A bully after all...

Yeah it happend... never thought I could make a boy cry?
Me neither actually...

But today it happened, I made a boy cry. Actually Miss Van Leeuwen made him cry. Thats the worst of it. See, I'm teaching again this week. It's my last week with my beloved fouth graders. And although I'm dreading saying goodbye, I love being here.

Today was my first day back after a couple weeks of classes @ my college. So full of positive thoughts I stepped over to Vincent, who had a hard time in math-class. I sat down with him and started working through the mathproblems. As I worked with him I noticed how tears started rolling down his face. I ignored that, although I did reassure him that it was okay. Mathijs, who is seated next to Vince glanced over and gave Vince a sympathetic look.

I patiently explained the multiplication problem to him over and over again. Vincent worked with me a bit, but the tears didn't stop coming. And he grew suborn and impatient. At some point he was actually sobbing... And he ran out of the class. I felt like a bully. But a very nice one anyway ;)

Mathijs turned to me and told me that he was very tired because of soccer camp. He'd only gotten a few hours of sleep. Then he quietly added... I think Vincent is tired too. What you should know about Mathijs is that he is the coolest kid in the class... he is THE jock. The PE teacher told me that she usually puts all the non-athletic kids in his team, and he'll still win the game. Thats Mathijs. Today I got to see another side of him. A very caring 10-year old boy, who was worried about his classmate.

I reassured Mathijs and went to look for Vincent. I found him sobbing in the boys bathroom. He was angry with himself for crying, but that only made him cry more :-D I told him to stop crying and he told me he wanted to work through the mathproblems his own way. I didn't want to see any more teares spilled so I told him to try that. We'd see how that goes.

Needless to say, he didn't get anything done right... but I'm sorta hoping he'll sleep well tonight and I'll try again with him tomorrow. And no more Miss Sweet and Caring then. He needs to learn not to cry over such little things. Soon enough he'll be in middle school and you can't cry over everything then... Luckily my mentor backs me up in that. So here goes...

A bully after all...
that is from tomorrow on.................I think :-)