Sixth grade has such a wide range of maturity.
-On one side of my class, I’ve got a student who is working himself into a rage because another student is berating him with “your mom is stupid”-level insults. Like, he was actually shaking with anger when we had a conversation.
Me: What’s going on, what’s got us all upset? Student: _______ keeps talking mess about my family! Me: Uh oh, what exactly is he saying? Student: He keeps telling me things like my mom is stupid and he keeps acting like he’s so cool but you KNOW he’s not!
-Then on another side of the room, I have a student who is making random loud noises as he works, basically oblivious to the fact that he’s making helicopter sounds that are making it difficult for other people to concentrate.
-Then I’ve got a student who is on the verge of tears, spending 20 minutes with their head down because they busted a flair pen open and I threw it in the trash before ink spilled everywhere. I still don’t understand why he was upset. He broke the pen, it was no longer functional.
-Then I’ve got another student, who is sitting quietly at the back, run up to me with his mouth over his hand giving me a garbled request to let him go to the bathroom because, turns out, he busted a pen INSIDE his mouth, and his mouth looked like he just spent half an hour making out with a squid.
-Then on another side, I’ve got students playing the “hump game.” If you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing the hump game, players take turns waiting until the teacher turns around. When the teacher is no longer facing a player, they stand up and furiously hump the air. Bonus points if you can manage to hump a desk or table. Whoever humps longest wins. I’ve already caught 2 students. I don’t know if it’s because they suck at the hump game and I just haven’t caught the other more talented players, or if it’s because my omnipresence in my classroom has shut the game down.