And We're Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Insanity.

Charlotte here!

That didn't take long, did it?

Today was pretty bad.

It was a 4th grade class that I've had once before and - while they weren't exactly little angels - I definitely don't remember them being this insane.

The whole day seemed to consist of them complaining about their work (which, granted, was simply packet after packet of worksheets - totally monotonous), disturbing the people around them, and tattling to me about every. little. thing. And then of course they're "supposed to do the worksheets individually, but they can talk quietly as long as it doesn't get out of hand." Well, we all know how that goes.

The tattling got SO out of hand that I took a leaf out of Rosy's book and explained to them that what I really wanted to hear was them complimenting one another - and promised to give little rewards for each compliment I heard them give to one another. Well, guess what? Barely ANY takers. They were just not interested in saying anything positive about their other classmates.

What they WERE interested in was sneaking to the back of the classroom to get on the (highly off-limits) computer whenever I was bent over helping a student with their worksheet, jumping over tables, drawing all over each other's arms (???), criticizing each other's clothes, calling each other names, stealing calculators from the teacher's cabinet (which was emphatically dis-allowed by the teacher) for their math packets, and you know... just too much craziness to report in full.

I mean, by my usual standards, two-thirds of this class would have been sent to the office.

And THEN an item was stolen from the teacher's desk, and (before the principal was able to determine the culprit) it turned into a classroom version of a witch-hunt ("it was youuu! Nooo! You're only saying it was because it was youuu! Noooo! It was hiiiim! Yes - it was hiiiim! I saw him!" No proof. No credibility. Just pure hysterical vitriol and one spitting-mad substitute screaming for quiet.

Hmm. Yup. Probably could have handled this one better.

I was probably lulled into a false sense of security by how smoothly everything went yesterday.

Tomorrow is 6th-grade math: (Please leave an answer key, kind teacher! Please leave an answer key!)