple of months ago, my best friend the 8th grade administrator decided there were going to be no end of the year activities for the 8th graders. People kindof nodded their heads and went on their way. Well, it's the middle of March now and it's looking like there's REALLY not going to be any end of the year activities for the 8th graders. So we've all heard that they have decided to tear apart the school after the standardized testing is over (next Tuesday.)

We (the 7th grade teachers) want to make sure our babies don't get involved with that craziness, so we had a meeting with them yesterday. We told them that we have a trip to Six Flags planned, a skating trip and a picnic. We also threw in a movie day and game day during April. We talked to them about appropriate behaviors and showed them the behavior checklist that all teachers will be keeping. We explained that we are specifically targeting those who: use profanity, bring cell phones or other electronic devices, bully or tease, come to school out of uniform and skip class.

This one girl who thinks she 25 years old gets super offended and tells the principal that it's not fair for us to mark down every time they curse and use it against them to keep them out of a field trip.

So Principal says, "I'm not talking about if you curse at each other, or just in general. I don't care about that, some of you, it's just a part of your vocabulary. I'm talking about cursing OUT a teacher. Don't do that. That's what we're worried about."

UM, no sorry. I'm also worried about the cursing in general. Look, I curse. Sometimes my feelings cannot be properly expressed with a "darn it!" But I don't curse when I know I'm not supposed to, like in church, at my grandma's, at school, etc. I just don't understand the mentality that we know they don't have any self-control and that's okay. No. We're going to LEARN self-control. In my classroom, I tell them not to curse EVERY.TIME. they curse. I also tell them not to say "I swear to God." And, THEY DON'T. Every now and then, someone will curse and say, "Oh, I'm sorry Miss Vinson."

I mean, even if you are going to be lenient about it, don't come right out and SAY you are. DUHHHH.

"Is the NAACP that thing for astronauts?"


"...you mean NASA?"

What's the Plan, Stan?

Yeah. Today we were supposed to start standardized testing. We had this big meeting last week where we found out the revised schedule (testing for 3 hours, 45 minute periods afterwards.) We were strictly told not to plan lessons because the students will be tired from the testing. Today was supposed to be "Sports Day" where we take the kids outside and played sports trivia inside. Tomorrow was "Game Day", etc. It was a big plan and a big deal and everybody had it all worked out.

At 7:30a.m., we got the announcement that we aren't starting standardized testing until TOMORROW, so go ahead and "practice skills" for one more day. Considering we started the morning with not a single teacher having any idea what they were going to do with children all day, I'm just glad we all survived.

I Should Feel Bad But It Serves Her Right

Apparently some kids heard my little dispute with the 8th Grade Asst. Principal. (I guess they were in around the corner or something...if she had been using a normal person's voice they wouldn't have heard.)
And they told the entire 8th grade that those kids aren't being moved because I fussed out Ms. Belton.
HA.

Second Worst Parent Conference Ever

Yesterday was a half-day for students. Teachers stayed for parent conferences. We do this every quarter and nobody ever comes. About 30 of my old students showed up though and it was pretty great.

But in the early afternoon, the other 7th grade teacher came to get me because Keenon's mom was there.
Keenon is in my first period and he's been at our school for about a month. He's most definitely ADHD but he's not a bad kid. In my room at least, he talks ALL THE TIME. To himself, to other kids, to the wall, whatever. I do like him though. He's one of those kids where you know they don't really respond to yelling, so you just kindof have to "Keenon, sssh." "Oohmybadmissvinson". Sometimes I have to sit beside him so he'll focus.

Apparently in Language Arts and Math, he's a holy terror. I guess they don't really get down with the whole "no yelling" thing and this makes Keenon lose his mind. The Language Arts teacher is the kind of person who always has to win and assert authority. I guess it gets pretty ugly in there.

I came in and said my piece. "Keenon's a talker. He's not disrespectful, he's a nice kid, but he distracts himself and others and he really needs to focus."

Language Arts Teacher: "Well, I don't know what kind of perfume Miss Vinson is wearing to make you be so good for her..." (WTF?)

The teacher and Keenon started arguing. That lasted for about ten minutes with lots of teacher looks to the mother: "you see what I mean?" and a lot of Keenon saying, "she lying on me, ma!" The math teacher joined in (there were EIGHT adults in this meeting. I'm the only one who said anything remotely positive...hmmm, maybe it's not my perfume?)

Towards the end, Keenon's mom starts yelling, Keenon starts crying and she says,

"YOU ARE GOING TO BE NOTHING! NOTHING! YOU WILL BE NOTHING IN YOUR LIFE!" while chasing him around the room. She then said she had to go to work and was leaving him there and she hoped he had a way to get home.