I teach kindergarten, so social skills and manners are naturally part of what I teach. Building relationships comes pretty naturally to it too. Part of that is that on Fridays I eat lunch with the children in the lunch room.

Last Friday I go in with my lunchbox and sit at a table with an empty spot. All of the rest of the tables for my class are full. Almost immediately a child starts to have a full on tantrum (she was moved into my class about 3 weeks ago after she physically assaulted the other kindergarten teacher and left bruises and abrasions). The vice principal who does lunch duty every day tried to calm her down but it didn’t work. She just escalated. Everyone, even the kids started ignoring her and eating their food and have pleasant lunch conversations (which are always entertaining in kindergarten by the way).

Then, a banana struck the kid sitting go cross from me in the back of the head. The peel hit the boy sitting next to me, smearing on his glasses and the rest of the peel smacked me in the face.

I’m glad the vice principal got to her before me because I might have lost my job. This child has terrorized my class since she was moved in.

She was taken to the office, where she spent the afternoon in a bean bag chair taking a nap. No other consequences.

The vice principal told me that she said she threw it because I didn’t sit with her and only her.