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and you choose to believe the 8 year old?

Holy Cow.

Wonders never cease.

My students are crazier than I thought.

I had a great labor day weekend, relaxed, read books for fun, finished sewing a pretty skirt, got lots of sun, and in general, didn't want to come home -- love me some beach time. Nope, wrong. Love me some dock-time and house-time and mama's cooking. Yum.

I didn't want to come home -- I was dreading this week. I just knew something was going to happen.

And it did. Some of my students told lies to their parents, and I was falsely accused of doing things that I would NEVER do, and the principal of my school spent two days pulling kids out of my class to question them about how I behave at school. The guidance counselor got the ring-leading kid to confess that nothing had happened, finally, and as an added bonus I got 45 minutes of time outside of my classroom unexpectedly. Great -- I did 60 minutes worth of science in 25 today. I'm sure my students feel adequately prepared for their vocab. test tomorrow....

The kid's mom is LOCA, too, and actually came down to my classroom this morning to apologize to me -- and try to pass it off as not actually having been her kid's blabbermouth in the first place -- as if I would ever believe her.

I feel blessed that the administration at my school never questioned my own role in this at all -- they told me that they didn't believe the kids for a minute, and that the parents in question were crazy, and had a history of being crazy. This is one of the benefits of teaching 3rd grade -- the parents have been around long enough for the administrators to already know which ones are a few crayons short of a box.

The kids in question are some of the worst behaved kids in the school. The administrators keep mentioning how they want my team teacher and me to work magic with them. The only magic they really need are parents who actually do some parenting. And by parenting, I do not mean barging into the child's teacher's room, whom you have recently denounced to the administration of the school, and thereby to the teacher herself, to say that your child wasn't the ring-leader. Remember, we teachers actually spend time paying attention to your child's actions throughout the day, and we are pretty aware of what is going on. And don't, by any means, force the teacher to hug you at 7:10 in the morning. She doesn't want to hug you; she wants you to fall on your face from an airplane, or something equally painful, that will help you understand what it is like to have to tell your son every 3 minutes of the day to listen, be respectful, and start doing his work.

Word to the wise: Don't automatically believe your 8 year old who has a history of looking you in the eye and lying to you. He may or may not be telling the truth, based on his desire for your immediate and sustained attention. If you gave him the attention he craved in the beginning, and without him telling lies, he might not grow up to be on our "We think we'll see so-and-so on the news in an orange jumpsuit" list. Not the teacher's list you want your child to be on.

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