Kenwood Elementary – Mrs. Williams, 3rd Grade – 2.5hrs
Today is the only day this week I can come in since Kenwood’s spring break starts on Friday. It’s been an interesting and insightful day for me. The girl who needs extra attention has been having one of the worst behavioral days of the days I have been present. She didn’t want to take a test so she began to disrupt the class and I come into the office to find her there. She’s happy to see me and I bring her back up to class. I let her talk about what’s been happening today but I wasn’t able to here her, I just thought she wanted to talk and it didn’t matter so much what I heard. She tends to go off on tangents.
The class was still taking a test and she wasn’t going in, I figured I would just let her talk and paint. It was a good way of distracting her from the other kids while they tested. However, the students unexpectedly come out for lunch and saw she was painting. This ended in some kids asking why she got to paint while they had to test. Honestly, it was only to distract her but it looked so much like reward for misbehaving. I do feel badly about it. Luckily, some kids thought she did a good job and clapped for her painting skills, which resulted in the rest of the class calming down and clapping too. Still, it wasn’t fair that she got to do something considered fun by most kids.
At lunch Mrs. Williams and I were talking about the situation, she wasn’t mad about it but told me that I was being “played” by this little girl. I didn’t protest because I know that Mrs. Williams knows more than I do about this girl’s personality and the sort of actions she’s prone to doing. I had asked if she wanted a coat because I noticed she wasn’t wearing one. However, she tried to come inside with me and I told her she had to ask Mrs. Williams first.
She was rejected and so was I, since I was only going to go get her a coat and not anyone else. Now, I notice that I have been paying way too much attention to one student during some of my time here. I’ve learned that I need to be more aware of my actions and how it affects the students around me.