Sitting Alone

A child tends to have to really do something, or repeatedly do something to be in big trouble in my class. One of the children today was caught lying to me and has been caught on a few occasions recently. I try to keep an open mind with the children, and if they are honest and tell the truth, they tend to get a small punishment. Mostly, I just want to know if they realize what they did was wrong and are they sorry for what they did, because if this is the case they need to be forgiven. There are also times when the children do something and not realize it is wrong, so I will explain why it is wrong.

Today a student was upset because another child was laughing at them for something that happened in class. When I asked the child that laughed, she looked at me and said, "no." The rest of the class nodded their heads, yes. I told the other child, that today they will sit the morning away from the other children, because she had the opportunity to be honest and apologize to the other child, and she chose not to. In the past, I have had children learn very quickly what they did was wrong sitting along. They tend to quickly go back to the original spot because they did not like this. They also tended not to do what they were doing to be set by themselves, twice. But then again, there was the case of personal space last year, when some of the children saw this and wanted a desk off alone, so they could have "personal space." It only took the other children roughly a half hour before some of them dreamed to have a desk off away from the other children. This year Cosmas asked, "Ms. J. I think I would like a desk by myself, then I can have personal time." Hmm, last year was personal space, this year is personal time; seriously what is it going to be next year?