Graffiti

I had an interesting experience this week.

Friday afternoon on a 'long Friday', which means we have school until 3:00. The three hours after the "payday Friday' dismissal of 12:00 are rarely deeply productive- students just don't seem to think that Friday afternoon should be about work. Anyway, this is not the point.

I am outside with my class, having just set up an experiment at the very back of the baseball field (which I pray is still there on Monday so we can find out the results of our experiment). We were finished a few minutes before recess and it was a beautiful Indian Summer day, so we stayed outside to play until recess.

The kids were running around on the playground structure, having a great old time. I was thinking to myself what great kids they are and how much potential they have for making their world a better place when someone shouted, "Mrs. K. look!" is a shocked voice.

I walked over to the swing supports and looked at what was written in lovely black permanent marker... Emily is a bich.

So I said, "Well, at least they could have spelled it right."

Inside my head I am thinking, this is a first my own personal hate graffiti. I am pretty sure that black marker was swiped off my desk just last week.

So at the end of the day we had a little chat at the carpet, the class and I. I asked them to please let the student who wrote that know that they really need to spell their words correctly, and that it isn't polite to call someone a bitch. (They went, "OOooh, she used a curse."- I am really strict about language in my classroom) But that yes sometimes I am a bitch. Sometimes I need to be to encourage them to learn. That is my job, to help them learn, not to be their friend.

Funnily enough, they all turned to Tiny Tim and said, "Ti-im." in the middle of my little speech. So I have a pretty good idea of the culprit. He was pretty mad at me this week, for pushing him to get his work done.

How can you take that kind of hate-mail seriously?