Drama Queens and Dog-doo...

So, today was an interesting day at Westland Elementary. First of all, the weather has been unseasonably warm and the sun has been shining a lot these days. All good, don't get me wrong. But I think all that vitamin D is making the kids' brains loopy.

The kids where is high spirits. There was a lot of "slow down," "be careful," "get off that tree," "no kicking," "no sliding on your coat down the hill," etc. I blew my whistle numerous times during the 1-4 grade recesses.

Mary, one of our most prevalent characters, was not having a good day. It started with her and one of her friends walking on to the playground right after lunch. I heard Mary say, "I am going to play with some other girls. I'll play with you all day tomorrow." (Tomorrow is a holiday - no school). Mary's friend looked quite sad about this, so I asked what was going on. After Mary explained, I mentioned that everyone should be allowed to play. We need to be a friend to everyone. Mary didn't like my reasoning. Then she proceeded to call me "mean" and I'm always on other kids' side and never on her side. She started to run away. I kept calling out and calmly tried to explain I was not coming down on her (I spoke with my best "Donna Reed" voice I could muster.) Well, then someone opened the door (which they are not supposed to do during recess!) and Mary charged into the school. I ran after her and she turned around, after calling out to her about four times, and said she needed to get her coat. Uh huh, right. So I followed her into her classroom where her teacher was sitting at her desk. (Thank you, God, that she was there!) Mrs. Raleigh told Mary that she knew better than to come in for her coat (students are supposed to bring their coats with them when they leave for recess. If they forget, they can go to lost and found to use another coat. This is so teachers can have some peace and quiet while they get their lessons ready.) Mary walked out of the room in a huff and I told her I needed to take her to the Principal's office. "Why!!!! You're SO MEAN TO ME!!!! I'M NOT GOING!!!" And she sat in the hall next to her class with her hands folded in defiance. I said, "Ok. I'm going to get some help." Then walked to the office and asked one of the secretaries to come with me to get Mary. Well, when we returned to the class, she was gone. So, we walked outside and looked around for her. There she was, acting like nothing happened. When we called out to Mary, she looked at us like nothing happened. The secretary talked to her and brought her to the office. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to fend off all the questions of "What happened with Mary?"

Shortly thereafter, Jack got into some action. One of the first grade boys came over crying and holding his arm. He told me Jack threw a piece of ice at him which hurt his arm. "Where's Jack?" No one knew where he was. He ran away so he wouldn't get in trouble! I told the little boy that I'd talk to Jack after recess and I'll speak to his teacher as well. So, the bell rings and here he comes, like nothing happened. When I started talking to him, he just looked at me with his "innocent" eyes and just walked away. "Sigh." So, again, I had to walk into his classroom and speak to the substitute teacher. I walked out as she was trying to get Jack to understand the consequences of his actions.

I really feel for these teachers. And speaking to several of them, they have told me it's more like a daycare with etiquette lessons than a school of the "3 R's."

The last thing I will share about this day, is that during the 5-6 grade recess, someone found a nice pile of dog poop. It was frozen solid in a patch of ice. And it was right next to the kick ball field (of course). And you know, as soon as I started telling students to watch out for it, several students walked right towards it (unbeknownst) and I had to stay in the area reminding absent-minded students to not step there! So, decided to place a large rock on top, since I could not remove the solid mass of frozen feces. This action then caused several students to trip over the rock, right after I told them to look where they were going! Understand that before the first student told me about the poop, no one was walking in this area! Afterwards, a parade seemed to form and the marching path included stepping in dog doo. Another "sigh."

Well, I guess that's why they hire people like me to patrol recess. How do you, parents with large families, do it??!!