I'm always surprised at how quickly the violence unfurls. I'm standing in front of my classroom door at 2:25, because my sixth graders always go nuts and try to get out of the classroom early. While I'm fending them off a girl is trying to egg on some minor drama between two others. It's so petty and ridiculous that I'm not paying much attention, particularly given the two girls involved are not known as fighters. One is bookish and quiet and the other is way laid back. Next thing I know the instigator grabs the bookish girl's hand and slaps it into the laid-back girls face, and the fight is on. Laid back quickly batters bookish into a defensive crouch, and then bookish is on the floor with her shirt over her face flailing wildly (laid back has a fistful of her collar, and pulled the shirt up over her opponent's eyes). I burst through a crowd of screaming giddies just in time to see laid back knee bookish sharply right in the nose through her shirt. I hear a disgusting squelching noise and then I'm between them and barking at the cheering crowd to back off. Then I'm pulling bookish out the door--she's still throwing punches and has no idea that she's flailing at me instead of laid back.
Because bookish is half-white they're all packing her: white princess can't fight, cracker got what she deserved, the field hand beat the mistress, etc. I spent 15 minutes after school writing up incident reports, but the administrator wasn't even in the building today.
Three days to Spring Break. I am so wiped, I can't gin up any enthusiasm. It's all "read your book and answer questions" bullshit right now, because the kids are DONE after the MSA. I'm a let them slide until after Spring Break, when I start getting them ready for high school (whether they like it or not).
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