It's been a while since I posted the scorecard of who is who so I think I'll do that now as people I met on the trip to Italy expressed an interest in reading the blog.
My Scholars
The Collector - 4th grade
Yo! - 4th grade
EM - 3rd grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 2nd grade
The King - 3rd grade
MiniJ- 2nd grade
No Fouls - 2nd grade
The Support Staff
IvyL - Behavior Therapist
Oreo - Behavior Specialist
Gnu - Teacher
Big B - Principal
It was fall break and the scholars did not have to attend school for eighteen days. That is a real long stretch of time and while in Italy I wondered how the scholars would act on their first day back in school. Between IvyL, Oreo and Gnu a lot of time is spent with the scholars working on their social skills as well as there anger management skills. Given the amount of time spent working on these skills a measure as to how successful they've been could be determine once the scholars returned to the classroom. So on Monday morning, our first day back in school, I was curious as to how the scholars would behave. I'm happy to announce that the scholars were well behaved for the first forty minutes. I'm sadden to announce that just past the forty minute mark MiniJ and No Fouls we're at each other and the first punch was thrown by NoFouls. It was frustrating for me to watch the first punch get thrown because I know how great an effort IvyL, Oreo and Gnu put forth to improve the lives of these young scholars and they just don't get it.
The King has disappeared. He missed a three week period prior to fall break and then the first full week after fall break. So basically we have not heard from his parental unit for six weeks. The last contact we had with his parental unit was that The King's grandfather passed away and they were heading out of state to attend the funeral. Numerous attempts were made to contact the parental unit via the many cell phone numbers we had listed put none were answered. It's a pretty frustrating time for everyone involved in The King's education. He came to our school from a behavioral specialists organization that ran a charter school. When he arrived in our classroom we were informed that he had both emotional and psychological problems so he came with a mentor. All totaled there were five adults working with The King in the classroom to do what was necessary to improve his social skills and get an education. To have his parental unit to take him out of school and not tell anyone and then just disappear is disappointing.
If you recall, just before break I mentioned that EM's family lost their place of residence and were homeless. I'm happy and relieved to announce that he has a new residence and has returned to school. I'm not sure how stable his housing situation is because his two brothers that were with him at our school are required to attend a different school. That's disappointing because he was always talking about his big brothers and was real excited that they were all in the same school. Now he's alone in our school again.
A while back I received an email message from a friend wondering if EM and his family was evicted because of EM's behavior and that he was causing damage to the homeowners property. I'm certain that is not the case as EM was not the destructive type. Sure he'd get angry but he is not a thrower of objects and did not attempt to cause damage like the other scholars. What I believe happened is his parental unit got behind in the rent and was evicted. It's a sad situation as the parental unit has five children with the youngest being about six months old and from what I can tell there is no male presence in the household.
One final comment on EM for now. He's changed since his homeless period. Now when he walks into the classroom in the morning he looks sad. In the past he always had a smile on his face and he was talkative. Now he walks into the room and just sits at his desk. Hopefully is family life will remain stable and he can get back to his old happy and smiling self.
Just a few comments on my first ever trip to Europe. We were in Italy for eight days.
The Highlights
- St. Peter's Square and the Basilica. My wife told me that just standing in the middle of the square caused her to get a little teary eyed.
- Baruna which is a small island off Venice. A beautiful fishing community with considerably less tourists.
- The food. Sitting down at a true Italian family dining situation was amazing. The food kept coming and coming and so did the wine.
- We met a couple women from Utah and we spent a lot of time together just wandering the side streets of the various cities we visited. While seeing the big ticket tourist destinations was great walking on the quieter side streets to get a better feeling for the Italian lifestyle was more to my liking.
- I was going to stop at four but this one just popped into my head. We went on a gondola ride with our friends from Utah plus one other couple. The other couple as I called them were an interesting pair. He was from Scotland and she was from Cuba and they presently live in Canada. Back to the gondola ride. One of our friends from Utah is not real comfortable with water craft. She insisted that she will not get on a boat let alone a gondola. Well peer pressure won out and she stepped onto the gondola. She sat leaning in toward the middle of the gondola with her eyes closed and a panicked look at first. About ten minutes into the ride she was leaning out of the gondola trying to take pictures. I have a picture of her on the gondola and every time I look at it I think to myself, I'm not getting on a boat or gondola. Ya, right!
- We both agreed on this one, The Sistine Chapel. The chapel is a big rectangular box with very high ceilings and is poorly lit. The works by Michelangelo were so high up you couldn't look at the details. The Vatican security was on site and was constantly telling everyone to remain silent and to keep moving which I can understand as it was crowded. Given the crowd and security trying to move you along there was no time to sit somewhere quietly and look at the art.
- The plane flight. Either from Toronto, Canada to Rome or from Frankfort, Germany to Washington, D.C. Nine hours confined to a floor space of six square feet was uncomfortable. If I'm ever elected Czar of the United States I'm going to pass a law that states all executives that work for an airline are required to have an office work space that occupies just six square feet like they make their customers do who choose to fly on the airline. The seat I occupied for nine hours was nearly inhumane all in the name of maximizing profits and bonuses.
That's it for now. Again, I thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment