Clipboard

I started carrying around a clipboard with a class list. At Martha's House, I knew documentation was the key to holding kids accountable. Everything that a resident did was documented so that, as case managers, we could make sure we created a consequence for anything inappropriate. With an even more watchful discipline, I documented every time my students misbehaved. I even had my own code: if they were defiant, I wrote down an A; if they were threatening, I wrote down a B; if they fought, I wrote down a C. So this is how it played out:

Lauren gets out of her seat and starts bothering Sean. He’s looking at her strangely, and I say, “Lauren, sit down in your seat.”
“I don’t have to!”
The teacher dutifully writes down A next to Lauren because she was defiant, and repeats, “Lauren, you have to sit down.”
Lauren yells at Sean, “You better shut up or I’ll steal you!”
“Lauren that was a threat!” as if she was unaware, and I write down B next to the A.

When Sean flicks Lauren off, she charges and rams her shoulder into his chest. I run over to the fight to grab her arm and pull her away from Sean while he begins punching me, trying to reach his fists around me to get at Lauren. As I hold Lauren, kicking my shin and screaming at Sean, I awkwardly drag her over to the door to peak my head out of the door and look down the hall for security. Usually there wasn’t anyone because security was always walking from one classroom to the next. So then I turn around and drag Lauren back through the class to an intercom, where I have to yell multiple times over her screams that I need security. By this time, even my quiet kids are out of their seat jumping and yelling in excitement; it was always the best part of the day. Some thirty minutes later, security comes to get her, and with a very shaky hand, I write down a C next to Lauren and a C next to Sean. There were usually between 5 and 10 fights in a day, including times when there were two separate fights breaking out at the same time. I had to hold onto something to keep myself afloat, and the clipboard was an imaginary flotation device. I pretended that my careful documentation might mean future expulsions but it meant very little to anyone else. No one seemed to care about the fights; they were just happy that it was October, and I hadn’t left yet.