file under amazing amounts of self-composure

second thing that ruined my day… on the way to take my first grader to the bus, i was accosted by a parent of a child that i do not have in class. and the parent accused me of unduly yelling at her child. the child in question is a mouthy third grade girl who i continually have to talk to in the lunch line to tell her to be quiet. and she huffs at me, rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth and looks at me as if i’m impinging on her god given right to talk in the lunch line. serious attitude. and while i don’t support the quiet in the lunch line, i am forced to enforce it, so i try to. i ask quietly the first time, and usually the second, but last week that girl just rolled her eyes at me one too many times. and i told her to get in the back of the line. and she goes boo-hooing home to mom.

so, i calmly informed mom that her daughter likes to talk in the lunch line and that they are not allowed to talk in the lunch line or at lunch. and that when i ask her to be quiet she rolls her eyes at me and gives me attitude and continues to talk. i also calmly inform mom that she is not the only child to be called out and sent to the back of the line for talking and that i do not yell at the children and i try to be nice to them when i tell them to be quiet (which is generally speaking true, but since all they seem to hear is screaming, it’s often the only option that works…and i will cop to having been a tad sarcastic to her last week, but dear god, she could have gotten hollered at by one of the aides). and mom’s all like, well it’s my job to scold her not yours. and wants me to call her the next time her daughter is talking in the lunch line.

ok, sure. and that conversation would go something like this, “hi, mrs. h, it’s miss z. r keeps talking and she won’t listen to me when i nicely tell her that there is no talking in the lunch line. would you like to talk to her and explain that there is no talking in the lunch line and that applies to her princessly self?”

and this is where the problem of not having written rules and procedures for both staff and students comes in. there is neither a reward for doing the right thing in the lunch line nor a punishment for doing the wrong thing. there is only a bunch of adults, yours truly included, left to yell at them and act completely inconsistently. there needs to be a procedure for what you do when you have to tell a particular child more than 3 times to be quiet at lunch, if that’s a rule they want to enforce. i just don’t understand how you can run a school without a written set of rules that every one knows and understands and without appropriate rewards and consequences. it boggles my mind.

anyway, my main point was that despite everything today, i kept a level head talking to this parent, and i made my point that her child has an attitude problem. it’s not just that she keeps talking, it’s that she rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth and the whole nine yards…