Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A crumpled note...

Yesterday I got to sub for my wonderful 3rd graders who I did my student teaching with. Only yesterday they weren't so wonderful =( I am not sure if they were testing me because I haven't been around in a while or if they just decided they didn't want to work or if it was just a combination of multiple things. But yesterday was not one of my best days of teaching. I was definitely not a favorite teacher yesterday and the entire class had to miss recess and do their math work because no one wanted to do it during class. However, I think the worst part of the entire day was a crumpled up piece of paper a student brought to me during math. The corner of a worksheet had been torn off and on it was written "(A student's name) is fat. (Same students name) is a pig. "
I was horrified. These are 3rd grade students, these students are 7 and 8 years old. My sweet innocent 3rd graders aren't so sweet and innocent. Unfortunately I have no idea who wrote the note and I have no idea when the note was placed on the particular students desk. Of course no one in the class would admit to having written the note. I had a LONG discussion with the class about how our classroom is like a family and you do not talk to ANYONE especially members of your family in this way.
When did it become ok for children to say such awful things to one another???
Image found here

3 comments:

Adrienne Gomer said...

that is awful! i can't believe the things young kids say and do now a days.

Leslee said...

I have to say that it has never been okay for kids to say mean things to each other, been going on forever tho'! Shameful...

Unfortunatly, this training should begin at home and more and more time is not spent on training children. Shameful...

Good for you for sitting the class down and trying to teach them to do the right thing!

Emily said...

Oh yes...the joys of upper grades! That there is why I do not ever want to go above my sweet baby 1st graders. Kids are meaner these days...I blame it on the fact that all they do is sit around and watch tv. They just don't interact like we did when we were younger and had to "find things" to do... I hate when I have to be the "mean" teacher that yells and is not nice it makes the day just awful! I hope you can enjoy the next time your there, I am sure they were just in a weird mood. You know the weather or something had them off. That's what I like to think anyways when my 28 are going crazy!! ;-)