Spring is in the Air and other random activities…
For a child nothing says Spring like the thrill of playing in ice cold water on muddy playfields, breaking through thin ice and getting soakers. It brings back fine memories from my own school days. I was always able to find the ditches with the most water and the thinnest ice and do the ultimate dare of determining just how far I could walk in a murky ditch and how high the water could climb to the edge of my rubber boot. I enjoyed the firm pressure of the water as it collapsed my boot against my calf just moments before feeling the first chill of ice water flowing over my woolen soaks. For some the first sign of spring is a Robin, to me it is wet socks.
As a staff we have decided it is a losing battle to devote our energies and adrenaline to the cause of keeping kids out of water. It would be like getting the captain of the Titanic to stop speeding on his maiden voyage across the Atlantic. It is simply self-destructive behavior which when carried out has natural consequences. On the school yard, kids who broke through the ice, or slid on the ice and hurt themselves were often in shock as to how this could happen to them. I heard one kid muttering after getting a complete soaking in ice water, “but I thought the Titanic was unsinkable.”
The other true sign of spring involves going out on the playground and picking up the beer cans and vodka bottles left behind from evening and week end parties. Why on a playground? Are there no better places in town to get drunk or high? Some of the school yard parties can be viewed on You Tube, but no one is easily identified because they are wearing hoodies, but don’t get me going on hoodies.
It is a sad world when I have grade one students eagerly and competitively collecting beer cans from the school yard in order to gather more than I do. I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of being close to a banned substance that motivated them, or the impact of our school’s anti littering campaign. It could go either way.
The bell rang at 8:30, as if by clockwork, and most of the kids walked or ran for the entrance doors. There are always some who hide out on the play apparatus and linger as long as possible to avoid their fate of a prescribed public school education which promotes an agenda of creativity, curiosity and lifelong learning. While on supervision it falls to me to round up the strays and bring them to the corral. I am always amazed how these kids can totally and completely ignore my calls. It is if I did not exist and to them I probably don’t.
Although one group of three boys caught my attention at the far end of the yard totally oblivious to bells, school, real time or anything with the exception of the water beetles they had discovered living in the mud under the ice. I have to admit I was quite impressed too at these hardy little creatures. I also marveled at the respect these kids had for nature, perhaps growing up in a native community, as they took the hard shelled beetles and crushed them sans mercy under their rubber boots. Only then, after the massacre, were they ready to line up for their first class.
My first duty of the day, as I don’t have charge of a homeroom class, was to phone a parent. It was something I was not looking forward to because this man was in a rare class of parents I term, “ultimate assholes.” In my teaching career of 35 years I have come across two other such parents. The first, a father, back in the winter of /85 while teaching at Frank Spragins School in Fort McMurray, the second, was a mother in Kuwait who I eventually made peace with, and the third is Paul Tuccaro, father of Jillian, Elias, Harmony, Summer and Dawson. His wife is a local school board trustee.
Last Friday, in the absence of a substitute teacher for the grade 6 class the duty fell to me. Dawson Tuccaro was the only one giving me grief and attitude. He would do no work and was generally disruptive. Finally, when I gave him my last warning, students always expect clemency after the final warning, I sent him to the office to work. He never got there and was later discovered by the VP hiding in a stairwell probably claiming refugee status.
When I finally asked Dawson to leave the class he said, “No I’ll be good,” which to me reads like a confession. I touched his shoulder and directed him to the door…physical contact!!!! The stakes had now been raised because every kid knows his rights, “YOU CAN’T TOUCH ME”. I responded by saying “Actually I can and you are now leaving. There is no discussion.”
The rest of the day went fine, until I got the call from Dawson’s father, Paul Tuccaro, wanting to know why I manhandled his son and kicked him out of class. This, from the father I was at one time directed by my administration to determine if we could get a restraining order against preventing him from coming near any of the new first year female teachers, those he liked to bully and intimidate. It’s not a big leap to understand why the Tucarro kids feel entitled. They have a bully dad to back them up.
In the staff room today I heard teachers describe three situations I found sadly amusing. The first, involved two students who were arguing as to which of their mother’s was the sluttiest. No one was clear if being more or less slutty was good or bad. The second, involved two girls who were arguing about which of their mother’s had the most abortions, and the numbers were quite high. It may have been the same mothers in both arguments. The last situation involved a girl, Cheyanne, who wanted to use her cell phone in order to bring her mom to school with the purpose of beating up the student teacher who Cheyanne felt was always picking on her. Natural justice.
As I routinely walk through the junior high wing I am ever vigilant to check stairwells and washrooms for those students who have gone AWOL. I came across young Mason an ECS student who often leaves class to hang out here, or worse leave the school. His 19 year old mother wants to know why we can’t stop him from wandering or leaving the school, demanding that we do a better job. While escorting Mason back to ECS I pass any number of kids who are usually out in the hall, Brandon, Darnell, Delvin, Antoine, but most common, Silas from grade 3. He refuses to do work, participate in any activity or stay in the classroom. I believe he has spent more than half of grade three out in the hall, silently just watching us. I am waiting his final report. It should be good.
My grade two student, Theresa, with no short term memory that I can recall told me today during a reading/phonics session, ( we were covering the words: my, this, home, a and is), that mothers know more than fathers because they watch more TV. And you know who am I to disagree.
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