Today was just one of those days. . .

the kids were driving me crazy. They weren't listening, weren't paying attention, and were being unusually loud. This is the last week before Christmas, we still had snow outside, and we have no school tomorrow, so as a teacher this kind of day is expected, yet still really gets to me.
One little girl drove me crazy all day long. She is a bright little thing, but when she doesn't want to do something, she doesn't. I say stop, she keeps going, I say sit, she stands, I tell her to use markers, she uses crayons. . . she was finding anyway and everyway to disobey me. In the meantime, she got absolutely no work done. By the end of the day. . I was fed up. I had tried talking to her, moving her, bribing her, yet nothing worked. We were working on a math assignment that was too easy for her to begin with yet she just sat there without doing a thing. I kept prodding her a long, warning her, and finally in frustration, I snatched the paper from her desk and said, "You know what this is?? A big fat F!" And I kind of stormed off. (I know it was mean, but I was so done with that child). She laid her head on her desk and began to weep. I ignored her, and we went on to our "fun" activity that she was not allowed to participate in. When that was finished the kids were doing an independent writing assignment so I sat at my desk. This little girl's desk had been moved away from all the other kids during the day (obviously)so she was practically right next to me with her head down. "Cassie," I called to her. Nothing. "Psss... Cassie," I whispered again. . . she turned her head away, showing me that she had heard me, yet chose to ignore me. I had a pile of little papers on my desk that were scratch papers, so I wrote "Hi Cassie" on one, crumpled it up, and chucked it at her head. She looked up, glared at me, picked it up, and tossed it in the trash. So I wrote another. "I love having you in class Cassie," (which at the time, I really was not feeling). Again, I chucked it at her head, again I got the glare, and again, she threw it away. The other kids were noticing at this point, and kind of giggling. Cassie looked up at me as I wrote my third note, "Cassie, why you throwing my notes away?" Crumpled it up and tossed it in her direction. She grabbed it, opened and read it, then preceded to the garbage can to find her thrown out notes. "Hiya Cassie!" landed right on her desk. A smile slowly formed on her little face, yet not for me to see because she wiped it right off when she saw me looking at her. "No smiling Cassie!" "No smiling in mean Miss Kelly's class!" She picked up her pencil, jotted something on the paper, and threw it back at me. I opened it up to find she had crossed the word "mean" off of my note. Haha. . . our notes continured. She eventually told me that she was crying because she had never gotten an F before. I asked if I should give her an A on an assignment she didn't complete. She said "no, that wouldn't be fair." I told her I would give her the grade she deserved as long as she finished the assignment. It was her choice, and i hoped she would make the right one. Then I folded her unfinished assignment that was on my desk into a little airplane and flew it at her. "I'll try!" was her final note and she immediately picked up her pencil and paper and finished the assignment. Throughout the whole thing, not a word was spoken out loud and the rest of the class just kind of looked on with curiosity, amusement, and I think a little jealousy.

The incident with Cassie today was just a little reminder to me that these kids are still just that... kids. 7 year old kids. They have feelings, they get hurt, they can drive ya nuts, but in the end you still gotta love them.