Last week, I received a phone call from school. "There's been an incident with Kacia. We would like you to come in and pick her up." In the background, I could hear Kacia yelling and crying, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
That was not a sick call or hurt call from the nurse. It was the dreaded phone call for any parent, a 'your kid is in trouble' call. But, she's only in kindergarten. Oh dear....
This is the basic story. Kacia brought a toy to school. It was a small stuffed animal pictured above. She was playing with it during recess. As anything from home would, it attracted many of her classmates attention. Her teacher then told her to put her toy away in her backpack. Kacia went toward her backpack, then she hid the toy underneath her jacket, and returned to play. A few minutes later, her teacher saw that she had the toy again. So her teacher took away her toy. (This is when it gets worse!) Kacia then leaps in attempt to snatch it back from her teacher, and inadvertently scratches her on the neck.
There she was sitting by herself in the vice principal's office, all sobs, taking up as little room on the chair as possible. I imagine not too many school kids this age get called in to his office. Such a foreboding feeling. Fortunately her teacher did not get really injured, just surprised. (Whew! I envisioned a severed carotid.)
Kacia defended that her classmates told her they really wanted to play with her toy. The vice principal was very diplomatic about handling Kacia. He spoke to Kacia with remarkable patience, and said, "We all make mistakes. I know you are very sorry. But the important lesson here, is that we learn from our mistakes, and we do not repeat them. Understand?" She nodded and repeated his words.
I took her home, and she cried herself to sleep. When she woke, she had to recount her ordeal to her father. Then, when we went to fetch her sister from school, Anakai climbed into the car and said, "I heard you brought a toy into school and scratched your teacher on her neck!!" Kacia burst into tears again :(
Kacia's new vocabulary words for today are: disobey, confiscate, and punishment. She wrote the above letter 5X. She will also have to give away the very stuffed animal that got her into trouble. Many lessons were learned, at school, at home, and from her peers. Mrs. Korn and I both agree, she will remember this for a long time.
