Still no word from the Council on Day 13 of the adventure that is my job at ISL. Well, actually I talked to Miss Rotarian Lady & she said that she knew the other woman had made a decision, but she didn't know whom she had chosen. 7 days later it seems pretty likely that it wasn't me, as I have left at least 2 voicemails for the other lady & still heard nothing.
Yesterday, I finally thought to ask for a copy of the kids' daily schedule, since no one had given me one. This way, I am not continuously surprised that I am having to take them somewhere. As I mentioned previously, my day is split between 2 classes of 16 3rd graders. I take each group to lunch on alternating days & today I was with the....."interesting" class. All kids are a handful, but this group is even more so. During lunch, one of them threw up in front of the rest of them. Another one was going into Def-con 14 over being excluded from a hand-clapping game, these 2 little boys were just being all rowdy with each other, everythang.
When I had them line up, 2 by 2, I made them take each others' hands, since if I don't, they go from being a line to being mob in like 3 seconds flat. As we get to the hallway, I was walking along side them & the last two boys were behind me & I heard one of them say, "He's a faggot!"
My blood absolutely ran cold. My hands are shaking as I type this & I remember being 7 years old, in Mrs. Smith's 2nd Grade class at Hahnville Elementary, sitting in my little desk & another kid slapping me so hard on the back of my neck out of nowhere & me bursting into tears & him saying just that one word. Faggot. And no one came. I just buried my face in my little arms & just cried silently for a few minutes until Mrs Smith said, "wake up, Sam" & I just swallowed real hard & wiped my eyes & just kept going.
"Qui a dit ça??!?" (Who said that?)
& the one kid I'll call A. immediately piped up, "I didn't say anything!" Clearly, I know it's him, besides the fact that I know what his voice sounds like. I led them back up to the classroom & to my surprise, there was a Teachers' meeting going on, so I had to stand in the hallway, shushing the kids for a minute or two while the rest of them went into another classroom & Ulysse started with a Science lesson. I stood around for a minute, looking for some papers to correct or something & went into the hallway to look for Isabel, the other teacher I am assisting. She was still all slung up in her meeting, but she saw me looking in the window of the door & came out & we went into the other class & I told her what happened, looking for advice on discipline & she sucked her teeth in that Senegalese way I have adopted (I have GOT to stop doing this, BTW) & told me some horror stories about being called names by the students & then she said, "I don't find you very professional, so naturally the kids talk to you like you are their equal."
"So it's my fault?"
"No, but if you don't take a firm line with them, they will walk all over you."
Just about then, the kids came back in. She advised me to go outside for a walk, smoke a cigarette & relax b4 coming back in. So I did.
I swear, if I hadn't left my backpack up in the building, I'm pretty sure I'd have been on the Magazine bus in 2 minutes flat. But instead I gathered myself together & headed to the Principal's office. I told her my story. She identified both my issues & we talked for several minutes. She was incredibly supportive & we even had a hug afterwards. Then we headed downstairs to pull A. out of class. I hung back at 1st, and watched the Master at work. She started off with, "Do you know why I pulled you out of class?" & he was all evasive & when she got to the heart of the matter, he tried to say at first that it was the other little boy. We pulled the other little boy out of class & A. got all nervous & tried to flip the script & they both tried to tell some story that Miss Woman dismissed out of hand. She sent the other little boy back to class & then things got real serious. She explained to him about bad words & derogatory words. She asked if he even knew what the word faggot meant. He said, "It means you don't like someone?"
This is one of those times where I just wanted to burst out laughing but I didn't react (thankfully). Without flinching, Miss Principal Lady never gave him a definition but steered the conversation deftly into how much words hurt and how she was gonna have to tell his parents about the whole thing. He cried a bit, and after some prompting, apologized.
I thanked Miss Principal Lady profusely for having my back like that & after the kids all left, I got up on that bus & headed for the comfort of blogging & soaking my feet in my lil foot bath. Damn I wish I had me some hot boy to rub my feet.
& Damn the DA's office for not calling me back.
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