Most shocking thing I have ever seen a student do

I am a primary teacher. Last year, I came to pick up my students from physical education. The P.E. teacher waved me over. I noticed one student look at me with a guilty face, a wet paper towel wrapped around his neck like a little clerical collar.

The P.E. teacher came close to me and whispered, “X took one of the jump ropes, wrapped it around his neck, and tried to throw the other end over the basketball hoop. When that didn’t work, he started pulling.”

I sent him straight to the counselor, who asked him to draw a picture. He drew a picture of himself in the garbage can.

I told all the specialists what had happened so they would watch his every move for safety. The librarian said, “Oh my goodness, earlier this week he was doing the same thing with his shirt, and I thought he was just goofing around.”

He got frustrated because I called him out on some minor behavior a couple days later. He ran away from me screaming and started banging his head, hard, against my metal desk, so hard I spent the rest of the day watching him for concussion. I can’t get that sound of my head.

He went to counseling and is in the next grade now, doing better by all counts. But I still worry about him.