I have a student in my class who continually causes problems. He leaves trash on the floor and in the desk and never puts his science equipment away at the end of class. When I'm attempting to talk to my class, this student interrupts me. When the class is supposed to be working on an activity, and somebody is up running around or not doing his work, it's always the same student. If somebody is throwing paper or something else, it's always that student.
Last week, somebody had been playing with some springs which I had stored in a cabinet, and he left one on the floor and one in the desk. After asking the class who was responsible for this misbehavior, I discovered that it was the same student who is always causing problems in my class.
Recently, one of our students sabotaged the sinks in one of our restrooms along with writing on one of the stalls. When I asked the students if they knew who the culprit was, they told me the same name as the person who had caused so many problems in my class.
Even in the cafeteria this same person was throwing food and leaving trash where he had been eating. When asked who had left the mess on the table, the students all replied with the same name of the person who had been causing all of the other problems in our school. Also, when problems occurred on the busses on the way to or from school, and the students were asked who had caused the problems, again it was that same person.
Finally, last Wednesday I had enough of this student's delinquent antics and assigned him four days of detention including Saturday. I didn't have any free time to take the detention slip to the office myself, and therefore asked a dependable sixth grade student to take the detention slip to the office for me. I also asked the student to inform the secretary that I would not tolerate that student in my class any longer.
I realize that this was a considerably serious task to ask a sixth grade girl to accomplish for me and would have preferred to carry it out myself, but I couldn't leave my class for fear that that same person would cause problems. I can imagine the conversation that would have ensued had I been able to deliver the message.
"This student has continually caused disruptions in my class. He constantly misbehaves, and I do not intend to tolerate his misbehavior any longer!"
"What grade is this student in?"
"The sixth grade and the eighth grade."
"How can a student be in both the sixth grade and the eighth grade?"
"I don't know. I suppose that the computer miraculously created one of its infamous schedules."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about every time we receive a new student, the computer assigns that student to my largest class. Why can't the computer assign the new student to one of my smaller classes?"
"It's a scheduling problem."
"Well, there you go, a scheduling problem has caused this student to be in both my sixth grade and my eighth grade classes. By the way, who's responsible for my having a class of ten students and then a class of twenty-one students?"
"Not me!"
" Well, there you go, he's even messed up our scheduling!"
"Who are you talking about?"
"Not Me, who is the same student who has wreaked havoc all over our school! I'm assigning Not Me to four days of detention and then kicking him out of my class!"
