Excitement at the Charter School

Sometimes it's nice to sub in schools like Lowell cuz they are so calm that they're boring. Everyone knows how to behave,and they stay in their seats and they use inside voices. They might take a nap or do other homework or read or write notes instead of the actual assignment, but in general, they stay out of trouble. Yesterday I subbed at LHS and it was such an easy, boring day. It's nice to do that in between subbing at the Charter School in the middle school part.

Here I am again. For the second time this week in the middle school. I know from Monday that these kids don't know how to use an "inside voice" and that they need to be reminded about every five minutes or so that they should be sitting in a chair and not running around. About every 10 minutes they need to be reminded that they should be working on an assignment. It's certainly not boring. I brought lots of Tylenol this time!

Today I got to write my first "incident" statement about something that happened in my classroom. What happened was this: two students, let's call them Amanda and Aaron, apparently really hate each other. Aaron is standing calmly in front of the teacher's desk, talking to me before class starts. Last week Aaron was in the class I subbed 4 days for, so we're chatting. Amanda is stitting in her chair nearby and asks if she can work in another classroom cuz she can't study in here. I nod to her. Aaron says to me "she can't" which based on Amanda's question and his tone of voice I took to mean that it was true, she couldn't study in this particluar classroom. Amanda hears him say something, she starts saying "what did you just say to me?" over and over, getting louder each time with more and more colorful language. Aaron just says to her "I wasn't talking to you" calmly over and over again, never raising his voice. Amanda stands and starts towards Aaron. I stand in the aisle between them. "He's not talking to you, Amanda. It's okay" I tell her. Amanda keeps yelling profanities at Aaron and is held back by a couple of students. Another teacher has heard the commotion and came up behind Amanda, restraining her and dragging her physically out of the classroom with Amanda cursing and yelling the whole time.

Mr. Marshall (remember from the post about the drug search?) came into my class minutes later to take Aaron out as well. He returned about 10 minutes later to ask my version of the story. Which I relayed to him. He asked me if I could write it out for him. So I did.

My first incident report. How exciting.

The spanish teacher asked me to sub for her next week. She said she only has one class of middle school students and it's the 8th graders. :) I said yes, I would love to sub for her.