The drama of yesterday had subsided - in my circle, anyway. We had talked - Teresa, Jenessa, Kati and I - at the beginning of the day, but then nothing more happened. After school I went to Diana to thank her for her reassuring response yesterday, because it really meant a lot to me. She was sweet and brushed off my thanks. I pressed again, saying, no, really, it was exactly the thing I needed to hear, but she chuckled and brushed it off again.
Then she said that Buzz had come to her today and said he wanted to have a meeting with all the elementary teachers to talk about the 2-grade classrooms. I guess he was hoping it could be put to a vote or something silly like that, and since he, Missy and SJ are all on the "Montessori is lame" team, and me and Jenessa are the only 6-12 teachers who aren't, he thought he could pressure Diana into a change. Her response to him just made me so happy. She said no, she wasn't going to call a meeting, but that she wanted to have a meeting with *just him.* I reallyreallyreally hope she can be perfectly blunt and tell him that he's got to stop skulking around the school trying to change the nature of what we are. Stop trying to stage a mutiny!
But I love Diana. I am so glad she's in charge of the school and that she's seeing this behavior for what it is. Someday soon, we'll be a true Montessori school again.
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In class things went nicely again. I felt a bit more pressed for time, and Tower Tuesday was not the raging success it's been in the past, though it went well. There were math groups in the morning *and* afternoon, and there was a language group in the afternoon. It made it just a bit more difficult to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the classroom. I'm sure I'll adjust.
There is a student I don't like much, and I'm trying to change that. She's the oldest of four children, and mom is expecting again. She always has a look on her face that is not endearing - like she's afraid I'm going to haul off and smack her. And she's spacey. So I haven't built a strong relationship with her. I'm working on it. I'm consciously trying to smile and connect with her when she talks to me. I want to like her, and I want her to *feel* that I like her. It's one of those, "fake it until you make it" things, I guess.
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Case Study
I didn't keep JS on my radar as well as I would have liked today. There was so much more going on in the classroom, that I frequently lost track of her. To her detriment, I must add. She didn't get much of anything done this morning - spent a good chunk of the morning drawing. No surprise there. In the afternoon she enjoyed music class and had her first math group. She seemed to enjoy it.
At lunch there was an altercation with CB. I didn't see it, but the aftermath was unmistakable. Another teacher brought the two of them to me, and she was screaming and crying, and CB seemed a little flustered by it all. He was saying, "She said I got out of line, but she *pushed me* out of line!" She would respond by leaning into his space - into his face, really - and SCREAMING, "You DID get out of line!" This was followed by huge gulping sobs and loud hysterical wails. I put them at a table to work it out, but it quickly became obvious that method wasn't going to work today, as the above conversation was repeated two or three times. I intervened, and tried to calm her down so they could work it out. She responded by grunting loudly and again more loudly. I sent CB to get his lunch and told JS she needed to calm down, and we'd talk when she was ready. I went back to my table to give her some space, but that didn't work. Her loud grunts continued until she finally put her hands (or was it her feet?) on the table in front of her and shoved it away from her. It hit the wall.
I knew I had to take another angle on this. I don't remember exactly what I did or said, all I know is that I got a little silly, and the silliness helped. It pulled her out of her grumpy place, and she laughed a little. Then I asked her if she was ready to talk to CB. She said she was, so I told her I was going to go get him, but I first talked her through how the conversation *might* go.
"You could say, 'You got out of line!' but he'll just say, 'No I didn't! You pushed me!' It could go back and forth like that all day!
"No."
"So maybe you'll say, 'It *looked to me* like you got out of line,' or 'I *thought* you got out of line,' and he'll say, 'I didn't know you thought I got out of line. I felt like I was pushed.' Maybe it will go something like that?
She said she was, so I went and got CB. Moments later they were both dashing back across the lunch room with smiles. They had worked it out, and all was well. I don't know exactly how it was resolved, but they did it *on their own.*
I'm reading Unconditional Parenting right now, and there's a suggestion that might have been useful during this altercation: Kohn suggests that you ask the child to tell you what happened, but to tell you the story as *the other child* might have experienced it. I don't know if JS is capable of stepping outside herself to take another child's perspective, but it's worth a shot.
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