The Next Michelle Pfeiffer

Today was my first day at the new, highly unwanted by others, job. And oh my, what a day it was!

This school is a squillion times different from the school I just came from; the last school I taught at was a K-8 private Catholic school in Los Altos filled with very well off families whereas this is a K-5 public school in a lower income area. I am the 3rd teacher for this school (insert red flag) because the other teachers just couldn’t deal with the children well. This school is regarded as a “tough” school with poorly disciplined children. I knew this going in, but didn’t 100% understand what to expect.

So this was my day:

My first class was smooth sailing! I was thinking, why did the teachers have such a hard time with these kids?? They are listening well and behaving wonderfully. The only thing that was different for me was one child spoke absolutely zero English. I was trying to tell her what color team she was on and I couldn’t remember for the life of me how to say orange in Spanish.

Then comes my second class; again, pretty much smooth sailing. There were a couple of kids that acted out, but that is pretty normal in all schools/classes. However, I did find one student making comments that were a little unsettling. He was angry with another child and kept saying how he was going to kill him. “Kill him” is nothing I want to hear and is a huge red flag to me as far as behavioral issues go. I talked to him and he did fine throughout the rest of the class. First 2 classes down and I am feeling pretty good!

RECESS!! Woohoo….Time to enjoy my snack and call Aaron for a quick catch-up.

(((RING))) Time to get back to class. So in comes my 3rd class. They are all lined up nicely and I am thinking, wow, this is going to be a well behaved class. I sent them off on their warm up run and the teacher stayed behind to give me some info on some of the students. Apparently there are a lot of behavioral issues among many of the boys in the class. OK, no problem, I’ll watch and make sure they stay in line. OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I have never seen a class like this in all of the classes I have taught! Nearly every single child was misbehaving and calling out. They just didn’t care. They didn’t care about getting in trouble, going to the principal, being docked in their grade. They just don’t give a crap. I get real serious, and let them know who is in charge and that they will not be able to walk all over me (You can tell the other teachers were probably just walked all over).

I got them settled down and into their stations. Almost immediatley when the teams were separated in their stations, I had 2 kids down. One child punched two other children in the stomach. I checked on the children, asked them what happened and approached the the child who hit the other two. He said he punched them because he thought it would be funny. I said very sternly, “It is NOT funny and NOT appropriate. Go to the office, now!” I can see that violence is a problem with the students in this class, so I wanted to let them no right off the bat that it wouldn’t be accepted. Once the child went to the principal, the class settled down and got back to their stations and work.

The children are doing fairly well (not the best, I would have liked to see a lot more effort, but at least their was a little teamwork and no violence). I sent them for a water break and then sat them down to explain our next activity. I explain and then send them off to begin their next activity, and as one girl is getting up to go, a boy intentionally grabbed her ankle so she would fall and she face planted into the blacktop. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I seriously was shocked. How can all this happen in one day? My gosh! I walked right over to him and told him he needed to leave and go to the office for his behavior. He begins to walk to the office, and a few children say, “you are going to let him walk there by himself?? He runs away!” I then sent a child to escort him to the office. And guess what?? He did try to run!! The “escort” ran and caught him and took him to the office.

The rest of the class went relatively smoothly.

(((RING))) THANK GOD!! THE CLASS IS OVER!! I get them all lined up to head off for lunch. They go. As I am packing up to head off to lunch myself, I hear, “Mrs. A?” I look up, and one of the students comes to me and tells me that someone stole his lunch!! One of the kids stole is freaking lunchable!! Are you kidding me??

Lunch time is hear and I am ELATED!! I need a break. I need to call Aaron and tell him about my day. I need some food to revitalize me!

(((RING))) Time to head back.

As I am walking back and getting ready for the next class, I see two boys being escorted to the principals office. Remember the boy who was saying he wanted to kill the other child? Yup, you guessed it, it was him and that boy. They were in a fist fight at lunch! And this is no little kid fist fight; these kids were seriously banged up. I seriously have never seen so much violence in one day.

All I am thinking at this point is, 2 more classes to go!! The first class after lunch sits down and is doing great. I get them separated into their stations and then it begins. One boy calls another a name (his last name is Sara and he was calling him Sara as a first name and saying he was a girl), and well this of course pisses off the kid and guess what he does? Yup! Punches him! Didn’t you know that violence is just always the answer?? He was talked to and the rest of the class went pretty smoothly.

And the last class went very smoothly. No problems, not outbursts, no hitting, no pushing, no name calling, ect. It was a good way to end the day.

But my, oh my, what a day it was. Overall, it was just the one class that I would consider unbelievably defiant. And I KNOW this is the class that ran the other teachers out of this school. And I am sure they are going to test me, as they did today, but I will stand firm, as I did today. They will not break me. They will learn to be respectful and behave. I think after the first day even, they realized I am not going to accept this type of behavior. It will just take time, I’m sure. I will have to be the next Michelle Pfeiffer as seen in Dangerous Minds.

But what a story to tell! How’s that for an answer to “How was work?"