One meltdown, total bedlam, and mean adults

Yes, I was back at Kaiser School, and the children were nutso.  I mean that in a loving way.  As I was told by one of the teachers, "If they weren't so cute we could never forgive them anything." I said that if they weren't so cute I would kill them.  Tuesday it was hard to forgive anything.

One of the little girls doesn't think rules apply to her.  She does not listen to directions, she talks out, and she is the one who played me a few weeks back.  The children were doing a worksheet for reading comprehension.  They were to read the story, read the questions, and write answers in complete sentences.  She had no answers in a complete sentence.  (The class had done the first question together.)  The first question was Who was our first president?  Her answer was George.  She threw a dramatic crying temper tantrum when I erased every answer and said do it over.  Daddy is one of our good volunteers and she was playing to him.  He wisely watched from a distance.  She got up to go to him and I made her sit down.  Great drama was performed over not listening to or reading the directions.  Then Ms. H got on her case too.  The sad thing, she could have done the page easily, just didn't.

Ms. H was later called out of the class room.  A special reading teacher, Ms. S, and I were left in charge.  All the children had work to do and were told no talking, no one get up, finish the workbook pages.  Ms. H was not out of sight and they all went nuts on us.  Under desks, talking across the room.  I told them to sit down and be quiet or they would stay in at recess,  It continued.  Ms.S  told them to quiet down.  A half minute of calm and then again with the noise and being out of their chairs.  The third time I told they had now lost part of their recess.  Ms. H returned and blew a gasket.

It was recess time, Ms. H had yard duty, and left.  The whole class had to put their heads down and stay in 3 minutes, an eternity to a first grader.  I set my timer and said I would put push start when every head was down.  Anytime a head came up after start, I would add a minute.  There was a lesson to be taught here, cause and effect.  It took about 2 minutes before I could hit start, and then heads came up and chairs were rocking, I added time.  When I finally let them out for recess they had missed over half of it. 

The lesson really wasn't learned.  The noise and breaking of rules continued. Who knows why the children were acting out.  We are getting close to the end of school.  That is when the children turn on you.