27 Dec
Excuses, Excuses
The week before Christmas in a elementary school building can be crazy. All kinds of things going on. To increase stress, kids start acting crazy.
That is what happened to Charles the days before the Christmas party. I introduced you to Charles a while back. If you haven’t read that entry, you really can’t appreciate this story. So go read it.
There, that was painless.
Around the first of December, I put up all kinds of Christmas lights around the room. They were everywhere! The kids loved them. Of course I gave them a stern warning (Teacher speech #873: Don’t Touch the Lights I Put Up Around the Room) telling them if they decided to jump up and grab the lights and they fell, I would take down all the decorations and that person would be in a bunch of trouble. Charles did not get to hear this speech because he was in another classroom, the students who did hear it, were very careful to mind because they thought the lights were “really aweeesooommmme.”
With the impending arrival of 25 (that is what Charles called Christmas half the time) Charles would grow more excited. At least five times a day, Charles would ask me what I was going to do on the 25 (or Christmas, whatever his mood was).
Charles came back to our room with our class for independent reading time in the room. I was working with another student when I heard behind me the sound of lights falling. I turn around and sure enough, a bunch of lights hanging there with Charles standing under them, eyes as big platers. All the kids in the room look up from reading or test taking and almost in unison look at the lights, look at me and then at Charles.
“What happened?” I wasn’t upset.
Then half the class volunteered, “Charles did it!”
This of course started the loud crying from Charles, “I not do it! I too short! Not me! Not me!”
“Charles, let’s go out in the hall to talk. Everyone else needs to continue reading.”
“Not me! Not me!”
As much as I can piece together, Charles had jumped up and touched the lights and they fell. Now he hadn’t been around to hear me ask them not to touch the lights, but he should not have been jumping around the room during reading time. So I asked him to go back to his other classroom an move his clip to “warning” (like getting your name on the board).
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Now Charles is developmental and intellectually slower than his peers, but when he is in trouble, he can come up with a ton of excuses of why he shouldn’t be in trouble. All of the excuses were delivered with a large amount of tears.
Excuse 1: But, I don’t want to be naughty. Santa won’t give me any presents!
Response 1: We won’t tell Santa, this will be between you, me, and your other teacher.
Excuse 2: Noooo! No face to face! No face to face!
Response 2: I have to admit it took me awhile to figure out what he meant. I think he was saying he didn’t want to tell his other teacher face to face. We have to tell her so she will know not to tell Santa.
Excuse 3: But after 1 (January 1st, or the new year) I won’t come to school! I can’t come. Groundedes!
Response 3: Again, it took me awhile to figure this one out. He was saying that if his parents found out he would be grounded and couldn’t come to school after the first of the year. Charles, I will talk to your parents and make them understand that we dealt with this here at school.
Excuse 4: But move clip, miss play!
Response 4: No, you won’t loose your recess. It is only a warning.
Excuse 5: I don’t want Tonya to be better than me. (Yes this would be Tonya of Poo fame.)
Response 5: Tonya was reading during reading time, not jumping around the room.
We went over this and over this time and again, repeating in almost the exact same sequence, until:
Excuse 6: I don’t want to be in trouble!
Response 6: Bud, I think it is time to go move your clip.
I made him go to his other room and immediately called the other teacher to let her know what was going on. His other teacher reported to me later that he shyly entered the room and quietly sat down at his desk. When she asked him if he was supposed to move a clip, he started crying and repeated the same routine.
The next day, the day of the party, Charles walked into the room and gave me a big hug. All was right with the world.
Maybe I shouldn’t be such a meany.
Sigh…
Class dismissed!
Posted by Michael on 27.12.03 at 4:57 pm
There has to be rules and consequences when we break the rules. That is not being mean. The consequences are up to you so you can decide how mean to be.
Posted by Flip on 27.12.03 at 4:57 pm
Agree with Michael. And I don’t think you were mean at all. Now, if you had taken all the decorations down, made him tell the other teacher face to face, called his parents and told them to ground him for the entire 2004, and generally lost your temper - that might have been percieved as mean
…and since you’ve gone orange, I might as well say that I think… [thinking]… was it Kevin who said it? Anyway, someone said that borders might make the layout nicer and after seeing the “comments” I think he’s right. It might look even better if you use the same green as for the header (is that the correct word?) instead, and use the same border around the header as well, instead of white. As usual, it’s just a suggestion, so just ignore it if you don’t agree
PS: After previewing, all smilies are gone - why is that?
PPS: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Posted by Christopher on 27.12.03 at 4:57 pm
I will look into a border, I need to figure out how to do that.
As far as the smilies, I never put them in the preview template now that I think about it. And you are the first person to notice and say something. You can see how often I preveiw.
I will fix that after some coffee.
Posted by Christopher on 27.12.03 at 4:57 pm
I think I got the border in there. Took me a little while to figure out why there was a big gap between the table and the border.