Thursday, November 9, 2006

One of them.
Today one of my students became very upset while working on a problem. He cried. This was very unlike him because he usually has no academic challenges, and the math problem should have been relatively easy for him. He’s been on my mind, so I’m just going to GO ON A TANGENT about him.

I’ll refer to him as the random letter “Z.”

I adore this student. There are two students in the class that I secretly dote on, and he is one of them. When I first met Z, I wondered who in the world is this short kid with stylish hair, wears black pants and a band t-shirt everyday, and refers to himself as a “punk”? I noticed as the days went by that he was an excellent student in mathematics, spelling, comprehension, problem solving, and so on. Not only that, but his punkish demeanor is deceiving to the eye, because he yields to authority figures and shows his fellow students respect. Z’s also a daredevil, often jumping off of high places during recess, sliding down stairway rails, and skateboarding. He loves skateboarding.

One day during recess he came up to me, and told me his brother got into a fight and hurt. I didn’t know he had an older brother. His brother was a skinny medium height blonde kid that looked nothing like him. I looked at his black eye, and warned the group of boys. Z told me his brother got into a fight because he was defending Z. I didn’t know what to do in these situations, and reported it to my cooperating teacher as the older kids went up stairs. My teacher actually had Z’s older brother as a student 2 years ago. She hurried to the kid’s class and asked the teacher if they knew what happened. No one noticed one of the students had a black eye after recess. She told them what happened, they pulled the boys out, and the brother began to bawl. It must have seemed to him that no one was aware of this, and no one seemed to care, so I guess it was a relief for him to get some justice.

After school some of the teachers discussed this, and my cooperating teacher mentioned something really interesting. When she had Z’s older brother, she was a little worried about him. She thought he might have been depressed. A depressed child! That’s so sad… =*(

Another day during recess, I watched Z smash rocks by throwing them with great force. Even though he was a short kid, I’ve always thought he had muscular arms and big hands. Except for his height, he has athletic features. To think, these 10-year-old arms and hands could smash these big rocks. I walked closer to observe as he threw a rock mightily into the meeting of two cement planes. The hand-sized rock burst and I shrieked, afraid one of the pieces will hit me. Z asked if I was hit, and I assured him I was OK. I asked him what in the world was he doing, and he showed me that he discovered that these giant dull rocks actually had a marble-like interior. I was really surprised that he’d realized this on his own! The rocks he broke were so beautiful inside… I noticed he had a sort of assembly going on. His friends were sitting in a circle, grinding the rock shards into sand-like pieces. The final result was a fine crystal-like grain of a pinkish color. It was marvelous. I noticed earlier in the day that he had really pretty grains of sand in a plastic cereal bowl on his desk, but never did it cross my mind that he made them.

Z did something really strange one day. He hit somebody. I turned around, and one of the boys was crying and holding onto his belly. What in the world? Then I find out Z did it, and what did Z have to say for himself? He said that he was supposed to be somebody’s bodyguard, and he was doing his job when he hit that boy to protect the other boy. He got sent to the principal’s office.

The Vice Principal talked to him, and mentioned that sometimes we have things going on at home that bothers us and we take these feelings to school. Z told her that there was something going on at home that bothered him. I was told that he cried so much. I don’t know if the Vice Principal asked the appropriate question, because for children, if you suggest something, they may just agree with you. She then called his dad, and told him what happened, and told him that Z said there was something going on at home that bothered him. His dad didn’t react much, and that was the end of that. My coop teacher commented that that was weird because he usually checks up on Z a lot through email and communication with her.

So today we had someone from Pizza Hut come by to teach a fractions lesson with pizza. Then they provided the children with free pizza. They were all so excited. =]. Before the teacher handed out the pizza, she gave them a pizza problem. Everyone worked on this problem with fervor, and when they were finished, they showed her their paperwork, and got some pizza. Now, everyone gets pizza, even if you don’t finish the problem, you’ll get some but not as soon as others who finished earlier. I’m walking around, assisting everyone with the problem. I thought I was done, and everyone got pizza, but I suddenly noticed, hey, Z is still working on his! That’s weird. Then I realized that his face looked flustered, even though his hair covered his eyes. I realized he was upset. He covered and wiped his face with a paper towel on his desk, and he kept drawing circles on his paper. I think he was crying. He said he didn’t want any pizza, though the teacher set some on his desk. Then everyone got dismissed for lunch, but Z remained sitting at his desk fixated on his paper. I took the children downstairs for lunch, and came up to see the teacher talking to him. He then got up, took his pizza and left the room.

The teacher and I discussed a little about what happened. I thought that perhaps the pressure to get done and get pizza threw him off. The teacher said that perhaps there was something else on his mind. That never occurred to me. Now this student has been a little heavy on my heart. I watched him during recess when he fell face forward on the gravel, lost a shoe in the process, and didn’t even pout a bit. The day ended normally, but his behavior’s been on my mind.





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