Students have not fought in my room all year... in a school where there is probably one fight a day, I am glad to say there haven't been any fights in my room... until last week.
fight 1 - I always try to be at the door greeting my students as they walk in. [so much so that when I'm not standing at the door, several will say "i thought you weren't here today, ms. cook! where were you? why aren't you at the door" as they walk in the room.] anyway, this particular day, i was coming back from a meeting before 8th period and walked in just as the bell for 8th period range. these 2 kids (we'll call them tatyana and martece) were standing in the front of the room putting on quite a show. part laughing/ part yelling, they were play-threatening each other. sometime between the time i walked through the door and got to the front of the room, they weren't playing around anymore. "I'm gonna f***in beat the s*** outta you!" "you aint gonna touch me before I beat the f*** out of you" (didn't know you could beat that out of someone...) literally, for no reason, it escalated. i tried the standing in the middle thing... i've never felt more invisible. so, i just walked calmly into the hall, motioned for security and they were escorted out, screaming all the while. meanwhile, all the other student are laughing. when i return to the front of the room, they go silent. my response, "well, did everyone enjoy the show?" [laughter] "want to sing about it?"
fight 2 - let's call these two girls Kierra and Raven. Raven is late to class. the door is locked and Kierra goes to open it for her. Kierra sees that it's Raven and walks away instead of opening the door. Pause. You have to understand that Raven is friends with another girl (we'll call her Shavonne) and Shavonne doesn't like Kierra's boyfriend. Resume. Kierra looks over and I give her the "open the door" look. So she does. Fast forward 30 minutes later. The students are packing their things getting ready to leave when suddenly Kierra and Raven are shouting nonsense- literally nonsense- at each other. Apparently, Kierra bumped Raven, Raven said "You're excused," and then in T-minus-5 seconds we were at "you b****, i'm gonna f***** kill you." once again, pushed them out the room and called security.
so, pretty tame compared to what i've seen in the halls/ heard about... but, i'm glad i can still say no physical damage done in my room. only a few more weeks until i've managed a whole year without a "real" fight.
