Blood

Yep, blood. Lots of it. That's the first thing I saw when I raced out of my classroom 5th hour today when I heard a scream. There in the hallway was Angela, 2 other teachers, and one boy with a bloody mouth. And then came another with a bloody face to match. There had been a sub in the room across the hall and one thing led to another and before anyone knew what had happened, there was a fight. And I was charged with marching them down to the office. So I did, telling one who was dripping to put his shirt to his face and listening to the other one who kept asking me if his tooth was broken or if he was bleeding on the outside as well as the inside of his lip. What excitement.
Add this on top of a day that started with me getting a sub report from yesterday listing 15 names. That resulted in 13 detention forms I had to write out, 5 parent phone calls I had to make tonight, and another 7 I had to ask the parent liason to make because I don't speak Spanish. It was a bad day. I was angry, physically exhausted from the anger and frustration. And it came through. Instead of yelling at my students today, I simply showed my disappointment. I didn't smile or laugh or talk to them. I taught them and let them do their work. And they got the hint quickly. Also, I spent a good portion of my day going across and down the hall to the math teacher's classroom who's on my team. She's having serious behavior problems and she can't handle them so I offered to make my prescence known throughout the day. So as my children worked while trying not to breathe (again, they sensed my hostility), I would go stand in the doorway of her room with arms crossed, glaring. And it seemed to work. Yet I really don't like being the hardass. It makes me very tired and very angry.
To top it off we missed yoga (stupid parent phone calls!) and I am still writing papers for my online course. Yet, I was excited a bit today when I started making lesson plans for the next 5 weeks and got to write "LAST DAY OF SCHOOL" on June 14th. I can't wait.