We still have about a month before the end of the second quarter, but we’ll be off of school for two weeks after this Friday for Winter Break, returning to school in January.  So, it feels like we’re at a half-way point of the school year.  Last Friday, the teachers had a Professional Development Day, so there was no school.  I cannot attest to how much professional development took place, but I know that the girls had the day off. They were so thrown off by the change in routine that they got pretty wild. Even though I enjoy hearing the uncontrolled laughter out of both of them, at some point during the long weekend I wished that they would just ask for their iPads and headphones (like they do after they get home from school, when I’m trying to talk to them about their day). I told the girls that between the long weekend and the upcoming Winter Break, the other kids at school would probably be a little wild this week.  And, from the stories they came home with, I was right. 

On Monday afternoon, on the walk home from school, instead of Audio asking to go to the playground, told me that she wanted to hurry home because she had to use the bathroom. I saw this as a teaching moment and told her that she shouldn’t wait so long before she uses the bathroom and that she should use the bathroom at school. Audio said that she couldn’t use the bathroom at school.  Then, she asked if we could go to the playground after she used the bathroom at home. Unfortunately, I answered her question before I asked why she couldn’t use the bathroom at school. We go through a bit of a mini-meltdown over not going to playground every day, except on the days when we go to the playground. On those days, the mini-meltdown is over having to leave the playground. 

Once Audio calmed down a bit, I tried to find out why Audio couldn’t use the bathroom at school. But, between the sound of cars passing us, Audio’s quiet voice, and Dee Dee trying to tell me about what happened during her day, I had a hard time following Audio’s explanation.  Guessing that Audio was just developing a healthy suspicion of public restrooms, I said that the janitors go in the bathroom and clean it.  Audio corrected me, “No one could go in the bathroom after lunch.”  Assuming that she meant that the toilet or sink was in need of repair, I asked her if there was a problem with the bathroom.  Audio said that there was a problem with the bathroom. One of the boys from her classroom locked himself inside it after lunch. 

After we got home and Audio had used the bathroom, I was able to get a little more out of her before she started asking for her iPad and headphones. Apparently, while walking back to the classroom from the cafeteria, the boy collected all the rubber, wedge-shaped doorstops that were in the hallway, outside of closed doors. Once back in the classroom, he wedged the stops under the bathroom door from inside of the bathroom, making the door impossible to open.   

Since the entire class is encouraged to visit the bathroom between lunch and getting back to learning, the blocked door caused quite a bit of chaos.  Since all the younger students’ classrooms have a private toilet, there aren’t any other restrooms in their wing of the school.  The closest bathrooms are located in the cafeteria that the kindergartners had just returned from.  So, Audio’s teacher called the principal to come to the classroom and escort the kids back to the cafeteria to use the restrooms while she talked to the boy about removing the doorstops and coming out of the bathroom. 

Audio said that when the principal brought all the kindergartners back to the classroom after using the cafeteria restrooms, they saw the teacher down on her hands and knees, jabbing a ruler underneath the bathroom door.  The boy had enough of the doorstops placed under the door that even when the teacher was able to poke one doorstop out of the way, there were still many others holding the door in place, giving the boy plenty of time to replace the loosened stop.  

According to Audio, the principal wasn’t happy with the results that the teacher was getting and took her place on the floor. The principal jabbed fast and hard with the ruler and was doing a better job of loosening the doorstops than the teacher had, but the boy was faster at replacing the stops than the principal was at knocking them out. The excitement of juggling the stops made the boy in the bathroom giggle loud enough for the other kids to hear him, causing them to laugh, as well. The principal told the teacher that the ruler was a bad idea and left the classroom. Audio said that the boy was still in the bathroom when the school day ended.  

On Tuesday, when I picked up the girls from school, Dee Dee told me that she had three things to tell me.  The first thing she wanted to share was that during gym class, during an argument between a student and the gym teacher over whether the boy had cheated, the boy said that the teacher wasn’t supposed to be watching. The teacher said something about the boy putting his foot in his mouth, which the boy responded to by taking off his shoe and shoving it, toe first, into his mouth. The boy got such a response for his disgusting act that it inspired other kids to start taking off their shoes and putting them in their mouths. I had to ask Dee Dee. She said that she didn’t put her shoe in her mouth. She just untied it and took it off. 

The second thing Dee Dee told me about was how her teacher got mad and scolded one girl for disrupting the class by singing while he was teaching a lesson. The girl asked, as she apparently does regularly, “What did I do?” When the teacher answered that she had been singing, the girl asked, “What was I singing?” When the teacher attempted to repeat the words she’d been singing, he got them wrong. Apparently, he was the only person in the room who didn’t know the words, and many of the kids mocked the teacher over his mistake. The story was a little funny until Dee Dee added that she got involved and told the girl to save her singing for music class.  Dee Dee has a tendency to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong, sometimes.  The third bit of information that Dee Dee had to share was that all the doorstops have been removed from all the classrooms in the school.