Today is 12-12-12 and according to
the newspaper, that makes it Dia de la Suerte (day of luck). So I hope everyone is having a lucky day.
Tomorrow my class is going to Cusco
for a field trip. We are going to go to
the zoo and a park. I am nervous because
I think the only chaperones for this adventure are going to be Vanessa, the
principal, and me. With the 18 crazy,
5-year-old students. I wish tomorrow was
Dia de la Suerte.
This week, Vanessa has been giving
the kids, who have been crazier than normal because they know Christmas is
almost here, warnings that if they do bad things or don’t complete work well
then they aren’t going to be allowed to go to Cusco. Both the kids and Vanessa, I think, realize
this is an empty threat, but usually it makes the kids behave a little
better. Today, Vanessa left a half hour
early, leaving me to glue pages into the kids notebooks for homework, have the
kids clean up the classroom and complete more worksheets, while Dora the
Explorer was playing. Given that the
TV was on, I had no control over the kids, so I decided to turn off the TV and
tell the students that they didn’t have to do any more work but they had to
clean up their tables and the classroom before they were allowed to watch Dora. Usually this creates an immediate reaction of
cleaning extremely fast, but given the recent increase in craziness among these
students, instead of cleaning chaos ensued.
There was a group of boys in the back of the classroom wrestling on the
floor, kids were running around with scissors, Diego went to get a broom to
help clean but then Frandud decided he wanted to sweep instead and then the two
boys ended up wrestling over the broom and Diego got poked in the eye and
started crying. While I was trying to
comfort Diego, who wasn’t actually that hurt, Flordeli decided she didn’t want
to clean up and would rather go home, so she picked up her backpack and headed
out the door. When I yelled her name to
come back, she gave me a big grin, as if to say, “I dare you to come and get
me.” I didn’t because right then Reyna
punched Marco or pulled his hair or something and he was standing in the middle
of the room sobbing. Oy. There was so much noise and commotion in the
classroom, I could barely think.
Once I got Marco calmed down, I went
back to the door to see if Flordeli had come back - she had, I think she was
surprised I didn’t come after her. I
told her that if she didn’t come back and clean up her spot (which was messier
than anyone else’s) she was not going to be able to go to Cusco tomorrow -
following Vanessa’s lead. She didn’t
come back and we only had two more minutes until it was time to leave so I got
all the other kids in a line to leave.
Finally the whistle blew to say the school day was over and I let all
the kids leave. I was just going to
forget about Flordeli and leave her place a mess for Vanessa to find, but I
guess the other kids had heard me tell her she wasn’t going to go to Cusco if
she didn’t clean up and pretty soon, Flordeli came running back to the
classroom sobbing. At first I didn’t
remember telling her she couldn’t go to Cusco, because there had been so many
other things going on and I had heard Vanessa use the same threat without any
consequences a hundred times. After
asking her lots of questions - are you mad at me? No. Are you mad at your
brother? No. What happened? No answer. Do you think my scarf is ugly? This got
a laugh and smile, but no answer. It
finally hit me that I had told her she couldn’t go to Cusco and I felt
horrible, I asked if she wanted to go to Cusco and she nodded and started
crying again. I quickly told her that
she was of course allowed to go to Cusco if she would just clean up her table
with my help really quick. We cleaned up
the table and then I was surprised that Flordeli wanted to wait for me while I
cleaned up the classroom and locked the door.
I thought she would hate me, but Flordeli and I walked to the main
street hand in hand talking about going to Cusco tomorrow. I am glad I was able to work everything out,
but feel bad that I caused the problem in the first place.
Speaking of crying children, which
seems to be happening a lot lately (I think because it is near the end of the
year) this past Thursday, Diego was crying alone outside during recess. I went up to him and asked him what was
wrong. He finally told me that his grandmother
had said that she would be right back with fruit for his snack. I think she had been gone barely a
minute. I reassured him that his abuela
would be back soon and everything would be fine. He sulked for a few minutes, until Grandma
came back with his mango.
So,
given the craziness and the crying, we will see how the day goes tomorrow. I hope I am not the one crying by the end of the day.
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