Grateful Friday

 I still hadn't recouped my sleep loss and I was a bit...cranky...yesterday.  (Slept 9 hours last night!  Things are looking up!)

We've been learning about quadrilaterals in math and I had them do an art project of making some sort of creation out of quadrilaterals.  No circles or triangles allowed!  

It doesn't matter how often I try to dissuade them, this always happens.  It annoys me.  It's not that big of a deal, but still.  Cut your shape on the edge of the dang paper!

What REALLY made me mad (like REALLY mad) was when my kids came in from recess yesterday afternoon and my student told me that a sixth grader had called him the n-word.  I immediately went outside to track down that sixth grader.  I told my class to let me in when I came back (there is no key to the outside door--it just locks).  I brought my student along with me, but he couldn't keep up with my rage pace.  A sixth grade teacher, Tyler, must have seen my fury (no one is going to accuse me of having a poker face, especially when I have all the mother bear energy compounded by not enough sleep), because he walked over to me.  My student said it was a sixth grader in a red and black hat.  I said to Tyler, pointing to red and black hat boy, "Is he yours?"  Tyler said he was.  I asked his name and then yelled for him.

He did the exaggerated, "Who...me?" thing.  He denied everything and since it was one student's word against another without witnesses, that was about the extent of it.  I said, "If it happens again, my student will tell me and it will not be OK with me, do you understand?!?"

I felt mad for like an hour afterward.

Because I know and red and black hat boy knows and everyone knows I can't shield my students from all the bad things in the world.  I want to.  I try.  But I can't.  This probably isn't the first and for sure won't be the last time my student experiences racism.

Here's the grateful Friday side of this post though.  Despite the cutting every shape from the middle of a piece of paper, I was thrilled with their quadrilateral pictures!

I love the creative nature of children.

Also, when I came back to my classroom after the recess incident (and they were watching for me and let me in immediately), they were playing a game.  It's called What's My Rule and I play it when I'm trying to keep them quiet in the hall while we are waiting for a specialty teacher and it absolutely melted my heart that they were playing it.  I low-key expected absolute bedlam when I returned, but they rose to the occasion and were carrying on in an orderly manner without me.

I thanked them and explained that another student had been mean to one of our students.  They of course wanted details and I said, "We're not talking about it."  (A few of them whispered it had been a sixth grader.) 

I said, "It isn't OK if someone is mean to you.  When that happens--"

I was going to say, "--I want to take care of it."

But a girl interrupted me and said, "--they're going to get it?"

I said, "Yes."

They smiled reassuringly at each other.  

I can't stop children from cutting out a small shape from the middle of a big piece of paper (believe me I've tried), but I can enjoy the products of their creative minds.

I can't stop racism, but I can rail against it.  Here's what I can do: love my students and they know it.