K came down to my office at the end of the day because she had a bad interaction with a peer during specials. Kudos to her for removing herself from the situation, first off. She said she needed to cool down, so we went on a walk to collect my kiddos' Check-in, Check-out scores for the day. She said that the peer was bothering her and "running his mouth," but she didn't want to fight him and get suspended anymore. Second Kudos... good decision, girlfriend. Insert me reciting my "keep your hands to yourself" mantra and giving her a pep talk. K has shown good decision-making skills in the past, but has a hot mess temper. Save this for future reference.
We made a few stops, got a few high fives from some younger kiddos, and made our way to her classroom. K participates in the backpack program through the local Food Bank, so she needed to grab her things for dismissal and go pick up her backpack, since it's Friday. Upon entering the room, the proverbial switch flipped and all hell broke loose. Someone had thrown everything out of K's desk and left it scattered all over the floor. She was convinced that the peer she had issues with earlier had done it. (Side note: if you were the class's substitute teacher today, and knew that K was having an "off" day, you wouldn't have tried to save yourself and the kids from the coming onslaught by cleaning the mess up? Apparently not.)
Insert rather colorful, imaginative, and overall impressive cursing from K's glossy lips. I swear, this girl was coming up with good ones. My favorite was the comments about the peer's sexuality and the heavily repeated "n***** p***y b****." Third Kudos for creativity, which is inappropriate on my part. The substitute started instigating her behavior from her position at the front of the room (which she never moved from during the entire ordeal), which was totally helpful. As K got in the other boy's face and I tried to intervene, another kid actually got up out of his seat at the front of the room, grinning, and found a better vantage point to watch what might ensue. Fourth kudos to him for being ballsy, though I looked at him and monotoned, "Not a good idea."
I grabbed K around the chest to hold her back, but damn, that chick was strong and kept after the boy (who was like, 6 ft. tall by the way). Halfway through the struggle, as I was getting punched/clawed in the holding arm and screamed obscenities in both ears, I realized a few things:
1. Kids come out of the freakin' woodwork when there's a fight. I swear I looked over and saw kindergarteners and first graders watching, who are on the other side of the school and down a floor.
2. Today was a bad day to wear boots that need the rubber grippy nub on the heel replaced. I almost bit it and had visions of being trampled by pre-teens.
3. It's pretty ironic that I was writing a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) for K this morning, thinking how she probably wouldn't need a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) because her behavior is managed well by her teacher and the structure of the classroom.
Two teachers from next door came over to help, one grabbed K and pulled her out of the mess and down the hall, and the other shooed the onlookers back to their classrooms to pack up (Side note: they continued to creep in the hallway). K needed to be held, struggling, for about five minutes until she could calm down and stop calling the boy a "f****** p***y b****" and saying she was going to break his face. The principal came up, spoke to both kids, and I dragged K to her bus.
Needless to say, I didn't finished my Check-in, Check-out for the afternoon. Happy Friday!
Don't forget to check out and "Like" my Facebook page!
Hilarious! I mean,what? But, seriously this made my confrontational parent meeting seem like small dice compared to this. Really though, I would rather separate those two then be in the ring with parents...
ReplyDeleteKudos to you for making me laugh out loud. And for throwing yourself in the ring.
Oh man, I'd take another bout of fisticuffs like this over a tough parent meeting. NOTHING more awkward and challenging to deal with than parents, so kudos to YOU!
ReplyDeleteWell done, Aimee! This made me laugh and shutter all at the same time. TGIF right? I can unfortunately relate all too well to this very similar situation. What made it more interesting was the student was in K. It's hard not to laugh when such wild language is coming from a 6 year old.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, why do we always have heals on the day a fight breaks out?!
I wear heels every day (otherwise I'm fun-sized and may be asked by those who don't know me for a hall pass), so I always lose when shenanigans break out, Kristen. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that other people have wacky kindergarteners. We're finding that our most students referred for counseling, groups, and SPED services these days are kiddos in K-2nd.