All My Children Need a Guiding Light as The World Turns So Teacher Doesn't End Up in General Hospital

Friday was filled with angst for students. It was ridiculous! I had a little girl start crying as she returned from P.E. I asked about the cause...[all the names are fictitious to protect the guilty.]

"Well, Betty said that I said the "b-word" to Shania and now Charmaine said that she is starting a club to be mad at me and no one will be my friend." Tears are flowing, sobbing is shaking her shoulders. Hmmmm...

I talked to various people implicated in the incident. Each and every time I asked Betty or Shania or Charmaine or the sobbing Wanda to clarify the incident, I got a different version of what actually happened. Seriously. EACH AND EVERY sentence from EACH AND EVERY girl was a contradictory version of the previous version. I began to doubt that anyone at all was even getting accurate information, not just me, but anyone. (I pursued it because none of these girls were involved in this sort of thing in my experience, so I felt that perhaps there was something there.)

So, I tried it from the top:  I turned to Shania: "Did Wanda say it to you, so you could hear?"

"No, but Ralph said that Charmaine said that Wanda said it."

Charmaine:  "No, Henry told me that Ralph said that Wanda said it."

Wanda, [still crying], "I didn't say it!"

Me: "When did this happen?  Someone said it happened today in P.E." 

Charmaine:  "No, nobody said anything in P.E."

Shania: " Yesterday Charmaine told me she heard that Ralph said that Wanda said it."

Around and around and around we went for another series, and a couple of more people were mentioned, including a boy I'd heard about from Ralph....Leonard!  Who allegedly is "liked" by both Wanda and Shania and with whom Wanda was sitting on the bus coming back from the field trip or they possibly sat together in P.E. or whatever!!!!

And Leonard?? The object of all this angst and affection? He is the SAME boy who another girl was crying about a couple of months ago. I mean, seriously people...this is a nine year old boy whose demeanor in school is that of an eggplant. "Girls?  Girls?  Where's the wallball court??" That is what he is concerned with, mainly.

So, ultimately, I announced that this incident was now closed and I had a few new rules:

A)  There are no boyfriends in 4th grade. Period. End of Story. Wait till middle school...

B)   If you didn't hear with your very own ears, then it didn't happen to you, okay?

C)  If you hear something bad being said about another person, do not run quickly to that person and tell them the terrible thing you heard. That's not what friends do. Friends stand up for their friends and say, "Oh, that's a terrible thing to say."

Like any of this is going to make any difference, right? Well, I can always hope. I'm going to keep saying it as many times as I need, to as many nine year old girls as I can. Maybe it's like the starfish thing, huh? One at a time, and maybe it will matter to that starfish.