Cat Fight

Today I went to pick up my homeroom to start the morning routine. The snow meant that the kids were all in the gym instead of lining up outside. The mother of one of my students was there to basically alert me to the fact that the conflict between her daughter and another student had reached critical mass, and to ask me if I would keep my eye on things. I assured her that I would, and headed upstairs with my class.

Honestly, I have known that conflict has been brewing between these kids for a while now, and so I figured it would be more of the same old same old. I'm so used to the tell tale trappings of adolescent girl drama that I tend to be pretty tuned in to the signs of when the conflict has reached a "boiling point."

Anyway, I was doing my usual morning thing, wandering back and forth between my classroom and the lockers, and making sure that kids were keeping it down to a loud roar in either location.

Things in the classroom seemed pretty under control, so I took a "tour de locker." No more than 30 seconds had elapsed, but when I returned to my homeroom, these two girls were locked in a pretty serious and violent fist fight. And these are pretty tough kids. So, I did what I get paid the big bucks to do, and I threw myself right in the middle of the melee to stop the fight. I took a kick from one and a punch from the other, but that was the extent of my exposure to extreme violence.

I marched the kids to the principal's office, where she lectured them and said everything you'd expect the principal to say to warring middle school girls.

But here's the thing...

she sent both kids back to class.

And let me just say here that I really like both of these kids. I don't think either is a sociopath, and I don't fear for my safety or that of my other students if they are present in the class.

However, if two boys were to be involved in a similar situation, they would automatically have been suspended for at least two days. They would have been made to sit in the office for the remainder of the day at hand, at the very least.

Two boys would never have been allowed to return to class after a simple talking-to. I even had to go to the principal later and suggest that she might want to call the kids parents to alert them to the fact that their kids had been fighting, and possibly injured.

Again, with boys, that would have been an automatic.

Anyway, doesn't it just suck to be a middle school kid?

Honestly, I feel really badly for the kids sometimes. It is such a tough developmental stage. I would never want to go back to being that age. As I said, I like both of these kids. This is just something that got bigger than both of them, and they had no idea how to make the problem go away. Hopefully we can get them some help and get them to internalize some coping skills that might make them stronger problem solvers in the future.