Thursday, August 23, 2007

Public School Tales: vol. 1

I have been working in the School District of Philadelphia for four years now. In about one week I will start my fifth year and I will be teaching 5th Grade (something I've never done before). I've taught Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 6th Grade and 7th Grade but never 5th Grade. I was also a substitute for three years, so I've "taught" thousands of students in hundreds of different classrooms in about 20 different schools in just about every region of the city. So, I've seen some shit.

One day I was substituting in a Kindergarten class (Kindergarten, remember that, it will make the story more crazy) and some sort of fight breaks out. I don't really remember the details, fights are pretty common. I think it was probably something really small. I went over to break it up. I pull the girl (yes, it was a girl) who started it away from the other student. Here's where it starts to get interesting. The girls keeps struggling and trying to hit the other kid. It gets to the point where I have to hold both of her hands behind her back like they're in handcuffs. While I'm holding her hands she jumps up and kicks the kid in the face. Kicks the other kid in the face!

Three years latter I meet the girl again and she's actually a very sweet young lady but she still gets into fights constantly.

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