Drama in the 1st grade.

Friday was a rough day at school. To start off the day, there was a substitute teacher and two of my students reacted very negatively. To make a long story short, I dealt with them all day and exhausted all my options and then had to send them to the office to chat with the principal. One student exploded in anger, yelled at me, then ran away down the hallway. Eventually I found her and she stomped down to the office. In all that mess I got called, "mean," "tattletale teacher" and accused of "not caring," --- all by a 6-year-old. More like an old soul trapped in a 6-year-old's body as the principal described her. And it's true. That little girl has gone through more crap than I want to know. Her home life is a wreck. All of her siblings have different dads; there have been multiple step-dads in the picture; and now mom lives with a boyfriend. This 6-year-old is dealing with the effects. She's emotionally distraught, cries all the time, and can't even verbalize what is the matter when she is upset. Behaviorally, she refuses to participate with the class. She gets out of her seat and wanders around often, doesn't do her work, and runs away when she gets overwhelmed or feels singled out. Academically, she's low. Very low. Writing her name is still a struggle; her fine motor skills are weak; and reading is almost impossible because she doesn't know what sound each letter makes. And the little boy? His attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish because all he does is play GameCube and nintendoDS all day - he plays it so much in the morning that he is late for school! This kid is falling behind because his mom doesn't have the guts to step up and be his parent. There is no filter between his brain and his mouth so he just shouts out in the middle of class. He swears and calls other kids gay. He's always in his own little world and his mom punishes him by keeping him home from school. Now I could care less about being called mean or a tattletale teacher. It stung for sure, but what upset me the most was the environment her mom is raising her in. If only parents had to come to school and deal with the child they raised... do they not see the tangled mess of a child they created?! Let them try and teach her something. Teaching. If only it were that easy to just teach. Learning and teaching is on the back burner when I as a teacher am forced to be a psychologist, parent, and counselor. Teachers are INCREDIBLY underpaid.