I saw Sleiman (4th grade), with his scrunched up eyebrows, pouted face and clenched fists, sitting in the main office chair with his feet dangling, looking at the ground, as 3 adults were screaming at his face. The secretary of the school, an otherwise smiling, sweet, soft spoken woman, was scolding him with full force exasperated rage. Two other teachers were also taking turns yelling at him.
Minutes before, as I was making last minute photocopies of some worksheets, I saw a crying child run into the same office accompanied by the Math teacher, who had a tissue pressed against the kid's face. Not his face, his eye. I recognized him, though I don't know his name. I knew he was Maher and Mohammad's (twins) younger brother, who was freaking out, because he had a busted head, and the injury was right above his eyebrow. With the clamor of the teachers, the crying kid and the photocopy machine, I couldn't make out anything of the story, except that the name Sleiman Izz was being repeated over and over agian. "damn, my sleiman?" I thought, realizing it was my 4th grader Sleiman who gets into trouble almost daily, almost in every class, and he's been 'kicked out' of the school several times now.
The last time I had taken him to the office was when he took out his pant strings and had playfully tied it around his friend's neck in my class, and by the time I realized what was happening the friend was choking, unable to breathe. The kid behind him took out his small pair of scissors and tried to cut it off. I'm not sure where this reaction and instinct came from, but within seconds I had stormed over to the other side of the room where they were. "BACK OFF!" and I had taken a pair of scissors to cut off the string from the child's neck so that he could breathe.
So here was Slieman again. In the office. Though I felt really terrible looking at him sit in the office with adults screaming down his face, I had absolutely no idea what to do. He's been talked to by the school 'social worker', the principal, his mom, i've had discussions with him, with the principal, and his dad, he's been suspended, kicked out, punished, everything. His answer is always the same when you ask "why did you do this?" "they hit me first!". It's like he never understands the gravity of bad actions, or the fact that pushing someone is bad, punching someone is worse and busting open someone's head is really really reeallly bad. for him, his reactions are all the same, and no matter how many times people explain things to him, he repeats the same things over and over again. during break, the other kid had done something (hurt Sleiman's fingers or something) and Sleiman threw a can at the kid's face.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, the secretary came back into the office and sat down next to him, to talk to him softly to ask what happened. Sleiman burst into tears and by that time the bell had rung so I had to leave to go to my 7th straight class of teaching.
On my way, I saw the back of another kid's head. Carolene's brother. Carolene is a really really super slow student I have in 5th grade, who doesn't know much of anything, (the only thing she knows how to say is "Hello teacher!" and "Goodbye teacher!' and had to repeat grades a couple of times now). Her brother's head was bandaged up in the back, a spot the size of a fist, with gauze and bandage. Yesterday, he had busted his head open after prancing around, hitting other people, and jumping around and falling and hitting something sharp, and then he was taken to the hospital.
Yesterday I had a skype chat session with some folks back in the States, it was my first time doing something like this. I had mentioned that the kids here fight a lot and that the fighting is violent. I had grazed over the topic, and was reminded after the session was over, by my best friend, that it's important to distinguish how the violence and the fighting that I see here is different. Kids fight in the States too. People don't really get a picture when you say "the kids are really bad".
This week is no different than any other week, things like this happen daily and weekly. it's just somehow this kind of exposure to school violence like this leaves me less and less shocked each time, until someone reminds me that it's worth mentioning and pointing out what it is that as a teacher I actually do see in school everyday. and that it's not normal.
fahms, you write beautifully! and yes, its a bit too nuts all the crazy stuff kids in our countries end up doing..the only way to deal with it is to make them move to the FRONT row of the class, not the back..cuz they cant choke anyone but you then and second us violent, third world country kids HAAAATEEEEEE sitting in front :p...just a thought :)
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