Aggression, the sincerest form of ... anger?

“And then, Miss, I stab him” is just not what you want to hear from a child.

In the last 24 hours:

I broke up three fist fights in my class. One was between a boy and a girl over who stole whose pen. One was between two boys because someone stole someone’s chair, so the fists came out. The other was between two (by the way, HUGE!) grade 9 boys who were fighting over god knows what. One gave the other a resounding (seriously, I have never heard one this loud) slap across the face, the other grabbed a pen to stab him. At this point the boy with the pen moved and allowed me to grab him and pull him out. They are currently very angry with me because they are sitting detention. “but Miss, why? I already wrote a report for the principal…”

AND

I had one boy stab another in the face with a broken bottle at soccer practice. I can’t even imagine the lawsuits I’d have in the States right now. Anyway, after coaching our boys’ soccer team, they ran over to a nearby house to get water before heading home. I figured they were fine and was paying attention to the rugby team. Then I heard “Miss, they are fighting!” Since this is a daily occurrence, I didn’t give it much heed but watched from a distance. When I saw one boy start swinging aggressively I headed over to the scene, but since one of the boys had already borrowed my shoes and I was wearing another kid’s flip-flops (approximately twice too big for me), going was slow. By the time I arrived, one of my rugby boys had separated a boy with a broken bottleneck, there was blood everywhere and the other kid had a huge gash in his face. It took another 2 minutes to get them calm enough to walk back to school without shoving or swearing each other, and the boy with the cut was taken immediately to the clinic for stitches. When I asked the stabber (normally a really good kid!) what happened, he told me: “We were fighting over who could drink water first. I ask [another boy] to drink but that boy took the bottle in front of me. I was mad and I asked for it back. He swore my mother. I told him stop. He swore my mother and father so I push him. He push me so I push him back. Then Miss he used his head to hit my nose. Then there was everywhere blood and I was angry. I pick up that bottle and told the other boys ‘stop him before I do something serious,’ but Miss they just laugh. Then he push me again. So I broke the bottle and told him stop. He swore my mother and then, Miss, I stab him.”

Just another day around here.