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Thursday, April 05, 2007

Pre-Teen Tattle Tales…

G6

If there’s anything worse than Kindergarten tattlers, it’s got to be tattling 6th graders. The group I had today was infested with them.

All day I heard:

“Can you tell him/her to stop bugging me?…”
“She said…”
"He said…”
“She did…”
“He did…”

Now I expect it from Kindergarten and 1st graders, but it’s especially irksome the older they get. The kicker was during the last half hour “free time” before the dismissal bell, when one boy runs up to me with urgent, important information:

Stud: Can you go tell Monica to stop telling rumors that I “like” her?
Me: Why?

Stud: Because it’s not true!
Me: …and this is causing problems how?

Stud: Because my girl friend believes it and is mad at me now!
Me: How old are you?

Stud: “Twelve”, he replies with a smirkin’ grin.
(…insert my long, astonished look here…)

Me: Oh, just go away…

Boy, am I glad it’s a minimum day and the start of Spring break week...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sub, too.

I subbed in 6th grade yesterday.

Ugh.

The regular classroom teacher has a banner on one wall that says; "YOU are responsible for YOU." My arm got sore from pointing at it all day.

And by 6th grade, the shirking of personal responsibility and the resultant tattling is much more elaborate than at K. Like: "I know I was laughing really loud during reading, but it's because he was talking funny. Make him stop so I don't laugh and talk to him about his jokes."

Anonymous said...

I've just completed 4 months in a long term sub position teaching NINTH graders who routinely acted just like this. I heard an amazing variety of reasons it wasn't his/her fault he/she was was talking.

I feel like my accomplishment during that time was reducing the excuse-making, more than actually teaching them any math...