the troops are restless today

The troops are restless today.

Today I was teaching at the elementary school. For the most part it is my favorite place to teach. The kids are fun and crazy, the teachers are really kind and interested. But there must have been something in the morning miso soup. Because of the 5 classes I taught today (grades 1,3,and 5) there was only one class that went completely perfectly. In every other class I had kids completely melting down and crying. It was nuts, I didn't even do anything. In the case of one kid, I just asked him, "how are you?" and he went nuts. I even had 2 boys in the 5th grade, who didn't win a little competition I was hosting, cry for at least 20 minutes...the kids were inconsolable.

And if crying weren't enough, add to that the kids who had complete postal melt downs. Okay, one kid didn't actually meltdown, he was just misbehaving...he was a first grader, who thought it would be funny, if he responded to everything I said with a Knee Slap (no not a joke, an actual slap of his knee.) The one kid (a 3rd grader) who did manage to go postal, actually snapped. I was playing Janken with him (you know, rock, paper, scissors) he lost. He snapped. First he walked over to the corner where there was a broom stick and threw it on the ground...I don't think anybody actually thought anything of it, when he did that. Then he kind of curled up a little bit, while standing. So i go over to him and pick up the broom stick. I'm like, we can do a rematch....and he grabs the broom from me and starts swinging it around. He went completely nuts.....had the other 3rd graders completely freaked out. And he wouldnt put down the broom. Finally, his teacher grabs a hold of him and sits down with him...meanwhile, i am trying to carry on class like nothing is happening, even though we all know the kid is a bit dangerous. The kid sits down, but continues to swing his broomstick...after about 10minutes (and a lot of weak attempts to ignore him...per the teacher's request) The teacher finally got the stick away from him, and everything returned to normal. I kind of got the feeling that this might be a normal occurance with the kid, cuz nobody seemed very shocked, just a little frightened that he would actually hit somebody.

After today, I am so happy it is Friday...bring on the margaritas...i think I deserve them tonight!!!!