The good, bad, and ugly rollercoaster: Newcomer fatigue and silent period's set in for my students, and on top of that we caught one bullying another in their own language (that 2/4 of us speak)...
We caught it for sure the second time and the student got a hallway talk from us in both languages, but he still doesn't get it. Filed a disciplinary report and called home on Tuesday, student tells us he won't come back to school until Friday because "trouble here." Ugh.
So he's gone, other 2 students are growing by leaps and bounds and without distraction (guys, 3 is the WORST NUMBER IN THE WORLD for classroom management) but the targeted student started crying on Thursday because she was embarrassed to speak in front of her larger class. We gave her a quick hug and started to think about what we could do to ease the pressure for her when we catch the other students quietly pep-talking her in Spanish: "this speaking test is hard, yeah, but here it doesn't matter because we're family and nobody gets to make fun of you." I'M NOT CRYING IT'S FINE
We persuade her to present in the smaller class on Friday, but bullying student comes back to school and she doesn't want to talk (shocker) because he won't leave her alone. We asked the headmaster to intervene but she doesn't speak Spanish...and our bilingual social worker isn't in on Fridays. Central office suggests that one of us sits and interprets but...that's incredibly unfair to the student because he deserves a.) a fair shot with a neutral party and b.) our Spanish is good, but not that good. (Not that he has listened to us anyways.)
Our lucky break comes at the end of the day when the bullying student gets called to the headmaster's (where he just...sat and nobody talked to him) and the other student decides she wants to give her presentation. She absolutely crushed it! We high fived her and she gave us hugs (which was a pleasant surprise!) and later we had this Spanish/Portugese back and forth:
Her: The teachers love me and they give me hugs, and I love them too
3rd student (tall, tough looking tattooed kid who is actually very gentle): Aww, I want a hug too.
Me: Hugs for all, and oh god, I'm not gonna cry.
Both: Yeah you are, miss.
But man, I'm sad for my 3rd student because most of his outbursts and comments come from a place of insecurity. The other students came 2 weeks ago and they've learned more English in that time then he has in 6 months. In our report we mentioned that we think he should be evaluated for special needs but (if it happens) it might make him feel worse. Want him to be part of our class but his presence makes it toxic and absolutely derailes the other two. Sigh.