William...now scarred for life.

This is the story of a boy named William. Probably the craziest kid in my basic reading class. The last blog was about Larson, but I seriously think William trumps Larson any day. I think he seriously has ADD and cannot sit still. When he is sitting he makes animal noises or robot noises or machine gun noises. And when he's not sitting, he is normally lying on the ground or hopping about the room like a frog or showing me how he can break dance (the latter is quite funny). He's a super cute kid, but is like a live wire. He's sweet: he's invited me over a few times to play Wii at his house, but I figured that maybe his parents should give the invitation, so it doesn't look like I've invited myself over. He's incredibly happy-go-lucky until something happens and someone makes him mad. Then he fumes and feels the anger so intensely that he practically shakes. He's wound pretty tight.

So, onto what happened today. I've instigated a little thing I like to call "Wiggle Time" so my kids might actually settle down and listen to me at some point during our 2 1/2 hour class. The only CD I remembered to bring with me is the soundtrack to "Bend it Like Beckham," which the whole class seems to think is absolutely hilarious. Today I thought it would be a good idea for them to run laps around the room--you know, get them extra tired--to the beat of the music. A few minutes into Wiggle Time and things started to get a little crazy. I stopped them, and then a secretary stuck her head in. I explained to her what we were doing and asked if she thought it was OK for me to do. She said that it shouldn't be a problem as long as they listened to me, and as long as they didn't run too fast. She then talked to the kids in Chinese, just so they understood what she told me. Once she was out the door, we started up again. A minute later I had to send William and another little boy to the corner because they were not following the rules. About another minute went by and William gave me this pitiful look and said, "Miss Shanna, I be good." This one time I actually relented and let him join in again.

Big Mistake. Thirty seconds later William was on the ground bawling his eyes out. He had tripped and hit his head on a cabinet. I went over to him immediately, got him on his feet, and saw a ginormous gash above his right eyebrow. I thought, oh crap. It looked deep enough that he would definitely need stitches. I led him out to the hall to page the secretaries, and luckily three of them were in the next room over. Students were gathering, and I just wanted to vomit. I felt and still do feel incredibly guilty.

And he'll probably be scarred for life. I found out in one of my other classes that he went to the hospital and had to get 9 stitches. I tried to avoid the secretaries for the rest of the day, and seriously tried to hide from the head of the school, Frances. She kinda frightens me. So I now feel like something of a failure and am not quite sure how I'm going to face my class for the rest of the week. Hopefully parents won't think I'm too irresponsible for their children to be in my presence.

Oh, well. I guess life will go on at some point. :)