The One That's Not Funny

I don’t know if there’s a full moon tonight or not, but I saw excessive amounts of very unusual and frightening behaviors at school today. Most of them scared me. I don’t understand how there are so many young children with such huge problems.

I work at a very all-American middle class regular old school in a decent neighborhood with nice families. Today alone, I broke up two fights on the playground violent enough to involve blood and the nurse, was punched in the head while reasoning with a very loveable Autistic child who was having his second meltdown in 30 minutes over the definition of a vague science vocabulary word, spent 45 minutes of my day with only one child (who was suspended last week for hitting a teacher, then the next day she was back only to hit a sub in the head with her recorder, then pull her chair out from beneath her) trying to convince her to write one newspaper article without speaking Pikachu or meowing, and at the end of my day I witnessed 7 teachers bringing down and restraining one fourth grade ED student who had just knocked over a bookshelf and a (huge) printer and was heading out the door. After he started to scratch and bite, they sent someone for surgical gloves. He was angry over a lost paper. After 90 minutes, he was still growling in his throat like a rabid animal and tearing blinds off of the walls while being confined to one room by the 7 teachers, a principal, the counselor, and his mother. I finally left at 5:00, unable to help.

I can’t blame the environment…it’s pretty much been the same situation in all three of my schools, all drastically different populations. If I’m seeing this in elementary school, I can’t imagine what must be in middle and high schools. I was completely drained when I came home and I still have it on the brain four hours later. Is it a coincidence? Is it society? Is it like this in private schools? I’m utterly baffled – were things like this when I was a kid and I was just oblivious? Theories, please.