husk, I'm sorry, but your comment about not being in the dark because you did two days of observations seems a little laughable.
I am a first year teacher, but I have done years of observations, practicums, student teaching, plus working with after-school programs, summer camps, etc... I have been bitten, punched, kicked, slapped, cursed at, threatened etc... I had a five year old tell me that he was going to kill me and to go F-myself because I told him that he couldn't have seconds on snack. I have had a second grader charge me and throw a chair at me for asking him to lower his voice as we were watching a movie as a group. I was bitten by a student because he was angry that he had to stop playing a game because he was hitting his classmates. Some of this was in some "rough" areas, other times it was in more affluent areas.
Right now I'm working in a private school and a colleague is teaching kindergarteners and they are very abusive to each other and to her. She has been hit and bitten and the parents do nothing. Their excuse is that "well they are only 5". There is no responsibility taken by the students or the parents for the behavior of these children.
Parents need to realize that they are responsible for how their children behave to a point. Children's behavior is influenced and guided by the boundaries that that are or are not set by the parents and as teachers we are left to deal with the aftermath, both positively and negatively. We have to maintain the safety of all of our students while teaching them and encouraging them to do their best. That is not an easy feat to do when these kids get the message from home that they don't have to do anything other than what they want to do when they want to do it.
These kids were not "normal" (I hate using that term because there is no real "normal") third graders, but if they were able to plan something like this out then Craig (and many others) are right, if there was something awful going on in that classroom they could have told someone or called the police. These kids knew what they were planning and were more than likely aware of the possible consequences of their planned actions. While these kids are too young to really press the kind of charges that these actions deserve their parents need to have charges pressed against them and these kids need to be put into some serious counseling for their behavior/anger management and entitlement issues.
"All the while making faces like a baby platypus who forget to take some Beano before eating a chimichanga." FindingNamo in reference to Jessica Simpson's singing.
