An inch of frosty snow lay on the ground when we got up. The wind still howled. The wind and flurries only got worse when I took off for work at 6:15. The storm clouds covered the moon which would have otherwise lighted the roads more, but today it was a dark and dreary drive that reminded me more of central Illinois during a blizzard. The schools were not closed today in SV, but they were closed in Bisbee and Tombstone.
By the end of the school day any snow that had fallen had melted, and only a few northern walls had some snow lingering in the cool shadows. By the time I got back home there was only vague evidence that it had snowed early in the day.
And what a day it was. I actually had a great class with Seniors finishing up mock murder trial to two World History students that spent the hours writing an essay on what it was like to be an explorer in the Age of Exploration.
The students were bright and inquisitive. But there was one student who started one class with an emotional outburst. Because we were going over a mock murder trial I initially thought she was acting out her role a little too vociferously. After her first expletive I knew she had stepped over the line.
"You have no idea what a court is really like. I'm dealing with a custody court right now and you have no idea!" she went on. She was standing, pointing a finger at me, and her blood-shot eyes looked fierce.
"You can't compare a murder trial to a custody trial" I reminded her, referring to the differences between criminal and civil courts. She wanted none of that.
"You sit down, woman!" she ordered me. "This court is just bullshit!" That's when I knew she best needed some time out and directed her to go to the main office with the class aide. Classmates around her were backing away and her red eyes warned me that perhaps she could get violent. She had to leave to keep others around her safe. Just then a security guard came in and was able to quietly take the student out of the room.
The students told me afterwards that I handled the student very well. She didn't scare me, but I was nervous for the other students. Once again students who have been with her told me that she has frequent emotional outburts in class and that the regular teacher just takes her outside to calm down.
"She called you a Bitch, Miss, I wouldn't have put up with that" said one student. I honestly did not hear that from the enraged student, perhaps because I was more worried about her proximity to her classmates and focused on her body language. One student did take out his cell phone camera and recorded the rant; I told him not to ever post that on YouTube for the sake of the student's privacy.
The security guard later told me the student quickly calmed down after she was taken out of the room.
"She apologized to me right away for creating a scene but she also said she was glad you [I] didn't get her in any more trouble." (That last part is not quite true; I submitted documentation of the incident to school authorities during my lunch hour.)
This is my second "emotionally disabled" student in as many days. I'm starting to wonder if I'm attracting all these students my way?! Today's incident, however, was one of the worst since leaving that 6th grade class last fall. Today, however, I was not nervous or upset about the outcome. I didn't lose my temper, I got help as soon as I could, the class was very cooperative (most were even apologetic to me saying the student treated yesterday's sub just as badly) and I tried to keep the students from talking about the student after the incident.
"It was obvious that she was suffering from something that's happening in her home life and the trial just brought that out today, so please be polite to her and don't tease her about her outburst."
If I keep getting all these troubled students every day, maybe I'll just join a monastery myself. My goodness, there are a lot of troubled young people out there! I spent a lot of time filling out paperwork in the afternoon.
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