I have decided to start journaling and recording the events of some of my days at school as a way to possibly 1- process the stress or trauma of the day and 2- record the daily events that go on in an elementary school. Over the years when I have shared things with some, it has felt as though they thought I was exaggerating, and it always felt like they were "humoring" me as if I was a child who was just blowing things out of proportion once again.
I understand that to anyone who has not been in a classroom in decades and doesn't know anyone who has been in the classroom in recent years it might be difficult to believe some of the stories you hear; they seem preposterous at times. Some of the stories you hear can't possibly be really happening in American classrooms. Can't be occurring in suburban or small town communities. Can't be experienced by our youngest students or the teachers of the youngest. But they are. And the fact that they are should be a wake up call to someone, anyone, everyone. Our schools are struggling. Our children are struggling. Our teachers are struggling. And no one is helping.
I have always been a staunch supporter of public schools. I knew when I was four years old that I wanted to be a teacher. It was a calling for me; something I felt deeply within my soul I was meant to do. I had a teacher who made a difference in my life, and I wanted to emulate that for other children. Now, I question that I am able to make a difference in anything at all most days. And that thought saddens me more than I can possibly express. I wonder if my life's work (soon to be 30 years in the classroom) has been worth it at all. What good am I even doing now each day? I feel like I am just putting out fires every day and slapping Band-Aids on mental health crises right and left while I try to manage a classroom of little ones who don't know how to manage their emotions, navigate social interactions appropriately, struggle with being able to maintain focus for any length of time, struggle to function without a device in their hands, and have difficulty with listening to one another, let alone a teacher; and oh yes, I'm also trying to find a way to teach in the midst of all this chaos.
I'm always told by my principals, "Mrs. Thomas, you have a gift with these kids" or "You have a way with this group of children" or "You have such love for these kids." Thank you. Truly. I try so hard to love all kids and see the good in each of them. They all do have good in them and need someone to believe in them and love them. But I consistently get a lot of "these kids" as my principals of the past several years call them. Rob and I tried to sit down and look back and think when was the last class I had that was not challenging, and it was at least 8 or 9 years ago. This year I moved to a new district and school. I thought at least this year I would get a break because they don't know me so maybe I wouldn't get so many; principals don't usually hand out the tough cases to unknown teachers. But not so. My new principal told me recently that she gave me particular children because of what my former principal told her about me. My teammates, the specialists, the school counselor, some of the kindergarten teachers, and the reading teacher that pulls some of my children and comes in to help with math all tell me that I have all the mental health issues on the grade level in my room, the most "challenging children" in my class. So no break for me.
Here is a glimpse in the events of last two weeks. And just in case someone thinks I am exaggerating, I am not. If anything, I am understating things. These events happened exactly as I am writing them, in my first grade classroom, and they're not even all the things that occurred.
One morning during arrival/breakfast/morning work, a student got angry at his milk carton when it didn't open in the way he wanted and he began to scream quite loudly. He threw his milk carton across the table causing the other children at the table to have to scatter to avoid getting milk on them. When I tried to calmly ask him if I could help, he started screaming at me to "Shut up, shut the fuck up." He began throwing his breakfast and his book box and anything he could get his hands on. He threw his juice carton at my head. I had to evacuate the room so that none of the children had anything thrown at them or were hit by flying objects. I had to quickly tell all the children to get their breakfast and/or morning work and go find a teacher to go to or go to their specials buddy teacher and stuck my head out my classroom door to see if any of my teammates were out in the hallway so they would know kids were coming to them. Then I went right back to trying to de-escalate the situation. He continued to scream as loudly as he could at me to "shut the fuck up, this is the worst day ever, I said to shut up bitch." He went under a table and refused to come out. He began to scream at another staff member who arrived to assist me and it took about ten minutes to get him calmed down and agree to leave the room with the other staff member.
At lunch one day, a female student told me that a male student touched her in her private area. When I investigated he told me he "accidentally grabbed her in her privates." I have no idea how you "accidentally grab" another student there. And this is a student who had already been spoken with by myself and three other staff members about the inappropriateness of speaking about our private parts to others, especially female students. And yes, I have referred this student for help from our counselor. And communicated with home.
A student who has an extremely profound fear of loud noises went outside at recess and refused to go play. This has been an ongoing issue inside and outside all year, and it has prevented me from teaching several times this year. She stood in my personal space (literally in my face) and would not let me work with a student I was trying to help with a math problem so that this child could then go play and have his recess. She kept saying she was afraid. When I asked her what she was afraid of, she replied, "the sun." I was so confused. Why are you afraid of the sun? Her response, "I'm scared." This is the typical conversation I have with her when she gets stuck on something- "I'm scared." "Honey, what are you scared of?" "I'm scared." "Of what sweetheart?" "I'm scared." It goes round and round and round. When you try to reassure her that the sun (or whatever it is she's afraid of won't hurt her, that you're here to keep her safe, that she's okay, that I'll look out for her.....) she just keeps saying, "I'm scared," and she won't leave me or let me talk to anyone else, teach, do anything. I tried to reassure her that the sun wasn't going to hurt her and she was safe. Then she said she was scared of my whistle because I was going to blow it. This has been the most recent "I'm scared" object; I once again reassured her that we had just come outside and I wasn't going to blow the whistle for 30 minutes, and that like I do every day, I would let her know before I blow the whistle so she could move away from me and not be close by. But she would not move, she would not go play, or let me work with this other child. I tried to find a friend for her to play with, nothing worked. I tried to call her mom for help but mom has blocked my number and won't accept my phone calls.
