Discipline

While spending time with  art teaching buddies today one of the topics that came up was discipline- and dealing with unruly  kids. Also.. all the ludicrous mandates that teachers have to follow.
 I particularly remember  the nurse distributing a little baggy to each of us teachers that contained latex gloves and bandaids. We were instructed to carry this with us at all times during playground duty ( protection against HIV in the event of dealing with a bloody injury) Well, I for one always kept it in my coat pocket- one of the few who even remembered it! I got teased mercilessly about it by the other special teachers who accused me of doing proctology exams on unruly students on the playground. When I retired they blew up latex gloves and hung them from the ceiling in the teachers' lounge in memory. :)
There were also hanging pencils. I was not allowed to have pencils. Here's why...One of my fifth graders had mouthed off to me and I (gently) tapped him on the head with a pencil (eraser end) and told him to do what I told him. Guess he went home and told his Dad I beat him over the head with the pointed end of a pencil! and we all know kids never lie ... Had to explain that one! My friends never let me live it down - it was always "watch out she's got a pencil" or "better take that away from her!"
Only paddled 2 kids in 30 years- not that I wanted to, but it seemed the only thing that might make an impression. One was a little boy who insisted on crawling around under the tables while I was trying to give directions.I warned him several times to no avail. The other was a little boy who was rolling up balls of clay and concealing them (or so he thought) in his socks. He looked quite lumpy. I wouldn't have paddled him but he just didn't seem to get the idea that stealing was wrong. Hopefully it was the right thing at the time- never had those problems from those children again, anyway..
My best memory though is of a 1st grader on the first day of school during lunch recess.( Students who got in trouble in their classroom often had to stand against the wall during their recess.) I had playground duty and found this 1st grader standing by the building, sobbing. I asked him what was wrong.. He said "my teacher told me to get on the wall and I don't know how!"