Demon Child
Sep. 17th, 2003 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapSo, yesterday I show up at work at 11:15 and my twenty-one third graders are in then middle of writer's workshop. Twenty of them have a sheet of notebook paper in front of them, or, in the case of those over-achievers who always finish assignments early, the jar-shaped piece of paper which is clearly intended to go on a bulletin board.
One is eating a bagel and smearing cream cheese and jelly all over the place. That would be Demon Child.
I confront Demon Child. "What are you doing? Why are you eating? You're supposed to be working."
"This is my breakfast." Demon Child responds, mouth full of bagel.
"This isn't breakfast time. Do you see anyone else eating breakfast?"
No response, until I start taking his breakfast away and he goes all grabby, but I manage to get it set on the file cabinet which is next to his table seat. He is not particularly forthcoming as to the precise nature of the assignment, which is not terribly surprising, and Wendy is deep in conferencing, so I ask other kids. They're writing up fluffy little blurbs about what makes them and their names and their families and their pets and their Gameboy Advances special to go on a bulletin board about The Name Jar, the book the whole school read together to kick off the year. This is a ridiculously easy assignment.
I return to Demon Child. Demon Child, unlike everyone else in the room, has a piece of red paper with a brainstorming diagram on it, the likes of which I have not seen in the classroom either this year or the preceding one, and I still do not know where he got it. He will not let me see the red piece of paper. He will not respond to anything I say, actually, he just looks away, even wanders away.
Now, it's just as well that I haven't got the slightest intention of becoming an elementary school teacher, because I am disinclined to play disciplinarian and all that. But here's the thing: in all the time I've been working, I haven't had to. Certainly not in the second week of classes. I don't even know what I'm supposed to threaten him with, especially when the situation escalates:
He wanders out of the room! WTF? Who does that? Are we supposed to send him to the principal, or what? Hell if I know, but I do get him back into the room, where he proclaims that the red piece of paper, which has a brief sentence in three of the four clouds, is his draft. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Show your draft to Wendy, Demon Child, I say. Only I don't call him Demon Child, of course. I just think it really, really loudly.
Wendy approves his draft. I guess she doesn't want to fuck with it either, at least not at this stage in the game. He is issued a paper jar and writes his three short sentences on it, which doesn't take him very long, as it jolly well shouldn't, it's less than two lines on normal-sized notebook paper, and all of three lines on the jar. Meanwhile, I'm getting everyone else up to speed, urging them on, answering spelling questions, et cetera, et cetera.
Next thing I know, Demon Child is digging through the trash can, retrieving everyone else's nice, proper-length drafts, smoothing them out, folding them up, and pocketing them. Why? Why does he do this? Okay, some of my third graders were amateur dumpster divers too, but none of them did anything like collecting every instance of an assignment and keeping them. They did stuff like picking out flowers or paper rulers or rubber bands or whatever, and, which is of course key, they knocked it off when I told them to put their prizes away and get back to work, unless it was choice time or something. Demon Child ... God only knows what's going through his head on the subject.
Why? Why, why, why, why, why?
Grr.
One is eating a bagel and smearing cream cheese and jelly all over the place. That would be Demon Child.
I confront Demon Child. "What are you doing? Why are you eating? You're supposed to be working."
"This is my breakfast." Demon Child responds, mouth full of bagel.
"This isn't breakfast time. Do you see anyone else eating breakfast?"
No response, until I start taking his breakfast away and he goes all grabby, but I manage to get it set on the file cabinet which is next to his table seat. He is not particularly forthcoming as to the precise nature of the assignment, which is not terribly surprising, and Wendy is deep in conferencing, so I ask other kids. They're writing up fluffy little blurbs about what makes them and their names and their families and their pets and their Gameboy Advances special to go on a bulletin board about The Name Jar, the book the whole school read together to kick off the year. This is a ridiculously easy assignment.
I return to Demon Child. Demon Child, unlike everyone else in the room, has a piece of red paper with a brainstorming diagram on it, the likes of which I have not seen in the classroom either this year or the preceding one, and I still do not know where he got it. He will not let me see the red piece of paper. He will not respond to anything I say, actually, he just looks away, even wanders away.
Now, it's just as well that I haven't got the slightest intention of becoming an elementary school teacher, because I am disinclined to play disciplinarian and all that. But here's the thing: in all the time I've been working, I haven't had to. Certainly not in the second week of classes. I don't even know what I'm supposed to threaten him with, especially when the situation escalates:
He wanders out of the room! WTF? Who does that? Are we supposed to send him to the principal, or what? Hell if I know, but I do get him back into the room, where he proclaims that the red piece of paper, which has a brief sentence in three of the four clouds, is his draft. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Show your draft to Wendy, Demon Child, I say. Only I don't call him Demon Child, of course. I just think it really, really loudly.
Wendy approves his draft. I guess she doesn't want to fuck with it either, at least not at this stage in the game. He is issued a paper jar and writes his three short sentences on it, which doesn't take him very long, as it jolly well shouldn't, it's less than two lines on normal-sized notebook paper, and all of three lines on the jar. Meanwhile, I'm getting everyone else up to speed, urging them on, answering spelling questions, et cetera, et cetera.
Next thing I know, Demon Child is digging through the trash can, retrieving everyone else's nice, proper-length drafts, smoothing them out, folding them up, and pocketing them. Why? Why does he do this? Okay, some of my third graders were amateur dumpster divers too, but none of them did anything like collecting every instance of an assignment and keeping them. They did stuff like picking out flowers or paper rulers or rubber bands or whatever, and, which is of course key, they knocked it off when I told them to put their prizes away and get back to work, unless it was choice time or something. Demon Child ... God only knows what's going through his head on the subject.
Why? Why, why, why, why, why?
Grr.
