Shaken, Rattled and….Rolled

First off – my birthday was wonderful!  My darling Chickie went all out – I think she spent every paycheck she got for 3 weeks buying presents for me.  My dad got me a card so funny that I am still laughing.  My jaded graders…sang happy birthday to me at the top of their lungs.  My sister made me the most wonderful carrot cake in the WHOLE entire world.  My son….thought it was next week.  Heh.  Boys!  And I got many wonderful birthday wishes here as well – thank you!!

Now for the real story!  This has been on HELL  heck of a day.  During my first class the deputy walks in and requests that he be able to look at all my knives.  Er – OK.  Mind if I ask why?  I shouldn’t have asked – really.  Seems that a student found a knife jammed into a crack or something in the cafeteria this morning and turned it in to a teacher – who handed it over to the deputy.  The principal thought he recognized it as one of mine…so he sent the deputy down to check it out.  Sure enough – the knife was a twin to a knife I have.  Argh.

But let’s take a step back.  At the beginning of the year I had 5 “sharp” knives.  (I use the term sharp loosely – they have points.  The general shape and style of these knives suggest sharpness.)  When I checked my desk drawer today (that’s right – I keep the “sharp” knives in my desk drawer) I pulled out – can anybody guess? – 5 knives.  Do the word problem here folks.  “If Ms. Wolf has 5 sharp knives in her drawer and a train leaves the station in New York heading west at 90 miles per hour and there are STILL 5 knives in Ms. Wolf’s drawer…..what time will the engineer on the train figure out that no knives are missing?????? 

The deputy gave me a “sure, right” look and asked me to make sure I lock my drawer.  OK.  After all – I don’t want any stray knives to jump IN do I?

Still a little shaky from that episode and wondering if I would be blamed for something and thus unemployed…..I returned to my class.  A student came up to my desk and asked me what I would do if someone threatened to kill me.  WHAT?  Oh – THAT question.  Comes up all the time.  I thought she was asking for advice.  No…turns out she was trying to tell me that a student in my class had made some sort of comment about killing me.  Gawd I love being a teacher!   After talking to 2 other girls who SWORE that the child said that he was going to kill me and another student, I spoke to the boy in question.  He SWORE he said no such thing. So…what to do?

Let me expand a little on this.  I DO believe that this boy probably made some sort of stupid remark along those lines.  I DO NOT believe that he ever actually meant he would try to kill anyone.  I know this child pretty well.  He is chatty and a little goofy at times.  He likes to be lazy sometimes.  He is not an angry child.  He is not normally disrespectful or sullen.  He is not an angel – nor is he an evil little critter.  It is even possible that the girls were mad at him for something and made up the story to get “even” with him for something….

So… I stewed on this for a bit – and then I reported it to the deputy.  Even if the boy was just showing off and saying stupid things…he had said them in front of other students.  I could not take a chance that he was serious.  I could not let him think that it is OK to make threats – even if they are “jokes”.  I could not let those students who had heard him think that you can say such things and no one will care. 

I don’t know how this all played out – but I do know that the deputy interviewed three students in my class and they said that they had heard him make the threat.  I also know that the boy’s parents were called in to the school.  From there – I have no clue.  I hate it.  Like I said, I am fairly certain it was just stupid 12 year old boy stuff and it seems a shame to make such a big deal out of it.  But to take a chance that he meant it………….

The rest of my day went by fairly rapidly.  I am going to go observe at another school tomorrow, so I was preparing for my substitute.  I checked my mailbox…and there was a note to SEE THE PRINCIPAL.  Oh shit. darn.  This has to be about the knife.  Am I about to get censured – or fired?  Crudcrudcrudcrudcrud. 

The principal hands me a knife…and tells me that I need to be really careful about my knives.  I agree whole heartedly and then explain my math to him.  If you have 5 knives and don’t take any of them out of your drawer – how many knives are in your drawer?  That’s right…5.  In response – he tells me I should make the students sign the knives out and count them when they come back in.  COUNTING!  Aha!  Let’s COUNT the knives in the drawer…..1,2,3,4,5!!!  The students were probably just testing – just don’t let them have any knives.  ARGH!  No wonder everybody hates math!  Let’s have another go at that word problem…If a train leaves the station and runs over 3 deputies and 2 principals holding knives….how many knives are there?

Well – as of now, there are 6 knives in my drawer.  I have an extra.  I have a headache.  I am wondering why it is that I wanted to work for sub-human wages in a job that requires super-hero stamina and patience.  There doesn’t seem to be a simple answer to this question – maybe I better go back to MATH!!!