When I first started writing this blog I had to decide on which scholar I would mention first. I narrowed it down pretty quickly to either Kirby or Little Dude. I chose Kirby because he actually was in my classroom and decided I'd get to Little Dude at a later date because he fell into the category of guest scholar. Well Little Dude you're up.
Christopher Spencer if you were alive today your repeating rifle would be no match for the rapid fire mouth of Little Dude. A little history lesson for those not familiar with Mr. Spencer. He invented the repeating rifle that was used by the Union Army during the Civil War. This rifle had the ability to fire fourteen rounds per minute which was far superior to the one shot muscat used by the Confererate Army. Fourteen rounds per minute pales in comparision to the number of times Little Dude could say my name in the same time frame.
BaseG informed me that we were going to have a guest scholar for a couple days. No big deal I though as we've had other guest scholars before but the fact that this scholar would be here for a couple days and not a couple hours surprised me. A short while later in walked Little Dude holding a teddy bear followed by his teacher. My first reaction was he's in kindergarten how much trouble could he be. Well I was about to find out. Also be advised that I'll probably will really screw up the punctuation as I introduce you to Little Dude.
Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz can I cut? Mr. Schultz can I cut? Can I cut Mr. Schultz? Can I cut? Can I cut? Mr. Schultz can I cut? He would not stop talking until I spoke to him. I would do everything I could to ignore him but he would not stop. One time I asked The Collector to mark on a piece of paper a line for every time Little Dude said my name. The Collector tried but he had to tell me he lost track because Little Dude was going to fast. CorP got fed up with him one day and walked over to him and said Little Dude you have to be quiet you talk to much. Just so you know CorP is the one who assign our guest scholar the name Little Dude. He was a non stop talking machine. If you tried to ignore him he'd eventually start to get angry. He'd start bouncing up and down on his toes and as he'd got madder he'd tilt his head so that his left ear was nearly touching his shoulder. Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz can I cut? Can I cut Mr. Schultz? Can I cut? Academically he was behind. He didn't know the alphabet. He recognized a few numbers. He could not write or spell his name and he was totally unprepared to be in an academic setting. Oddly though he knew his colors and could recognize shapes like circle, square, rectangle and triangle.
Where do I start because he just can't sit here all day and cut. Ok, I'll tell you about cut. Little Dude liked to cut paper with scissors. He could do it for long periods of time. As soon as he cut up one piece of paper he'd want another. He would hold the scissors in a distorted manner and cut. So I decided my starting point in helping Little Dude was to get him to properly hold the scissors. Sounds simple enough right. Not at all. What a production it was but I survived day one and thought one more day to go. Not hardly.
Day two arrives and it's time to work on academics. I decided to start with the alphabet in combination with writing his name. I pulled out some lined writing paper and plastic letters of the alphabet and asked him to read the letters. Mr. Schultz I want to cut. Ok but first lets work on the alphabet. Mr. Schultz can I cut? Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz can I cut? No we have to do the alphabet first. His anger is building and then he moves into the temper tantrum stage. He is really hot now but I take one more shot at getting him to do some academics. You know what I got for this last attempt? No, not work but instead I got a direct hit with the F bomb. Little Dude we don't say that in this room and he is on his way to the time out room. As I'm exiting our time out room I watch home as he raises his right hand as he is about to extend his middle finger in my direction. The problem is he doesn't have the manual dexterity to do it so he uses his left hand to properly lower the correct fingers. I'm now waiting patiently to get flipped off and observing his effort. Finally he gets it just right and then he drops the FU bomb on me.
Little Dude stayed in our room for approximately twenty five days as the school system tried to find him a better academic work setting. Each and every attempt to get him to do anything academic was a challenge. He would pester me non stop. First about cutting. Then about coloring, pasting with a glue stick or getting on the as he called it the puter (computer). I had to put up with a lot of his nonsense but I'm going to tell you two items that I will remember most about Little Dude. The first one happened when he was coloring. I can't recall what it was he was coloring but I told him to take his time and do a good job so he could take it home and show his mother. He looked at me and said I don't have a mother. I suspect your reaction was the same as mine. The second also involved coloring only it was a class project and when everyone finished the project we decided to post them on the wall at the front of the room. As the older scholars brought up their projects I suggested they put their name on the back to avoid confusion and they did. When Little Dude handed me his I flipped it over and didn't see his name so I handed it back to him saying write your name on the back and then I'll hang it up. A short time later he is back and I see his name written on the back of the paper. It was barely legible but I knew it was his name so I posted it on the wall. As I head to the back of the room PhD? Sparty is standing by my desk. I have to tell you this first. I can't recall our exact words and it is driving me nuts because this is the single most important thing I will remember about Little Dude. As I get next to her she says did you see what he just did. I say who. She responds Little Dude. I looked at her and said no. She states he wrote his name. I turn to look at her thinking so and within three seconds it hit me right between the eyes. He wrote his name. No fussing. No complaining. No nothing. He listened to my instructions and did what he was told. That was a first and without PhD? Sparty observing his actions I would have missed it.
A few days later he was gone. His parental unit moved. Every now and then when I see his kindergarten teacher in the hallway I think about him and wonder how he is doing. I guess I kind of miss the young scholar.
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