You're the goddamned bane of my existence, Psalter.
I was quite happy to ignore everything but this:
BTW. The whole line you have going now ("children aren't second-class citizens") irritates me. I had a kid today threaten to get me fired for daring to expect that she didn't rip pages out of school books while yelling at another student during silent reading. How dare I tell her to do stuff? You can't just tell adults to do stuff.
Has been bugging me all day.
First, I"m pleased that my saying kids aren't second class citizens has made an impression, even if it irritates you.
Second, I still don't think she is second class. I guess we can all put ourselves in the position of that girl, right? Bit of empathy first.
If I can get inside her head (and am quite possibly wrong in this because I"m only going by 5 lines of text) I'd say that she's rebelling against "authority". It's an easy conclusion to come to because, well, most kids do around puberty. It's when they get this damned stupid idea that they're not second class and if adults don't treat them with respect, why the hell should they reciprocate?
She wants to stop being powerless. I'd say she has parents who're forever telling her what to do and forcing her to do stuff rather than let natural consequences happen, eg: riding her arse to get to school on time instead of letting her be late and feel bad about it, or yelling at her to pick her dirty clothes up off the floor instead of allowing her to run out of clean clothes. I would assume she doesn't have responsibilities befitting her age.
Anyway, tangent aside, she wants to stop being powerless, so she's trying to take it back. It's a desperate attempt and she's not very good at it, right? But she managed to get you right where it hurts. Your job security.
(coughifeducationwereprivatisedyoucouldrefusetoteachhercough)
I don't know how you handled the situation - probably you did all you were able, and no one can ask any more. Were it me, I'd ban her from silent reading. Probably you're not allowed to do that. But my reasoning is that 1) it's a fricken privilege to use books that aren't your own and 2) we don't want you around when you're behaving that way. I know you're going to say she obviously didn't want to do it anyway, but I disagree. I think she only didn't want to be forced to do anything.
I read for fun and I love it. But if someone held a gun to my head and told me to read, I'd be pissed off. Cos I'm not a second class citizen. See where I'm coming from?
Anyway, my impression is that she was feeling like one anyway when she got to school and it was a straw and camel scenario. Not your fuck up, but a societal one.
The easiest way to get my kids to read (and they're the "books are boring" type) is to ask them not to be around if they're going to make noise when I'm reading, and to not specify what they should read.
Just my take anyway.
Can you tell me what you did and what the outcomes were? I'm interested. I often think it takes too much effort to use voluntary and empathetic methods on kids when they're forced to be in your care, and neither of you have a say in the matter. For that matter, it's pretty hard when that's not the case.
I fail lots, but I try.
All I know is that kids are privy to the same emotions as adults and it's only that they're small and need our help that make us think it's OK to dominate them.