The 1st Conflict

So today the art room functioned as a detention center during the lunch hour. Apparently because the disciplinary office is attached to the cafeteria and Mrs. Smith (who is the person the kids go to when they get kicked out of their classroom) is busy monitoring the lunchroom, some of the surplus students are dispersed among classrooms like the art room. Today we had a student named Vanessa brought to the art room after she ate (her recess time) doe 3o minutes. As soon as Mrs. Carey left the room, Vanessa started pulling things from her pocket like lip gloss and a bouncy ball. Obviously, she wasn't suppose to be having any sort of fun and not playing with anything. I told her she needed to put that stuff back in her pocket. I had used her name too, which is kind of easy to remember when you are told you are having a specific student brought to the room to be punished. Teachers do this thing called talking to one another and student names are shared. I'm saying all this because Vanessa right away began saying that that wasn't her name. Whatever.

At 12:30, the next class came in and at 12:40 she was to go back to her classroom. I was asked to escort her. Right away this was showing complications as she was wanting to walk the speed of a turtle. When we finally passed the music room (one two doors down) one of the other girls that had gotten in trouble with Vanessa (it was a total of three girls that were bullying other kids on the playground) came out and thought she should go back with us too. This caused additional complications, as Vanessa attempted to follow this second girl into the music room to collect her things. But she was cutting off an oncoming group of 1st graders, so I reached out an tugged on her hoodie, causing her to freak out on me. I was not going to deal with this attitude to the opposite side of the school building, and the office was oh so close. So I instead said we were going to the office. This worked. I ran right away into Mrs. Smith, who said Vanessa needed to just return to the art room until she learned how to walk down the hall. She also earned herself 5 more lunch detentions in the art room and that she needed to see me (if only a little) as a figure of authority.

Not exactly the best moment in my teaching, but it is far better to learn it student teaching than afterwards.