snowy mornings.

Ok, so I might be overexaggerating just a little bit when I say that this was me this morning. 

I certainly was a little more nervous than he looks. 

When I woke up at waay too early o'clock and saw snow falling down in huge thick flakes, I was a little apprehensive about my ride to school.  In the end, ça s'est passé sans problèmes.  Thankfully no problems.

And it continues to fall!  So the ride home will also be interesting.

The students have been ok this week- I was either expecting them to be extremely calm and shell-shocked after coming back from vacation, ou bien l'invers, totally wild and stubborn. 

I'll settle with a happy medium.

Excluding....

yesterday morning when I experienced the worst student yet at the collège.

The teacher told me before the class that she could maybe be a little rowdy.

If I had any problems, I was to send her back right away.

I've only had to do that on rare occasions, and was hoping not to have to...

I could hear her even before she came into the classroom.  A shrill cry and whistle heading down the hallway.

Which didn't stop when she got into the classroom.

I told her in English and then in French, 'that's enough of that thank you, ça suffit'.

'But madame, that wasn't me' 

Soon to become her favorite phrase.

It wasn't her who talked with her neighbors, chomped on her gum, threw her bag on the floor, kept talking sans arrêt when I was explaining or writing on the board.

Oh really.

I don't like to send students out of the class, because sometimes I don't think it solves anything.  Sometimes is just seems like a perpetual cycle without any real solutions.

But I have noticed, the few times I've had to do it, that the rest of the class usually works really well after that certain troublemaker is gone. 

So when this girl had me at my nerve's end, and slapped down her ruler SO hard on the table that I thought someone threw something at the chalkboard and broke it, I knew what had to be done.

So I asked her to gather her things and leave.

Except she refused.

'It wasn't me madame'

Even though she was the only one with a ruler on the table, right in front of her. 

After at least 5 minutes of telling her again and again that,

no this was not a discussion anymore,

no I'm not kidding,

get your butt out the door,

she gathered her things in a huff, said plenty of things that I think I'm glad I didn't understand,

and tried to slam the door on the way out.

Ah, the less than charming moments of teaching middle schoolers.

I remind myself that for every bad moment like that, there's a good one.

And that sometimes, we really have no idea what exactly is going on at home.

How exactly it is in someone else's shoes.

Important to remember,

but certainly not so easy at times.

How is your Thursday so far?  Braving the snow on a bike like me?

Happy almost-weekend folks!

a+

alli

photo.