Laying Down the Law

So today I sent my first student to see the principal...

Since I've been teaching 1st grade for a while now my CT is backing off more and sometimes not even coming in the classroom during a class. She saw me teach the first lesson to one class and it went well. So after our short break she decided to stay back in the office and work on some paper work and get some emails sent out. I was feeling great, my next class is always well behaved and speaks tons of French. So I moseyed on down the hall and got set up in the class. The kids were acting well and were calm while I was plugging in all the cables and chords.... all except for one.

He, we'll call him V, was sitting on the carpet, speaking English, trying to stomp on a fly and tie his shoe, all at the same time. Needless to say that was distracting to the other students. But in all fairness I hadn't started class yet. That behavoir didn't stop when I said "bonjour" and got the attention from all the other students. I got the calendar warm-up activity started and addressed V quietly. I told him it was time for French and he needed to focus on himself and on speaking French. I then moved around a bit, staying in that same corner of the carpet listening to other students singing the date and counting and watching V to see if he was checking himself and his attitude. He didn't change his behavior so I walked over to him again to let him know that he needed to go to his table seat. He huffed off and was sitting at his table with his head down.

The class continued. At let me just tell you all, it was a fun class. We were talking about monuments in Paris, doing our made up TPR moves for them and then looking for them on Google Earth. The kids loved looking at Paris and seeing it on the big SMART boards.

Back to the story about V. We had just sung our song about La France and were reviewing the picture cards of the monuments (La Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, L'Arc de Triomphe, Le Louvre) when one of the girls from the back row came up to me to tell me that V had thrown something at her. Two other kids then held up little metal things saying that the same thing happened to them. My brain was starting to hurt. I had to talk to V but I couldn't just leave the class alone doing nothing. I gave one of my mature and advanced students the job of showing the class the pictures. He did a great job with that I have to say. Meanwhile, I was walking over the the table to pull V into the hall to talk to him about being safe and respectful in the class when the principal walked by. I quickly asked her if she could take him and she did.

I just hate that the choices of this one student made me feel so negative about the class. As a whole, the class was excelling. They spoke so much French and were so engaged in the lesson. I love that they sang the song with me even though I never thaught it to them. And I love that we were able to be fun and a little silly with our made up moves for the monuments but then get calm for the next activity. I love that they got so excited about seeing Paris in their classroom. I just had such a yucky feeling leaving.