The Troublemaker

On Thursday, Caleb stormed into the classroom, bellowing that I had "gotten him in trouble" as he thunked into his seat.

I attempted to explain that all I had done was to report what he had done, and he was the one who had gotten himself into trouble. I say "attempted" because Caleb wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.

Sigh.

I'm not sure why he was surprised. Or angry. Because, seriously, he should have known.

On Wednesday, I was covering the math class at the continuation high school. (On Thursday I covered the computer literacy class at the same school, hence seeing Caleb again.) Caleb was in 3rd period. 3rd period is right after they have a 15 minute snack break.

The school has a fairly liberal restroom pass policy. The only restriction is that they're not supposed to go for the first or last 10 minutes of class.

Caleb walked into 3rd period just about at the bell. He insisted that he had to use the restroom right then. I told him he could go in 10 minutes.

Oh no. This was not going to work for him. He had to go right now.

If it was such a dire emergency, why didn't he go during snack? He had a full 15 minutes.

He was "busy" he said. Well, if he was busy, he clearly didn't need to go that badly. Then it turned into he didn't need to go during snack. My response was the same. (Or it might have been the other way around. Either way, the story changed as I questioned him on it.)

Caleb... Yeah, Caleb doesn't back down. He's one of those students who... I don't know how to describe him. But I've dealt with him quite a bit, so I knew it was going to be 10 minutes of arguing, and I just wasn't in the mood.

I informed Caleb that I'd let him go, but I was going to let Mr. F know what had transpired. He said he was okay with that.

Mr. F, the math teacher, is one of the strict ones. And they all know this. I knew that writing down this incident would result in a consequence for Caleb. He should have known it too.

So, when he stormed into the classroom the next day, I wasn't sure what the problem was. He had agreed that Mr. F would be informed. So, really, he should have known.

(Before I get comments about restricting restroom usage, if it's clear it's an emergency I wouldn't have hesitated to let him go. This was more a case of a failure to plan as he had just had a break.)