Naked...

Normally these posts have been about this little girl I've affectionately nicknamed "Princess"...however she was pretty mild this week. Only a few funny moments, like when she announced she had to go to the bathroom, "this one (as she points to her bottom) NOT this one (as she points to her front)." The funniest moment, albeit the most disturbing, came when I went to pick up my students from recess. The recess monitor meets me laughing...not just a little, but full on laughing, but trying to regain her composure. She informs me that I had two boys hiding near a storm drain telling the girls that came near them, that they would have to "take off your clothes and get naked if you want to play with us." WTH?? So, after I laughed and shook my head, I had to decide how to handle THIS incident. This is the stuff they DO NOT teach you about how to handle in college. There are no courses on how to deal with behavior issues of this sort. Similar to the story I had last year about the boy who confessed the graphic sex dream to me...there just isn't a course on how to deal with this. So, you basically seek the advice of others and trust your gut, A LOT. Both of the boys who said this are really amazing kids. They are good both academically and behaviorally, with one of them really never having gotten in trouble at ALL this year. I was quite surprised to see it was these two boys. So, rather than make a massive deal out of it, I spoke to them both individually and asked them about the comment. We discussed how comments like that make girls feel and whether or not they knew what something like that really meant? I decided, after speaking with them, that rather than punish them severely in the classroom, that I would leave their punishment up to their parents. I am glad that I did. I spoke to the one parent immediately after school and the father was very surprised, but admitted there were some older kids in his neighborhood that he had overheard saying things like that, so he wasn't altogether surprised that his son picked up on this. Although the kid is a really good kid, his parents are very strict and he was grounded for the entire weekend. =) The other little boy I spoke with as well and he was given similar consequences.

All I can say is that I love teaching and while there are no textbooks on how to handle situations like this, it is very fun (and interesting) to see how far I've come as a teacher...from a 1st year rookie absolutely clueless on what to expect, to a 3rd year veteran who is still amazed at student behavior, but has a better idea of how to handle it. =)