A Day in the Life of a Classroom

Recently during morning work, I sat back and typed what I heard and saw around me.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else was writing on his forehead with a marker.

Tanner Boyle: I made triplet pencils.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: I don't want to do this anymore. I hate spelling. I want to go home.

Boy Who Likes Making Up Stuff : I like Jon Stewart more than Stephen Colbert.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH, BLAH!

Super Sweet Girl: Hee hee, fluffy.

Always With the Negative Comment Girl dropped her homework. She saw it and didn't pick it up. Girl Who Never Stops Moving or Talking picked it up and triumphantly brought it to me. Negative Comment Girl also kept complaining over and over how cold she was but refused to put on her sweatshirt. It was fairly chilly in the room but she didn't want to fix the problem, she just wanted to complain.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: Be quiet. Everyone be quiet! Be quiet!

Tanner Boyle: Why?

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: Because I told you too.

Tanner Boyle: No

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: Be quiet. Everybody be QUIET! Be quiet or shut up.

I stepped in and told him not to say that. He started looking through his desk and taking things out while looking for a pencil.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: I need a pencil. Nope, nope, nope.

Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else: What does it mean to prick your finger?

Boy Who Likes Making Up Stuff: Assasination, assasinated, assasinate, ass, ass, ass.
(He looked at a picture of Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi sitting behind George Bush during the State of the Union address.) The guy who sits behind George Bush has a bad word in his name.

Always with the Negative Comment Girl came up to me and asked if she could use my computer to check her e-mail. I said no. She pouted and batted her eyelashes at me like that was going to convince me to say yes.

Boy Who Likes to Tell People That He is Madonna or Britney Spears or Maria Sharapova: Do you know why people adore me? Because I'm Madonna! (Later in the day he told me that his table of all boys was now a table with one girl because he was now a girl.)

Later in the Day:
At recess, Negative Comment Girl who complained all morning how cold she was but refused to put on a sweatshirt kept complaining that she didn't want to wear her jacket even though it was about 30 degrees. "I'm so so so hot," she complained.

Bumblebee Girl started crying during a multiplication quiz - a regular occurrence. She thinks she isn't doing well but she is. She was doing well at not crying too much and almost had it under control. From across the room Always Talking Girl called out, "Don't cry Bumblebee Girl!" This, of course, led to an incredible amount of sobbing.

Always With the Negative Comment Girl was enlisted to help console Bumblebee Girl. They both left the room to clean Bumblebee Girl up. 12 minutes later, they still were nowhere to be found and it was time for Swim. I had Take No Shit Old School Brooklyn Secretary make an announcement to the entire school, "Always With the Negative Comment Girl and Bumblebee Girl, please go back to your classroom NOW!"

They did not hear the message or so she they said. I ran into Jamaican Queen in the hallway and asked her if she had seen the two girls. She hadn't. But the girls heard the conversation and came out of the bathroom. I asked them what took them so long and Always With the Negative Comment Girl said, "It took a long time to calm Bumblebee Girl down."

Always With the Negative Comment Girl lied to me and said that she didn't have her swimsuit before swim class. I simply walked to her locker, opened her bag, took out her swimsuit, and handed it to her without a word. This was not the first time I've busted her trying the same thing.

Dismissal Time
Kid Who Loves Internet Games and Almost Nothing Else said to Bumblebee Girl in the hallway, "You cry a lot." This set her off into more sobbing. I didn't know about that tidbit until a few minutes later but I did see him sitting on the floor by the lockers while the kids packed up around him. He kept sitting up, punching himself in the head, saying "kapow" before falling back to the ground.

This was all in a day's work.

What a class.