Stopping and Taking Stock

As I alluded to yesterday, the past two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, including all sorts of drama and excitement. And I have barely had time to write, but yesterday after my post about Simon Says, something happened that made me take stock again, caused me to pause and re-evaluate and even smile a bit.

After my remarks about my lack of patience yesterday, my students did something that regardless of my lack of patience would have caused me to lose it (although given that we had only just introduced bathroom passes yesterday on another day I might have been annoyed but not mad). We had just finished playing Simon Says and doing math, and then there was a kerfuffle in the hall - I looked out and THREE of my students were on the floor, having tackled one girl for the aforementioned bathroom pass (the reason for the bathroom passes is another part of the ever-going saga, involving the conversation I had after school on Wednesday with the mother of SG - the girl who is constantly fighting with JY and, because she is half Canadian and half Korean, is a minority in a society that is very insular). I couldn't believe it. I was so angry at them for disregarding my rules AND for causing a spectacle in the hall, that I raised my semi-existent and very raspy voice and yelled (I even shut the door loudly!). And then I made them write essays about WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW THE RULES. And their responses just made me melt. Here are a few of my favorites (no those are not typos - and I wish I could include the handwriting):

"Because we just want to play and we want to do what we want to do. first but sometimes just our class get good and fun things, but we agree and sometimes say bad words." ~ HL

"I can't follow rules -
1. Speaking korean
2. talking in Journal
3. running hallway
4. hitting
5. not listening
We can't follow rules because it's to hard. We just don't want to do. We forget ~ I don't know why I'm doing this thing that get's trouble. It's hard to make me do clear things. We don't think what happen and just doing." ~ ES

"It is hard to follow becaus we cant play in plaing time. we went to play whet we went" ~ YB

And the one that made me tear up:

"I try to follow rules the other's do to but we get to exited and we forget about the rules. I know that I should not break them but sometimes I Just forget. I feel so bad, I feel like I need to go to Jail when you get angry. We act like we don't like but deep inside we do. I don't like to break rules but sometimes it slips out of my mind. I am so sorry. SORRY (very sad face)." ~ AM

And the poor girl who was out of the room when the kerfuffle happened (with the other bathroom pass) and didn't know why we were writing essays:

"???.....I don't know what am wrong but sorry teacher because I make you sad. but I want to say this I didn't do in purpose." ~ JY

It's moments like these when I remember just how lucky I am to have this group of kids as my first class ever. And how amazingly resilient kids are. And how incredible it is that they came in smiling this morning, as usual.