Making me crazy

Yesterday I had a student that just would not stop talking.  He is always a chatterbox with not much impulse control, but this was extra.

Finally I walked him down to the 6th grade hall and asked my friend Maisie if he could sit in her class and do his work.  He sat down and I had little confidence that he would get all his work done, but at least he would not be driving me crazy.

(Also 3rd graders are just intimidated enough of 6th graders that they are pretty quiet and compliant in that situation.)

When it was recess time, about twenty minutes later, I walked down to get him.

On the walk back to the classroom, I asked him why he thought I'd sent him to 6th grade.

"I don't know," he said.

I told him that he was talking so much that he was not doing his work.  I showed him his 75% completed page and said, "See how much work you can get done when you are quiet and work at it?"

He argued with me the rest of the way back to the classroom that he hadn't finished the page.

"Go to recess," I said.

Also, every girl and a lot of the boys have a quickly growing collection of origami boxes and cootie catchers and tiny toys and water bottles and pens and markers and library books all piled on their desks.  Every time anyone moves, things fall to the floor.

Enough!

I said they were allowed their name tag and a water bottle and that was all.  I said, "All the stuff falling to the floor all day is making me crazy!"

One girl asked, "Are we making you crazy?"

I said, "No.  You aren't.  It's the stuff and it has to GO."

They cleaned up pretty well and a few things migrated back to the desktop and now we have a naughty box where extra stuff goes.  I told them I will throw away everything unclaimed in the box at the end of the day. 

"Even library books?!?" someone asked.

"What do you think I will do with library books?" I asked.

"Oh," she said.  "Not throw them away?"

It is self preservation at its finest around there.

I put some lotion on my winter dry hands.  One of the girls said, "No fair.  How come you get lotion and we don't."

I said, "You are all welcome to lotion any time you need it."

She said, pointedly, "I don't want lotion."

Something similar happened with my reading group.  I have one of Miriam's students who is a very new English speaker.  I was speaking slowly for her when I went around the group asking them to name the beginning sound in words. (Yes, this is kindergarten or preschool work and yes they are very low readers.)

A boy said, "That isn't fair!  You are talking so slowly for her."

I said, "Do you want me to speak more slowly for you?"

He said, "No."

I go home exhausted every day and that is 1/1000th of the reason.

A girl would not get logged on to her computer when it was small group time and those not in groups were supposed to be working online.  She was talking and bouncing out of her seat and playing with her pen.

Finally I got up from my small group and dragged her desk over next to mine.  "Sit there," I instructed.  "Get logged in."

And the internet wouldn't connect.  All around her, Chromebooks were connected to the internet.  She kept trying and it kept disrupting my group because she couldn't get logged in.

"Go get another computer," I said.  

"Whose?" she asked.

It doesn't matter.

There are 6 more days.  I think I can make it.

(I'm not sure I can make it.)