Sometimes you win, sometimes you get hit with a skateboard

Last Tuesday, I wrote about how sweet my students were, and about the bouquet of flowers one of the parents sent me.

The next day, my fifth graders were, as Germans would say, “impossible.” In the forty-five minutes I had them, I feel like all I did was confiscate cell phones, balls, and pencil cases, separate kids, and scold them for bickering and throwing things. The class ended with me lecturing them on the inappropriateness of their behavior and lack of respect for me and each other. One of those days.

Then, after class had ended and everyone was leaving, two of the kids got into a kicking, screaming, hitting sort of fight, which I managed to break up right after a small but very angry fifth grade girl hit a small but angry fifth grade boy twice with a skateboard.

Of course not a teacher was in sight. It…