Never a boring moment

Wednesday was an interesting day. First off all, this was Spirit Week (each day they had different perks--like Pajama Day, Disco Day, etc.) and Wednesday was Hat Day. What a distraction. There weren't just baseball caps and cowboy hats. There were light-up hats, Dr. Suess hats, squishy hats, etc. I wasn't feeling very much "in the Spirit" of Spirit week by the time we had our little Assembly at the end of the day. Student Council had asked each team to elect 4 students to participate in little funny stunts. That was kinda fun. There was a relay race involving running to the end and blowing up a balloon, pouncing on it until it popped, and then crawling back with a little beanie baby in your mouth. Pretty funny. There were two other stunts and it was entertaining. As we are herding the students back to classes to get their stuff, I round the corner to my classroom and see one of my boys doubled over, with a beat-red face and looking like he was going to cry. I hear, "Ahhh!! She just kicked me in the balls!" Great. After much questioning and deducting, I come to the conclusion that a little princess from the class next door to mine got fed up with my student messing with her pink hat during the assembly and the walk back to class. I guess she got pissed and decided that kicking him hard in the groin would solve the problem. It certainly stopped him in his tracks. I let my students into my room to get their stuff and escorted the two students in question down to the office. As Mrs. Principal is jotting down their names and shaking her head, she mumbles to me, "This is what happens when we give them things like Hat Day. And they want Co-ed lunch!! I don't think so!" So true.

Oh, and earlier that day, during 7/8 hour, I notice something weird about one of my students. One of my students that had come to me from the Honors class just a month or so prior. He's looking really confused and disoriented. Apparently earlier in the day he even walked into the wrong class and sat down and swore it was his class. Twice. Also, when I saw him walking back from lunch, he was being teased because he swore his grandmother had walked into their class and handed him a paper. During my class, he's sitting in his desk while I'm reading aloud, when all of a sudden, he gets up out of his seat and goes to give me his copy of the book I'm reading to them. He mutters, "I'm done, I mean, no I'm not," and he sits back down. The class kind of chuckles and we go on reading. Later, he gets up again, and throws a perfectly good SHARPENED wooden pencil in the trash. Huh? Plus, when it's time to turn in the questions they were working on, he says loudly, "What should I do with this?" and holds up some worksheet. "I don't know what that is," I reply. He says, "Well, you gave it to me." I argued that no, I did not and I have no idea what it is. He says again that SOMEONE gave it to him. I tell him that it wasn't me, to which another student says, "Remember? That's the study guide for science! Remember being in class and I gave it to you?" Weird. After that, I walk around to see how students are progressing on the questions and Confused Boy says that he's done. I look down. There should be 4 questions and he only has 3. And one isn't even in English. Or any other language for that matter. It's complete garble. I try to tell him that, and he starts saying something under his breath. I don't know what the heck was going on with him, but it struck me as a little odd and sent up a red flag. When I was down at the Assembly, I spotted Mr. Police Officer and told him a few of the odd things that I knew about Confused Boy from that day. He said that he'd just pull him into his office and talk to him for a minute, and it wouldn't take but just a few minutes to determine if he was on something. The Assembly was 40 minutes long. Mr. Police Officer and Confused Boy never came back. And Confused Boy was absent yesterday. Coincidence? Who knows...

Last but not least, I go to pick up Mason at his babysitter's, and find out that they are getting a new baby. The mom of the two they recently adopted just gave birth to a baby boy and was in a lot of trouble for not reporting to CPS. So, the baby was removed and given to them, that night, right now for a temporary basis. Pretty surreal but definitely a blessing. We hope they are able to keep the baby, since that would keep 3 of the 4 siblings together and that baby would for sure be loved. And raised right. We'll see.

That was my Wednesday (not quite up to par with Mrs. Bluebird's "A Day in the Life of a Middle School", but close).

Oh, and yesterday I discovered that one of my 8th grade boys has been vandalizing one of my desks. He for sure wrote his phone number all the way across it (he admits to that), but other days it was found that someone had scribbled on the desk in pen, and the back of the chair in front of it has ghetto writing in permanent marker. Couldn't prove he did those two things, but the phone number was enough for an ASD, which as Mrs. Asst. Principal put it, "He won't show up, and I'll just suspend him." We considered having him scrub tables at lunch (I'm all for punishments that fit the crime), but knowing this boy, he would just swing the rag around and make his peers laugh and nothing would get cleaned. And I don't have time at lunch to get him to clean my room, since I have recess duty, and he'd never come after school. So, unfortunately this was our only choice.

I guess I can never say my life is boring.