Just Ridiculous

Phew, I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I'm working to change that, I promise. I'm trying to block off the few minutes right when I get home to post to my blog. It gives me a minute to relax from the day, and to try to focus on how things that seem panic-inducing during the day can actually be looked at as very amusing in retrospect. Case in point: W______.

W_____ is one of my worst behaved students. He wanders, sings, and makes strange noises during class. When he is present, I teach half as much as when he is not there. It is my mission in life to teach W_____ how to behave. Today in class, W_____ started out having one of his less bad days. In the morning, he wandered less than normal, cut up fewer pieces of paper, did not pour glue on anything. He even took a test that he had screamed he was not going to take. Usually, W_____ follows through on such threats. This was amazing.

Then, it was time to line up for lunch and recess. Try as I did, nothing could convince W_____ that he needed to not sit on the broken computer that sits by my door bouncing up and down, but rather stand quietly behind the person in front of him. He walked out of the classroom, walked back, walked anywhere but in line. When he came back from recess, W_____ ran away from the line again, hid in the closet by the door, and burst out, almost taking someone down with him.

We went into the classroom and it was time to pick independent reading books from our Book Corner. Instead of waiting his turn, W_____ lunged at the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Our bookshelf has shelves on both sides, with a board down the middle to provide a back for both sides... except on the bottom shelf. Knowing that the front bottom shelf led straight through to the back bottom shelf, W_____ threw himself at the books on the bottom shelf, scattering them through to the other side, where he lay in his book bed, tossing pages around. I should mention, at no point in this endeavor did W_____ manage to select an independent reading book.

Next it was time to review for our quizzes tomorrow. I made up a wonderful review packet that about three of my students refused to look through, including W_____. Instead of whining and threatening to leave the room like the other two, though, W_____ got a little creative. First he pretended to sleep and snore loudly. Then he hole-punched some papers, scattering the resulting confetti around his desk. He took his ski cap and cut eyes in it, dropping the spare cloth to the floor and looking through his new mask like a 4.5' tall bandit in my front row. Finally, he resigned himself to singing and taking other students' belongings.

In the moment, especially while being observed by another students' grandmother, I felt ready to cry, but after further reflection, the day leaves me with no better emotion than amused astonishment that anyone would have such little knowledge of proper social behavior. Crazy. One might even say ridiculous.