My "Troublemaker"

 My "Troublemaker"

By April Federico

    My "canary in the coalmine" has to be Josh, in Mrs. Marroquin's class where I do my observation hours for this class. However, there are several "troublemakers" in that class to the point where Mrs. Marroquin has to do the "tree pose" with them, which would be much easier than putting a canary to sleep with toxins from a coalmine. But, if I had to choose a single canary, it would be Josh. Josh, from the very beginning, sat in the back, alone. He was constantly talking to EJ and he was profusely making faces to the point where Mrs. Marroquin threatened to send him to the principal's office. I remember making a "side note" while reading the class a story about food from other cultures, saying "Ms. F knows the making of pasta sauce all to well because I'm half-Italian!" And somehow my eyes met his, and he made a face. But here's the thing: is he doing it to be funny? To cope? Does he have no other ways of communicating? Or was he simply being silly? 
    I recall recently a time when Mrs. Marroquin took away Josh's laptop because he abused his privileges. After all, technology and computers really are a privilege. I noticed, however, that some seats were switched, and from experience "seat-switching" means that there is a need for classroom management and for the sake of kids getting along. 
    Can we take into account another thing? Full moons. This past Wednesday we had a full moon in the astrological sign of Libra. From experience, I know that full moons can make kids absolutely feral -- but that was in special education. But the same is true in general education, apparently, especially on April Fools Day. That was the same day Josh's laptop was taken away. But as we were doing centers and I was managing the back table, I noticed three boys in particular: EJ, Stephen, and Hunter were all very much "crashing out" and they were being silly. This would probably be a good thing to study. 

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