When 2/3 of the cats are away

 Miriam and Alissa both happened to be gone yesterday.  Alissa and I have specialty class at the same time.  I was returning from dropping my students off at art and passed Alissa's class on the way to computers.  

Alissa is a stickler and her class walks sedately behind her in the hall, feet on the blue line, all business.

Yesterday her class was fanned out across the hall.  They were chatting and pushing and shoving and  messing with things on the wall and generally acting how students unaccompanied by an adult would act.  Matt was at the end of the hall and he intercepted them so I didn't have to.  The sub was doggedly following behind them.

You gotta walk in front of your class.  That is the first rule of survival.

Miriam's class was still in her room and since my room was empty, I could hear them.  It was something of an uproar.  I didn't intervene for a while, because I didn't want to overstep, but I finally decided she needed me.

I told one boy to put the soccer ball away and another boy to get his feet off the desk.  Two kids didn't have phonics packets.  They told me their teacher had never given them one. I pulled out the contents of their desks and found their phonics packets.  I told everyone to sit down and be quiet.  The sub was disoriented, but she finally found what she needed so I left her to it.

Later, they were lining up to go to specialty class and I heard her say, "Can everyone be quiet please?"  She said it so often to such little effect, I think the answer was no.

It is not easy to be a sub!

I had afternoon recess.  This year I sit on the "buddy bench" during recess duty.  I don't really need a buddy, but I need a bench.

A gaggle of girls came over to me out of breath because there was a fight!  Nothing is so scintillating it seems as being the one to tell the teacher there is a fight.  

I walked across the playground, wishing if they were going to fight that they would do it closer to me.  I was tired.

Then I considered that I really didn't have it in me to break up a fight.  I'm glad they don't know how vulnerable and fragile I feel.  Driving over bumps in my car hurts my port.  I am still moving pretty gingerly.  They can't know how easily they could take me down.

The fight scattered when I arrived.  Then some of the parties came back to talk to me for vindication.  I think the crux of the problem was that a group of girls had laid claim to a tree and another group decided to join up.  A third group of opportunistic boys sensed conflicts and came to throw a few punches.  The girls had been smacking each other with hoodies and during lunch recess. (it was apparently an ongoing conflict), one of the girls had enlisted her 5th grade brother to come and defend her honor.

The girls all said, "We just want to share the tree."

Because you usually fight if your sincere desire is to share....

I said, "OK, so share it.  I'll stand here and make sure everyone shares it."

One group all started speaking angry Spanish at one another and the other group started yelling indignantly to me about the unfairness of everything.  I said, "There's nothing wrong with my hearing.  I can hear you fine.  You don't need to yell."

They kept repeating all their grievances and I checked my watch to see how many more minutes of recess we had.

The Spanish speakers went to play on the monkey bars and the other girls flounced away in a huff and the boys just milled around, disappointed the fight seemed over.

So I survived another day.  I guess that's the point of the story.