Hi friends! I just wanted to share something intense that happened during my second placement so that you can be prepared for if--actually, when--it happens in your classroom. One of the girls in my class has a pretty tragic back-story: her mom is a heroin addict and kidnapped her at the beginning of the year for ten days. She spent that time in a drug house in Alabama. Finally, the police found her and returned her home to her father, who I'm sure is a lovely man. However, he lets his daughter watch horror movies (she's five) and has an intense love of guns since he used to be in the army.
This little girl has had several outbursts since I have been in the classroom--all to me, in fact. Today was the final straw and I realized that I had not anticipated this type of behavior beforehand so I thought I'd share! The first comment she made came up during morning work one day. She created a series of animals and had written the number 100 by the daddy animal. When I asked her about it, saying that 100 was a bit old for a daddy, she mentioned that her pop pop had been 99. I told her that 100 was a great age for a grandpa, but not so much for a dad with a little kid. Then, she asked me if death hurt. Since she had just been talking about her pop pop, I was worried she'd have a breakdown or something. So, I said no. Her response? "Oh. I wish it did because I like getting shots (like at the doctor)." I immediately went to my teacher and he mentioned it to the school counselor. She didn't have time to drop by and see our friend, but kept that comment in mind.
A few weeks later, we were building pictures out of shapes. I had given the class a variety of little shape manipulatives for them to trace to create pictures like in the book Mouse Shapes (check it out if you haven't read it--fun resource!). This little girl had drawn a face and used an upside-down trapezoid to make the mouth. When I complimented her face, she thanked me and started to color his mouth in red. She murmured: "that's blood." When I asked her why he was bleeding, she said it was because he had just eaten someone! I mentioned that to my teacher and finally the counselor came to speak with her.
But today was the doozy...we were having a plant party where the students got to try eating a variety of raw fruits and veggies because we were talking about how the food we eat often comes from plants. We were using the data from our tasting to make graphs and write opinion pieces, but in the middle of the tasting session my teacher used a knife to cut open one of the bananas. The little girl then said: "(Mentor teacher's name) is going to kill us all with that knife." I didn't hear her say it but another student did and mentioned it to me. I immediately told my teacher and he sprung into action, removing her from the class, reprimanding her, and then bringing her to the office where they spoke to her and called her father.
I have never had a student say these types of things before and so was shocked when it finally happened...have y'all ever experienced anything like this?
Oh--how sad. One of my students also watches horror movies, such as Saw. My teacher says he likes to describe them in full detail. He's a first-grader. More wholesomely he also watches Spiderman, whom he admires. Part of me wants to underplay the badness and danger in children watching violence. Children have nightmares and scare themselves naturally--they see danger as a part of the world. But mostly it makes me sad and mad and concerned. No child should see such violence or have death taken so flippantly. And what if the child does not get to hear stories of goodness and courage? So all they have is the violence and nothing to fall back on when life gets tough. Anyway. I'm glad the school system provides a way for people who care, counselors and principals and teachers, to take care of children in ways that might be missing at home (not that parents mean to miss that aspect, but being a parent is hard).
ReplyDeleteAnd, side note, these lessons sound awesome!