Scholars Hinder Involved Teaching

For better than a quarter of century I worked for a management services company called ServiceMaster. The company was consistently rated as the top management services company in the country by various business publications. ServiceMaster had four company goals that will stay with me forever: 1. Honor God in all we do  2. Help people develop  3. Pursue excellence  4. Grow profitably.  ServiceMaster was also notorious for using acronyms which at times drove me nuts so I'm chuckling to myself as I sit here typing because I'm about to use one.

Use more visuals, ignore bad behavior and be sensitive to their needs.  That is the mantra of overhead personnel in our school system that claim to be an expert when working with scholars with emotional and/or psychological problems.  That is the mantra spoken when Scholars Hinder Involved Teaching (S.H.I.T.) happens.  This mantra is spoken by someone that spends less that fifteen minutes in our classroom about once every three weeks.  You are about to hear what I think about their mantra.

Use Visuals To Keep Them On Track

Of the three this is the one that irks me the most because we have visuals everywhere in the classroom to keep the scholars on task.  The class schedule is posted in three locations.  On the chalk board in outstanding penmanship there is information on the time of day for yoga, speech therapy, group social skills and library.  On each scholars desk is a listing of our four main academic requirements for the day that the scholar can check off as they are completed. There are classroom rules, hallway rules, restroom rules, cafeteria rules, golden rules and anger rules that are posted in locations that can be easily seen by the scholars.  So for some overhead person to say we need more visuals is frustrating.  From my view at the back of the room I studied our visuals and racked my brain trying to figure out how to improve them and then it hit me.  We don't have definitions for certain words so that they can be used in a sentence correctly. So today I'm making more visuals to help our young scholars.  The visuals will be definitions of the words most often spoken when a scholar has erupted and is directed to the timeout room.  I won't bore you with the definitions but I will tell you the words are B-Word and F-Word.  Dear speakers of the mantra.  When S.H.I.T. happens I don't think adding visuals is going to help.

Ignore Bad Behavior

Let me tell you some of the bad behavior I've seen in the past three years.  During my first year my teaching partner was head butted, punched in the face and bitten by a scholar all within ten minutes.  In an art class I watched a scholar practically destroy the classroom to include tearing a phone off the wall, finding a tray of scissors and throwing them so hard that when they hit the wall they broke.  In my own classroom I watched as a large container of Lego's was tossed, a computer mouse thrown against a wall, a container of chocolate milk thrown so hard at a wall that it broke open sending chocolate milk everywhere.  I've seen chairs thrown across a room that flew higher than my head, books tossed and desks flipped over.  I've been kicked and punched by scholars numerous times.  Dear speakers of the mantra.  When S.H.I.T. happens ignoring it is only going to get someone hurt.

Be Sensitive To Their Needs

"Shut up you fat ass B-work".  "F-Word you" so many times I stopped counting.  You "N-Word because that is what my Dad calls them".  "Shut up you F-Word B-Work".  And for this first time this week out of the mouth of one of my scholars I'm called a "c---sucker".  These vulgarities were spoken by scholars from Kindergarten through 4th grade.  Dear speakers of the mantra.  When S.H.I.T. happens it gets shut down immediately.  Why?  Because these words are not in any of our text books.  These are words that came from home and I suspect may be part of daily conversations.  They may get ignored at home but not in my classroom.

What brought this topic up?  When Gnu was talking to an overhead person recently about her frustrations with such volatile and out of control scholars she heard the mantra you need to use visuals to keep them on track, ignore bad behavior and be sensitive to their needs.  Dear overhead person.  You need a new mantra as the one you are using is not working.

I have two closing comments.  I first thought of using this acronym during a Saturday morning cycling class.  I new what letters I wanted to us in the acronym but I couldn't come up with the wording.  I mentioned this to a good friend of mine in the class that just happens to be a teacher.  Right in the middle of the class she got my attention and said I have it.  I told you about her a few blogs ago and called her Gunpowder and Lead. Thanks for the assistance G&L the wording is perfect.  Today is Friday and earlier in the week on Tuesday I think I passed the 2000 pages view mark.  To all of you who have stuck with me, thanks.

I am now cracking open a Bell's Oberon Ale and pouring it into a frosted glass.  Cheers!