Schools Out For Summer...

"No more pencils, no more books, no more student's dirty looks!"

This saying could not have been more true than on my last day of school. I do not know what it was (over stimulation perhaps) but my last day of school was horrific! Here I have spent four months working at changing the behavior and attitudes of my third graders, and on the last day they go and get recess taken away from them. Here's how it happened....

The last day for me was really a "fly by the seat of my pants" situation. We were doing school awards at 10:00, and classroom awards after that. I was told that if parents came to the awards ceremony they were allowed to take their child home right after. The students who stayed usually helped clean up and organize the room with you, it's called busy work, and it is much needed when children are restless. Well, that morning I had a student ask me,

"Mr. C are we going to make yearbooks that we can all sign?"

To me, this was the single greatest idea to EVER come out of a third grader's mouth on the last day of school! I LOVED IT and told the class to start working on their yearbooks. A simple fold of two pieces of paper, two staples, some markers, and voila! A yearbook they could have each student sign. FANTASTIC! I made myself a little year book, sat at the back table, and proceeded to sign each of my remaining student's books. It was great. They loved making them, and loved signing them, and it kept them completely quiet and working busily.

Well, later that afternoon, after our awards, I had one student who was signed out by his mother. However, he was still at the school watching his siblings "graduation" ceremonies. When I ran into his mother in the hallway later that day, she proceeded to hand me her son's yearbook and say,

"Would you open to page two and read please?"

I opened the yearbook and read in giant purple letters..."U SUCK!-Student's Name" (yes, this kid was dumb enough to have signed his hateful message) Needless to say, this parent was very upset. I reassured her that I would solve the problem and that we could make her son a new yearbook if needed.

After I got back to the classroom, pulled the student into the hallway, began having my serious discussion about being remembered as the "mean kid who wrote nasty messages in yearbooks" I discovered that this particular student was not the only child in my classroom writing "U SUCK" in their classmates books. Oh no, there were about 8 of these children running around, spreading their message of "suckiness." Not only did we have to edit (tear out pages) and have children rewrite positive messages, but my student's also had recess privileges taken away. Who loses recess on the last day of school? WHO? They hadn't done anything in four months severe enough to revoke recess, and ended up having it taken away the last day.

It came as no shock to me that on my last day I only received one hug from a student. It was not the greatest way to spend our last day together, but hopefully they learned from the experience.

So yes...my first "sort of year" is over with finally. Although it was a rough start, and bumpy along the way, I do feel like it went well. I have convinced myself that having a class from the start of the year will make all the difference in the world. Hopefully that is true. I had a great bunch of kids this year. It was just a lot of work to take over, and have them get used to my way of doing things. I learned so much from the experience, and I feel like I have really grown as a teacher. I hope that I don't "suck."