Making strides (ish)

Every day, I had demanded they work silently when I handed out their work. There were teachers who told me it was hard for 2nd graders to be completely silent while working. Even Grandma James questioned why I cared so much about silence, but I felt any chatter could only lead to a major breakdown, so I spent my most of my time hopelessly hushing students. I decided to try something new. There were times when I really needed silence, like silent reading, and then there were other times when I decided it was okay to chatter a little, like writing. It made sense that someone might see their neighbor’s drawing and ask, “What are you drawing?” On the other hand, I took silent reading time very seriously. I put chairs in each of the corners of the room, and anyone that even seemed like they might talk, I sent to a chair…and then there were my more difficult kids. I knew Ryden wouldn’t move to a corner chair at his own will, so when I had to, I moved anyone that he talked to. It usually meant Ryden would get a full table to himself, but he was left with no one else to bother. For Laila, I knew she wanted to seem the best, so I told her to read five books silently, and then she’d get to sit on the carpet with her books. And for Adam, when everyone else was silently reading, he would just fall right in line and silently read with the rest of them. I started by telling them how much time they had to read silently; when I heard chatter, I stopped the clock, waited until they were silent, then I started the time again, and we didn’t stop until we hit the goal for the day. I even placed silent reading twenty minutes before recess so that any time that they wasted meant less time outside.

There were positive changes afoot, but things were still ugly. A new girl, Zoey, had come to the class, and she figured if she wanted to be cool then she had to be friends with Laila, who was still a powerful leader of the dark side. As the class was dismissing, Laila told Zoey to hit Abigail, as some sort of a rite of passage. Abigail was the biggest girl in the classroom, and Laila wanted to know if Abigail liked to throw down without incurring any of the risk herself. So Zoey punched Abigail in the arm for no reason, and Abigail turned to Zoey with a look of shock and started crying. Zoey had done exactly what Laila wanted, and as they walked out together, Zoey leaned up against Laila’s shoulder and started to laugh just as a friend might, but by the time they were down the stairs, Laila was done with Zoey. She picked up some snow and stuffed it onto Zoey’s face, and now it was Zoey crying. To some it may have seemed like justice for Zoey, but all I saw was two girls crying, and Laila laughing, running away from her teacher, down the sidewalk and into her neighborhood.

Towards the end of the year, Laila was getting worse. Her bullying Anna was becoming a daily occurrence and even though I wrote everything up and sent it to the office, no one seemed to care. She was just as bad in the CHOICE room (a.k.a. in school suspension); she screamed and threw books all over the room. Principal Franklin made a decision that she could no longer go to CHOICE because she was such problem there, so from then on she was sent straight to the office whenever she was out of hand. That wasn’t working either. Whenever I sent her I imagined her sitting on the nice chairs, waiting for an administrator to smile and say, “Okay, it says here that you were trying to stab Anna with a pencil. Why did you do that?”
“She made me mad.”
“What should you do the next time you are mad?”
“Tell a teacher.”
“Right, do you think you should apologize to Anna?”
“Yes.”
“You think you are ready to go back and apologize?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, I don’t want to see you again, ok?”
“Yes, ma’am.”

When she came back, she walked right at Anna with her fist instead of a pencil. By the middle of March during one of my conversations with Anna’s mom, she said she was tempted to tell Anna to just beat up Laila because nothing else was stopping the bullying. I was at the point that I almost agreed with her. I had talked with the principal, assistant principal, social worker, discipline administrator, and most of the teachers in my hall, but this time I talked with the school’s police officer about my frustration with Laila, and she said she was going to have a talk with Laila’s mom. I left messages with mom at least three times per week, but she always acted like she didn’t know what to do. It turned out that the police officer had already driven Laila home multiple times, and whenever she dropped her off at the door, mom never allowed the officer to come in. She told me it was a classic sign there was something bad going on at home. So she told mom she could either make an appointment at Children’s Hospital for Laila, or she would call social services. There was an appointment the next day. After the appointment, I was told to call a counselor if there were any more problems with Laila, and it wasn’t long before Laila threatened Anna again. I called, and the counselor came to pick Laila up from school. She was at a psychiatric hospital for the next two weeks.

After she returned, I got to speak with Laila’s mom about her visit. She told me she wasn’t able to visit Laila, but she did talk to her on the phone. Mom said she was doing well, but she was still the same old Laila, even in the hospital.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she told me that she hadn’t fought with anyone.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“Yeah, then she said she only locked a girl in a closet.”
“Okay…”
“Yeah she said that the girl had slapped her so instead of hitting her, she locked her in the closet for the afternoon, I mean, at least she didn’t hit her back.”

When Laila came back, she was medicated, and she was well-behaved for the first day. The next day, she threatened to slap Anna, and the psychiatrist eventually doubled her prescription. It was clear that mom didn’t want to give her daughter medication, so she decided not to refill the prescription when it ran out.