Fistfights

We had a fistfight at the end of the day. One of my girls beat the piss out of another girl in the hallway. This happened as she was returning from the discipline room. I was attempting to give a spelling test and had no idea this was happening until one of my boys yelled "Fight!" and the entire class got up and stampeded into the hall to watch. How they knew a fight was happening behind a closed solid wood door, I'll never know. It's as if they can smell a fight like a shark smells blood in the water.

I get outside and it's on. Two little girls beating the Hell out of each other and my students are in a ring around this fight yelling "Kick her ass! Knock her the f#@k out!" I can't separate them and I can't raise security on the class phone. Finally, I'm able to get my class back in the room and the school police arrive and stop the fight.

I shut my door and told my kids to put their heads down and be quiet. I told them how disappointed in them I was. I told them how disgusting their behavior was. I told them how sad it was that they revert to the same behaviors they arrived with in September every time something happens. I told them how sad I was for them that they run to the fights and revel in violence and chaos at every turn and piss all over everyone who tries to do anything positive for them. I told them that they need to start to reflect on different ways of behavior because their ways are wrong. Flat out wrong.

I've been working with these kids since September and it's for nothing. Every time there is any sort of violence or negative act these kids run to it like moths to a flame. What am I doing here? I am doing no good. Pissing in the wind. Swimming against a tsunami. Why?

I get so frustrated with my students, especially when they hurt each other. They get so much pleasure from cruelty. Everything is upside down and inside out and wrong.

Speaking of wrong, we had a teacher appreciation luncheon today and the secretaries, administrators, janitors, police, and lunchroom aides ate it all. They descended on the spread like locusts and devoured it in about 20 minutes. I got one tortilla chip in honor of Cinco de Mayo. A teacher appreciation lunch eaten by the support staff? What the Hell?