School Tales: Melt Down

Today was the first time I was frightened to be in my own classroom. One of my students "Nick" came to class from lunch and I knew something was wrong. Besides the fact that all 5'10", 200 lb. of him was crying and screaming, he was covered in cherry slushee. All of his pent up anger erupted and he launched into a rampage, wreaking havoc in my classroom: projectile chairs hurled across the room, items broken. I was panicked internally, wondering if he would hurt himself or another student. I could hear the tirade escalating as I let him destroy my room while I called for an A.P. (of course no one came). I sent a student to get a principal. After much ado and much confusion, he ended up with the A.P. for part of class and returned a much calmer, happier camper. Apparently, another kid had made some racist remarks about him and then threw a cherry slushee all over him, which precipitated his outburst.

I washed his hoodie (his favorite piece of clothing- wears it every day) and all the cherry came out :). My wonderful neighbor, Marion, gave him some candy and life was good, once again. One of the other students told "Nick" that he had scared me. He remarked: "I didn't know that I scared you, Miss K. I mean, you looked a little surprised..." Yeah, surprised, just a little. It took a full class period for my heart rate to return to normal limits.