An Elementary School Teacher in the Show Me State

D.C. was back to his old tricks again, but I had adult witnesses this time. He was upset because he lost his recess due to poor behavior in the cafeteria. During independent reading he scribbled in a book from my classroom library so I took the book away from him. At that point he stood up and got really angry. I walked away and let him have a moment to himself. Unfortunately his peers were not so kind. They began to stare at him and snicker which just fueled the fire. He began shouting and threatening them; he walked toward them to raise his fist in the air. I told him to step away from them, but then he turned against me. He raised his fist toward my face and held it there. We had a stare down for about a minute while I braced myself for the impact of his fist on my face. When he finally moved his fist toward my face, I flinched and he laughed at me.

At this point another teacher walked into the room to try and defuse the situation. D.C. began yelling that he would call the police on me when I asked him what the police would do to me he reconsidered and decided that he would instead call the Army on me.

The other teacher did nothing to stop D.C. so we decided to call the assistant princial. When she arrived, D.C tried to punch her, too. She told him, “You can hit me, but just know that you’ll get hit right back.” He didn’t hit her.

I ran into D.C.’s mom in the hallway later on and she said that she didn’t know why he was behaving like this.

After reading a story to my students about Cesar Chavez, I asked my students if they could think of anybody else that believes in non-violent protest to things that are unfair. I expected them to resond with Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. One of my 9 year old students raised her hand. I called on her and she replied, “Mahatma Ghandi believed in non-violent protest.”

I burst out laughing and she began to stumble over her words. I said “Don’t correct yourself, you are absolutely right! I just wasn’t expecting anybody to say Mahatma Ghandi!”

I finally have the scores for my reading class’ March benchmark test: 85% class average. Granted, I do have the highest reading group in 3rd grade, but that is a 19% increase from last month’s scores. Pretty impressive!