We chatted about the amped up kids and how it takes so much more energy to just keep a lid on things. We wished each other luck for the coming week. Survival is the main goal and some learning happening would be nice too.
Here's hoping.
I do a lot of different things as a teacher that aren't strictly educating. I administer bandaids and listen to stories and tie shoes and give snacks and remind kids about things.
Apparently I also bust up crime rings.
Last week, something that had been simmering for awhile finally came to the surface. I knew that a lot of them had been pilfering the individually wrapped hand wipes that we get twice a week when the kitchen delivers snacks to the classroom.
I also knew that a lot of my paper clips had been disappearing.
Then, a lot of the students were busy making crafts: snowflakes, cut out animals, paper airplanes. One of the little dears took a piece off the computer cart to fashion into a sundial type craft he was making.
It had to stop.
Turns out, the wipes were the currency. They used them as money to buy paper clips and erasers (that they were also stealing from me) and the paper crafts that were being made.
I had them turn in all the wipes.
I was not prepared.
They pulled handfuls of wipes out of their desks. One girl had an empty Kleenex box full of them. They piled them on my desk.
This is not even all of them!
Most of them felt remorse. One girl promised to give me paper clips as a Christmas present. They explained that it had been fun. I acknowledged that but I said there was a time and place for making all the crafts and it wasn't during school time. I asked them if it would be OK if their parents played X Box at work all day. They were horrified and said, "No! They'd get fired!"
I said, "But it's fun."
Understanding donned on their little faces.
Jamie, the instructional coach, came up with a plan that we're working on. We're going to have a class store where they can sell things for fake money they earn from doing things in the classroom. They have to come by their inventory honestly and not steal it (for example, they can buy supplies from me). We've had two "business meetings" with the class so far during lunchtime and she has created charts with rules. The kids are super excited and I think it will be really great.
What I have no idea about is how to fit it into our already jam packed days. I'll do my best to make it work. If for no other reason to dissuade them from lives of crime....
(One of my super straight-laced students was absent the day of the sting operation. He's the boy with a spotless desk and always combed hair and never a missing assignment and his mom came in for some work for him because he was bored while he was sick. That kind of kid. The day he came back to school, he brought me about 30 packages of wipes. All he said was, "I heard about yesterday.")
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