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And all before recess!
Jan. 21st, 2009 06:05 pmHome again, home again, after another day of making children cry.
Yep. Our curriculum theme this week is pets, so a kind soul agreed to bring their super-friendly dog in. I was telling the four-year-olds about the dog when one grabbed up some scissors and said he would kill the dog with them.
Well, that is just completely inappropriate.
So I laid into it. It turns out that I can pull off a decent guilt trip when I want to. I told them all ( I didn't single out the scissor waving one.) that anybody who hurt the dog, said they would hurt the dog, or even pretended like they might hurt the dog would go straight to the office, and the principal would call their parents to take them home because they couldn't be in the room if they were going to act like that. It was a nice dog, I said, that belonged to a nice man, and he loved his nice dog and he would be so sad and so angry if anything happened to her, and anyone who hurt her would be in trouble with him and they would really be in trouble with me. It's not nice, it's not funny, and it would get them in big, BIG trouble. (And it's the kind of thing that gets them written up and counseled in the higher grades, but we didn't go into that.)
There some silence after that, and then the kid with the scissors burst into tears. He cried for nearly 10 minutes straight. I ended up holding him in my lap, rubbing his back, and telling him he wasn't in trouble. The dog wasn't there yet. It was going to be ok. He calmed down and things went back to normal.
A little later, he came over and told me that his Dad had gotten drunk and killed his cat. Horror. So I made a big deal about how awful that was too, how sad it was for the poor cat, and how nobody should hurt anybody, no matter how mad or messed up they are. He cheered right up after that, maybe glad I was on his side again.
I honestly don't know if I should've made that much issue over it, but that was my first impulse and I went with it. Also, this is the fighting-est, biting-est, brawling-est pack of K4s I've ever been with, and them hurting each other is a daily problem, so I asked some of my colleagues and the SPED teacher their advice. They all told me that in no way is stabbing anything with scissors acceptable behavior and that even if the child had been joking, that sort of thing needs to be shut down before they are old enough to get in real trouble for it.
Waugh. The good news is the dog visit went well. I only had two that wouldn't pet the dog and the other 18 kids were in love. She looked to be a spaniel/border collie mix of some sort and was completely adorable. I had planned to take pictures, but my wrangling and secret service duties kept me from being able to. I didn't even get to pet the dog myself! I was ready to jump in between if a kid turned rough or the dog finally had enough of thirty-six little hands and took a snap, but thankfully, neither of those things happened.
Yep. Our curriculum theme this week is pets, so a kind soul agreed to bring their super-friendly dog in. I was telling the four-year-olds about the dog when one grabbed up some scissors and said he would kill the dog with them.
Well, that is just completely inappropriate.
So I laid into it. It turns out that I can pull off a decent guilt trip when I want to. I told them all ( I didn't single out the scissor waving one.) that anybody who hurt the dog, said they would hurt the dog, or even pretended like they might hurt the dog would go straight to the office, and the principal would call their parents to take them home because they couldn't be in the room if they were going to act like that. It was a nice dog, I said, that belonged to a nice man, and he loved his nice dog and he would be so sad and so angry if anything happened to her, and anyone who hurt her would be in trouble with him and they would really be in trouble with me. It's not nice, it's not funny, and it would get them in big, BIG trouble. (And it's the kind of thing that gets them written up and counseled in the higher grades, but we didn't go into that.)
There some silence after that, and then the kid with the scissors burst into tears. He cried for nearly 10 minutes straight. I ended up holding him in my lap, rubbing his back, and telling him he wasn't in trouble. The dog wasn't there yet. It was going to be ok. He calmed down and things went back to normal.
A little later, he came over and told me that his Dad had gotten drunk and killed his cat. Horror. So I made a big deal about how awful that was too, how sad it was for the poor cat, and how nobody should hurt anybody, no matter how mad or messed up they are. He cheered right up after that, maybe glad I was on his side again.
I honestly don't know if I should've made that much issue over it, but that was my first impulse and I went with it. Also, this is the fighting-est, biting-est, brawling-est pack of K4s I've ever been with, and them hurting each other is a daily problem, so I asked some of my colleagues and the SPED teacher their advice. They all told me that in no way is stabbing anything with scissors acceptable behavior and that even if the child had been joking, that sort of thing needs to be shut down before they are old enough to get in real trouble for it.
Waugh. The good news is the dog visit went well. I only had two that wouldn't pet the dog and the other 18 kids were in love. She looked to be a spaniel/border collie mix of some sort and was completely adorable. I had planned to take pictures, but my wrangling and secret service duties kept me from being able to. I didn't even get to pet the dog myself! I was ready to jump in between if a kid turned rough or the dog finally had enough of thirty-six little hands and took a snap, but thankfully, neither of those things happened.
