I Made a 7th Grader Cry Today

It has been a couple of days since I blogged as I've tried to get on top of marking the "Greatest Mystery" position papers. I was hoping there would be some great middle school thinking on the mysteries of the brain, universe, life, & consciousness - but (although many were much better written than last year) the thinking was largely adolescent attempts to complete the assignment with minimal effort. Most seemed to have learned how to write to a rubric, though.

7th grade was doing a DNA extraction lab today and one kid kept swinging between 2 lab tables with test tubes rolling around on top of the lab table as he swung. I warned him to stop and that if he broke the test tubes he would be responsible for their replacement. (The careless unenforceable threat as I have no idea where to get these test tubes in Honduras.) About 20 minutes later he is dancing around between the tables and one of their test tubes falls and breaks. It was not clearly his fault - but HE had been warned. I lost it a bit, called him by name, and said, "Stop dancing around like a monkey". I took 20 points of his team. (20 points = 5 minutes during the free recess). The kid begins to cry and starts to work on an assignment due next week. At the end of the class I speak with the team and let them know if they replace the test tube they will get the points back and that I know it wasn't all the fault of the kid who was dancing around. The team accepts the consequences (realizing they will not be able to find the test tube) and everyone leaves a little sadder but (hopefully) wiser. I'm feeling a little guilty about making the kid cry and saying that about "dancing like a monkey".
At the end of lunch period I'm talking with the teacher in the classroom next to me. We are planning an integrated soc. studies/science lesson on an idea I read this summer about all species's survivals now depend not on natural selection, but on man. She is the homeroom teacher for the 'boy who dances like a monkey'. As we're talking the bell rings for the start of class and sure enough the boy who dances like a monkey is wandering around the class, not getting his books ready for his next classes, and ... he is called to the teacher's desk and she asks, "Where were you during lunch recess?" He had arranged to come to discuss an assignment with her and had forgotten. It was all enough to make me cry.