The Day Everyone Cried

... Except me... I was just about the only one who held it together this day.

I'm subbing in a grade 3/4 class. Things are going just dandy and the kids obviously love me and then recess happens.

I may never know exactly the events that transpired over the recess break but I sure did hear about it afterwards.

Everyone comes into the classroom and we sit down and are just about settled and ready for me to read them part of their read aloud when all of a sudden one child has an issue and starts crying.

What the...

After talking with her I see that I am clearly not helping the issue and am not even clear on what happened and so I figured one of her peers can probably (maybe) get to the bottom of this a lot faster than I can so I send her out to the hall with one of her friends to help her settle down and talk things out.

Big mistake.

The hallway.

It's the holy grail of the school.

Everyone and their mom wants to spend time out in the hallway so long as they are not in trouble.

So I begin reading the chapter they are on when all of a sudden another student bursts into tears.

What the...

Once again I try to settle the student down but have no success.

Well... 4 students in the hall is alright I figure... 4 students is not too many. So I send 2 more students out into the hall with the same instructions. Except I tell them they need to be back into the classroom within 5 minutes.

So off they go and back to reading the rest of the class goes.

Things are looking up and we have read about 2 pages but then... we have another crier folks.

At this point I'm so unsure what is going on and why everyone is crying.

I have no idea what to do now. The kid won't stop crying and blabbering on and on about something that happened at recess but I already have 4 students in the hallway!

Alright, I tell them, send the first pair back in and then you can stay out there.

Apparently they took this to mean just go outside and now that there are 6 of you out there you may as well have a party.

In walks the teacher from across the hall.

Sees that I'm just a poor unsuspecting substitute yells at all of them for taking advantage of me. Tells them they are all fine.

Basically, sit down, shut up, and listen to the story.

Apparently that was all they needed to calm down. Granted, I'm assuming she was their most hated teacher and therefore the scariest one as well.

Sidenote: I would like to think that I am generally a pretty good substitute teacher. We all have our off days but to be honest... I didn't think this particular day was one of those. I just had no idea how to deal with all the criers. I feel that it's not my place to yell and shout at the kids (until I get really mad or they aren't listening) but they were being good... just a bunch of unresolved issues from recess (perhaps the day, week, or year before as well).