I'm a Sick Woman

Believe it or not, every single time a student runs past me in the hallway, I have to consciously resist the urge to stick out my foot.  I know, sick, right?! I can't help it.

I’m the “Running Nazi” at our school; I HATE it when kids run in the hallway, mostly likely because I have been smashed into at least three times, each time leaving me with bruises. I also had a student who was running full-tilt, backwards, when he smashed into an aide, resulting in her need for multiple chiropractic visits. So, I hate runners.

I’ve developed a reputation for, shall I say, “holding kids accountable” for running in the 6th grade hallway. The consequence for an infraction (office referral) is detention during lunch (no recess, and they eat their lunch in a quiet room in which no one is allowed to talk.) It only takes one infraction for running to teach a kid, usually. I’m willing to write more if necessary, but really, it’s not my favorite thing to do; it's time-consuming, and I hate having to call parents to narc their kids out. In fact, I even made up a “speeding ticket warning” to give to repeat offenders. With a few exceptions, the warning ticket has helped most students get the message without my having to write an infraction.

I've only written 3-4 infractions for running this year (the word is out, I guess) but lately, sitting at my classroom desk, I can hear kids sprinting down the hall, only to stop when they reach my door, walk several steps, and then return to 100mph. Today, I heard one such offender and “pulled him over.” I didn’t know him, and he looked like a sweet little boy, but I didn’t know how sweet until I asked him to read the “ticket.”

First, though, I asked him for his name. He was speechless for a moment; I had to ask him twice, and he finally managed to squeak it out. I filled out the rest of the slip and then asked him to read it aloud to me. Poor little bugger only made it through the first sentence before he was so choked up that he could no longer speak.

“Keep reading,” I prodded, straight-faced (but LMAO inside). He almost sobbed through the second sentence, but I could hear the hope in his voice by the end of the third.  I handed him the slip and sent him on his way to lunch (he walked, of course.)

A colleague of mine later told me that he saw the boy right after he left my classroom. He said he was folding up the “ticket” and putting it in his pocket, looking "a little shaken up."

And that’s just the way I like it.