At the beginning of the period, Madison came up to me and asked if I could sit with her at her table. (I've got another story associated with that art class two weeks ago.) Since it was a class of 30+ seventh graders, I knew that that would be a bad idea. I told Madison no, as I needed to keep my eye on the whole class.
Madison was special ed. It wasn't immediately apparent, but when I had covered the class the previous week, Madison had had a one-on-one aide that sat with her. Her behavior over the two days I covered the class confirmed why she needed the aide in class.
The aide did not show up on the Tuesday, and she was only in class briefly on the Wednesday. I got to handle Madison all on my own.
I already mentioned the boys. They were at a table next to Madison's, but it was a different table. When Madison complained that the boys were discussing horror movies (because this scared her), I told her not to listen to them. She had turned around in her chair so that she could participate in their discussion, ignoring her table-mates.
Madison was more interested in getting offended by the boys' discussion.
As I could do nothing else short of sending Madison from class (the room was full so there was no place I could move her to), I continued to circulate through the room. I got called back by Madison's table-mates. She was throwing colored pencils at them.
Madison held onto a gold pencil, refusing to give it up (I took all the pencils away from the table). Eventually, she relented, but she sure didn't want to.
The next day, the gold pencil became the bone of contention. One of Madison's table-mates was using it. She wanted it. I explained that she could have it once the boy was finished with it. But that wasn't good enough. She had to have it right then.
The other girl at Madison's table found a gold pencil from another table's stash. They were used to her, I guess. They were also sick of having to deal with her.
I wrote a whole page about Madison in my note to the teacher. I have a feeling that none of her behavior was unusual.
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