Another morning at arrival, a student entered the doorway and instantly began screaming at me at the top of his lungs, "SHUT UP" when I did my usual greeting. He screamed that he didn't have the right coat, he had his brother's coat. My teammate next door came running immediately to see if I needed help and just started helping my other children move away from this child and I so that I could try to calm him down. He was inconsolable. He had left his coat in his dad's car and had his brother's coat and would not be calmed. I had to text for help. He began to throw things and bang his head on the table. Administration came and he calmed down to a loud yell and banging his head and admin slowly walked away and left him in the room. Then he began to laugh and run around the room smacking all of the children in the back of the head.
One morning a student chose to read his book instead of doing his morning work assignment (which was a fun computer-based assignment). When it was time to transition to our first lesson, then the child decided he'd get out his computer and log in to do his morning work. I quietly walked over to him and let him know that the time for morning work was over and it was time for him to join us on the carpet for our phonics lesson. He got angry, punched his computer screen and keyboard, slammed his computer shut and punched it again and stomped over to get a pencil- punching class objects that were in his path on the way- the table, chairs, the bucket of sharpened pencils which went flying. The next day he discovered that his keyboard was not typing properly- when he typed a d, it typed an s, etc. He brought it to me to show me, and I gently suggested that it might have gotten broken when he punched it yesterday, that I would put in a work order for him so that the technology department could fix it for him. All seemed well. Later that day, however, he wanted to work on his computer and I reminded him that it was broken. He told me to make another child give up their computer, and I told him I wouldn't do that as it wasn't fair to them. He began to scream at me, picked his computer up off my table, held it up in the air, dropped it on the floor, stomped on it, kicked it, picked it up and began punching it.
A student cut another child's hair. When asked what happened, he said, "I saw something in her hair so I tried to take it out." (with scissors) He insists that he cut her hair on accident. He didn't know the scissors were in his hand and that he was cutting her hair. Then he threw a God-awful temper tantrum when I said that I had to call his mom. I had to call the other child's mom to let her know that her child's hair was cut so I was also going to let his mom know what happened. He went ballistic on me, threw himself down on the floor repeatedly, screaming, crying, yelling at me. Told me "She (the other child) said she'd give me another chance."
At lunch one day a student unzipped his pants, pulled down his underwear and exposed himself to a fourth grade class as they passed by to get their lunches, smiling the entire time, all while sitting just a few feet behind my back while I was at the teacher's lunch table. I had JUST started sitting at the teacher table a month ago because I was trying to wean my children from having to have my constant support at lunch. None of the other teachers eat with their kids, I'm new at this school and feel some pressure that I should eat with my team, they talk about things at lunch and then I'm often out of the loop. But I have decided that it is better for my students that I just eat with them to avoid these more severe behaviors and help keep them from making such poor choices. This meant that on Valentines Day when they had a special luncheon for the teachers in another room, I had to miss out. All the other teachers got a catered lunch and duty-free lunch while I sat with my children in the cafeteria.
During a recent all school assembly, I was sitting with a child of mine who has autism and severe sensory issues. He wears headphones but I still have to hold him on my lap, rock him, and cover his ears with my hands. He screams and cries and kicks and hits me throughout the assembly. I was trying to comfort and help him while supervising my class, and had several other children misbehaving during the assembly and taking advantage of me being busy to misbehave and not follow school rules.
During a math lesson, a child got angry because I called on him several times but not every time and I called on a neighbor instead of him. He began to stab the carpet with his markers, threaten to stab me, began to scream at me each time I tried to talk. I could not teach because he would begin to scream over my voice so that no one could hear me. I tried to ignore him, but he started screaming at other children who tried to answer me. He finally went to the quiet corner and continued to scream and threw things.
Another child also got frustrated during a lesson on another day and screamed at me, "I hate you. I never want to see your face again." He refused to do his math assignment and went to the quiet corner and tore it apart.
We have to use something called Educator's Handbook to write students up for behaviors that are not able to be addressed with our classroom management systems or for more serious problems. I have always resisted using it in years past because nothing ever came of it, but being new to this school, trying to start fresh this year (new district, new school, new boss), and trying to document all the things going on in my room to try to get my kids some mental health, behavioral, academic help, I have been using Educator's Handbook as instructed. In a first grade classroom, as of this writing I have written 54 minor writeups and have 18 office referrals. For every one of these I have to complete an official parent notification. This is in addition to the run-of-the-mill every day behavior notes I often send - both positive and negative that are handled outside Educator's Handbook. I try to send more positive notes for academics and behavior than negative so I make sure if I have sent something negative that I am going back and finding positive things to say to a parent about their child as well.
And in case you're thinking that I just have lousy classroom management, I'm always open for improving and I am sure I can do things better, but everyone who interacts with my class sees these issues and has difficulties as well. My reading specialist just pulls small groups of my children and brings them back and tells me OFTEN that she is experiencing the exact same problems that I am in class and that is with just a small group of 3-5 children. I have several children who have struggled with self-harm this year, children with serious mental health problems, autism, ADHD. It is just a truly needy group this year. And I am their teacher.
I am utterly exhausted and getting really demoralized. I am sure if I shared all this with anyone who didn't work in school they wouldn't believe it. I try to just say "I'm fine" or "I'm doing good" when asked how I am because I don't honestly know what to say. No one really wants to hear all this shit and they probably wouldn't believe me anyway. And the few times when I have tried to share just a small part of this mess, it seems like it makes others feel awkward or bad or they don't know what to say. So it's just better to keep my mouth shut and go on. I don't want to make others feel bad or awkward, and there's nothing that can really be said. I just have to make it. Somehow.
