Nose bleed seating

So my day didn't have a great start...ok well before school was good. I had gone to the gym for lifting and will go back after school for cardio; breakfast was very Korean with fruit and Bibim ramen.

I had started my first class and elementary grade four, five and six. They're a bit troublesome with acting out and not comprehending things. I have a great student though Heh Sun. She's brilliant and so sweet and makes teaching the class worthwhile. So of course as I'm taking roll about three students say "Teacher...no book." I really hate making copies and was going to put my foot down today. I interrogated them (which in part was also because these girls are a little behind the rest of the class and for them to forget books just infuriated me) to which Heh Sun translated. I wont go into the whole respect thing because you just need to be here.

While this was going on I remembered I had let a student go to the bathroom. Sahng Hyun is a bit mischievous so having to go myself went to check on him. As I was coming out of the bathroom I peeked into the boys room and saw my student with a bloody tissue standing over a sink with bloody water. Gross is an understatement.

Bless his little heart when he said "Teacher, help me." And so after years of dealing this this same issue I quickly took control of the situation. We started by taking out all of the tissue in his nose. It seems that the Korean way of dealing with a nose bleed is to just let it run it's course while you're stuck with pieces of tissue in your nose.

We took the American proactive way of doing things. I got some new tissue out because his were all battlefield bloody. Then I quickly took his nose in between my index finger and thumb and squeezed. We walked out of the bathroom and I had him sit on a chair with tissues and a waste basket made from a drink carrier. It took a few times of me walking from the class to him to get him to find out that squeezing is better than letting it run wild.

I went back to class and maybe five minutes or less he was back. Class was going much smoother now that I was out of a bad mood. It's funny how stressful situations like that can change your mood. It's also nice to know that bratty kids, even really bratty mean kids (Sahng Hyun isn't that bad...just he needs more physical activity b/c he has too much energy) have a vulnerable side.