"Today was just the poisoning"/ "Imagine a semi..."

This week has been incredible. Now, please, pause and think about what the word "incredible" implies. Unbelievable. Logically impossible. Almost frightening.

Let's begin with Wednesday, when I told the kids that the following day was International Talk Like A Pirate Day. They were very excited about the prospect and showed them how to make hooks with their hand and say, enthusiastically, "Arrrrggghh". Well, poor Arnulfo was making a hook and saying "Arrrgh" a little too enthusiastically while holding his pencil, stabbing himself in the eye, and following his "Arrrgh" with the cry of a wounded animal. He immediately began bauling. His shoulder partner, Angelie, has the seat in the far corner and has to move her chair up to let people pass behind her. She was so enthralled by Arnulfo's crying ("He's really crying Miss Sells") that I had to say, "Angelie! Please move up so Arnulfo can go to the nurse." The kids were saying, "Miss Sells, he's crying! He's really crying!" I had to say calmly, "Well, I would be crying, too, if I stabbed myself in the eye with my pencil while making a pirate hook." After school, he told a first grade teacher that he had stabbed himself in the eye while talking like a pirate. Oh, my!

On Tuesday, we had a serious incident on campus where a seventh grader put sleeping pills in another student's water bottle, causing him to pass out in the nurse's office. The police were, obviously, involved. Out to dinner that evening with my third grade teacher friend and the school librarian, the librarian asked, "Was there another fight today?" thinking he had seen some scuffle on the playground. "No," his wife answered, "Today was just the poisoning." What kind of place do we work at where that comment would be stated!?

Yesterday, two fourth graders picked up a dying pigeon from the playground and took it into my neighbor's classroom while she was teaching math. Any person reading this who really knows me, knows that I have an irrational fear of pigeons. While taking my kids out to computers, these two kids came toward me, grinning, with a scared looking pigeon in their hands saying, "Look what we brought you Miss Sells!" knowing I would freak out. I freaked out. I mean, I REALLY freaked. When one of the fourth graders saw me on my way back to my classroom, he started running toward me screaming "Rabies! Rabies!" (this is an unusual child). Anyway, when I had the chance to talk to him privately after school, our conversation went like this:

Me: "Colbie, what you did today really hurt my feelings. You know that I'm seriously afraid of pigeons, don't you?"
Colbie: "Yes, but why, Miss Sells?"
Me: "It doesn't matter why. People are afraid of things for very different reasons. But it's never okay to make what someone's afraid of into a joke. Are you afraid of anything, Colbie?"
Colbie thinks for a while and then says, "I'm afraid of semis, because once one ran over my arm." (I have no idea if this is true, but I'm guessing a truck did run over his arm once. This kid is just that strange and lives in that sort of neighborhood where something like that could happen.)
Me: "Well, Colbie, how would you feel if I thought that was really funny so I teased you about it. Imagine a semi.... Imagine if I brought a semi in front of your house and waited in front for you, just to scare you."
Colbie's eyes widened. "I wouldn't like that at all, Miss Sells."
Me: "All right. So what do you owe me?"
Colbie: "I'm sorry Miss Sells."

Empathy.