Weird day

I had a strange morning involving a female student. In 3rd period, I was sitting there surrounded by a few students working on a Government study guide and all of a sudden, I look over at a girl sitting next to me. Her name is Inez. She's a tough cookie. I mean, she's tough--real tough. She never really shows emotion and never has revealed any emotion except for a little snottiness towards me until today. I look over at her and the area around both her eyes is turning red and her nose looks a little red too. She looked as if she was about to cry. I asked her quietly, "What's wrong?? Do you need to step outside for a minute and talk?" She, of course being the tough and strong type, shook her head no. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes. The tears came rolling down her cheeks. I felt so sorry for and the fact that I didn't know why she was hurting the way she was. I wanted to reach out and let her know that I was there for her but she really didn't want anything of it. I still have no idea what was going on. I guess the fact that she felt comfortable enough to show emotion in my classroom while sitting so close to me is a good thing. I want my students to feel safe in my classroom and to know that they can cry if they need to around me and that I won't ridicule them or embarrass them.


Inez, however, has had some issues with me in the past because of me writing her up one day and she received a detention out of it. She was so MAD with me after that. She was so angry and hardly spoke to me after that. She would constantly give me snide looks and just not acknowledge that I was talking to her a lot of times after that incident.

I hope that she now knows that she can talk to me. I told her that I was available for her to talk to if she needed. She refused it but maybe it showed her that she has someone who cares about her and would go to the end of the world for her (well, as a teacher-student relationship, anyway). I don't want any of my students to hurt, even though I know they hurt a lot at times, but I want to let them know that while they're in my classroom, they have a safe place to go. Maybe eventually, I'll find out what happened at that moment but then again, maybe I won't ever and I guess that's fine.