A sixth grader has gotten in trouble for horseplay so many times that he finally landed himself in my office. We went through the whole standard process and then started planning for how to do better from here on. We talked awhile and then I said, “Where’s a good place to keep your hands while…

One of our seventh grade boys has started to blatantly and publicly defy me. He refused to follow my directions when I was covering his class, and the other day he yelled, “NO! I’m not listening to YOU!” at me in front of a huge group of students. (That’s despite the fact that I had…

We were having an all-school meeting in the cafeteria, and the kids got a little ice cream snack to eat before it started. As they finished, our principal called for silence and started talking. I was standing by the table of our rowdiest 7th grade boys, trying to use my presence to make sure they…

You know it’s been a bad day when one cop asks you, “Well, how was your day otherwise?” and the other cop laughs and says, “Yeah, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”