Injured Students & Other Adventures of a Middle School Teacher

In my last post, I forgot to mention this little bit of my day.

I was in the school hallway waiting for my students to transition from their specials classes to lunch when I saw one of my students carrying another student in the hallway. This is most certainly not the norm. I was a bit surprised.

I get told that the injured student, whom I will call Trent, had hurt his ankle during PE. We had them put Trent down to see if he could walk on his wrapped ankle. He tried, but he ended up in tears. I cannot stand to see any of my students cry. It just kills me.

So what does any self-respecting teacher do? I end up carrying Trent to the clinic to take a look at his ankle. To my surprise and dismay, our nurse is out today. All we have is a substitute teacher filling in there. She obviously had no medical or first-aid experience. Lucky for me, I have plenty of experience. (I serve as the camp nurse in the summer. Believe me...PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE!)

I unwrap his ankle to take a look. Thankfully there were no apparent warning signs of a break or any other kind of damage. Most likely, it is just a sprain. By the way, the CRAP that the PE teachers used to wrap his ankle was laughable. I can't even begin to describe what the material was that they used. It was not appropriate, and that set me off.

After I got some ice on his ankle for a few minutes, I went to get him some lunch since he was missing lunch period. Bring his lunch back to him so he can at least eat. Poor kid was still crying a bit. He was obviously still in some pain.

I go back to wrapping his ankle properly. I call his Dad to let him know what has happened. As I mentioned a minute ago, his dad teaches at one of our other schools and he could not come to get his son. Because of our schedules, my school let out 30 minutes before his, so I told him I would bring Trent to him.

Once our school dismissed (2 hours early due to the impending snow storm), I carried Trent through the school halls, out to the parking lot, and into my car. You should have seen the looks from my teaching colleagues as I carried a kid through the hall. What was even more fun was seeing the parents' reactions as they waiting in the car line while I went through the parking lot to my car.

Got Trent to his dad's school. Again, got some crazy looks as I carried a student into the school.

It was a crazy afternoon.

Consequently, this is not the first time I have had to carry a student in the school. It seems that each year a student gets hurt (they are middle schoolers, after all) and has to be carried to the clinic. Last year it was a student who tried to leap frog a stone water fountain on the field. He obviously hit the fountain, knocked it over, and it landed on his leg. He ended up being okay.

The previous year it was one of our girls who was running around the track and somehow sprained her ankle. Had to carry her into the school and into the clinic.

The one that rings out most in my mind is when I had to physically bear hug a student who was trying to fight two other boys. Austin was the little man in this situation, but he didn't care. He was spouting off racial slurs at these two black boys who were (thankfully & wisely) walking away. Austin was going after them. That is when I ran across the muddy field and had to get a hold of Austin. Honestly, I had to jump and grab him like I was some football player...yes, onto the very muddy field.

I had to bear hug this kid and keep a hold of him as he tried to break free and chase these two boys. He continued to yell all these racial slurs. I finally got him to calm down after the other kids were cleared off the field and returned to the classroom. Once I was able to calm him down enough to release him, I walked him into the office where I was FINALLY met by our school's resource officer and the assistant principal. When I got into the office I had mud on me from head to toe, and I was missing my shoes. (They fell off while I was running across the field...Darned sandals.)

Sadly, Austin was returned to juvenile detention within the next few weeks. It is sad, because I had known Austin for a couple years before I knew him as my student. I worked with him and his twin brother while they attended summer camp. They were great kids. It is sad to think that in a couple years his life had taken such bad turns that he ended up being an angry and troubled young man. It just breaks your heart.

Thus endeth my tales of the Middle School Teacher for today. I like telling these stories, and believe me when I tell you I have tons of them. Perhaps I will begin sharing more of my adventures in middle school soon.