The past two mornings have been spent in silence while the entire school tested for the MCAs. Mrs. B and I had a section of 7th graders doing the reading test. Wow, that first day everyone was absolutely crazy after testing ended. I noticed the 8th graders getting fidgety and not being able to focus. Even my last hour of 7th graders had a hard time getting their work finished.
I almost sent an 8th grader to the office too. He was being very disrespectful and wasn't talking to me the way a student should talk to a teacher. But I wasn't quite sure how to send him there, and I didn't want to look like a tattletale running to Mrs. B, so I just walked away (after giving him the teacher look/stare). He knew he wasn't behaving right. I talked to Mrs. B about this later, and she asked if I wanted her to talk to him, or if I wanted to handle it. I said we should leave it alone right now because he could've just been reacting to the weird schedule of the day, and we'd see how the next day went. But if he still didn't shape up, I should talk to him; having someone else fight my battles wouldn't get me very far respect-wise.
Later, Mrs. B told me this student has been going through a rough spot and his mom took away his baseball privilege until he shapes up. Knowing this student, that is a very effective consequence for this guy, and I think that alone will help get him back on track (part of my reasoning for waiting to see how he'd act the next day). The next day, this guy was still goofing off and was still pushing it, but he was slightly more respectful to me. So I gave him the look again and hung around his group a while to help the people who actually wanted to work.
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