I did finally get an update on Allen, the boy who had professed suicidal thoughts during class. He was admitted to the hospital, placed under observation, put on antidepressants and was released today. So, with any luck I should see him tomorrow. This is good because he is only person left that I need to administer my end of the year tests too.
Also, we had the last SAT (Student Assistance Team) meeting of the year. The little sister of one of the students I had last year was up for today and my former student, Azul showed up as well. Every time I see her, I just want to strangle her.
Each year, since starting at Alma De La Rosa, I've had one defining day. During my E.A. year with the kinder class it came the day I was substituting in the third grade. We were working on a math lesson, I think it was measurement conversion. Anyway, I was interrupted when I heard one boy say, "Oh my gosh, this kid just said that instead of teaching you should just take off your clothes and strip!" I think he was just so surprised by what the other boy had said he couldn't keep quiet. I didn't know what to do. I explained all this to Ms. Hernandez when she returned later that morning and the boy was told to report to the Sr. Callejo's office. The mother was called, he was suspended...it was a big day for me having never been in that position before.
The next year, Azul decided pretty early on that I was too white to be her teacher and made it clear that she didn't like me. I didn't realize until to late that she had it in for me. One day as the year was coming to an end, I think it was March. I was leading the class out to recess. I left my Nalgene water bottle and my computer (this computer acutally) on the reading table that was just inside the "door." (I use the term lightly as we didn't really have really walls.) While I was leading the class out, Azul convinced Fiona and another girl Heather to put hand sanitizer all over the outside of my computer and INTO my drinking water. Before I sat down to eat with them half an hour later I added some water to my bottle. I drank some at lunch and I thought it tasted funny but I chalked it up to the custodian just cleaning the water cooler spout. Then the third graders came over for Science class and as I began the lesson, I took a large swig of water. Three of the third grade girls shouted that I should stop drinking the water. They explained that Azul had been bragging about what she had done at recess and that they were scared I was going to die. Azul blamed it all on Heather and Fiona and neither of them had the gumption to stand up to her bulling nature.
This year was perhaps the most embarrassing. I had only been working with the sixth graders for about a week. They were in groups, working on some word problems when smoke started coming out of the heater! I got everyone out of the classroom, told one of the male teachers to pull the fire alarm and the entire school evacuated. It turns out that a CRAYON had been shoved into the heater. I couldn't believe it. It took about two hours of standard military rule teaching but I was able to get the culprit to confess. Allen.
Anyway, those are my embarrassing stories. Must get back to tying up lose ends for the end of the year...eight days left after all. More on SAT later...that's a good story too!
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