The Scholars
- EM - 4th grade and a returning scholar.
- WaxOn - 4th grade and a new scholar.
- Un-Uh-Uh - 3rd grade and a returning scholar.
- MiniJ - 3rd grade and a returning scholar.
- Grr! - 2nd grade and a returning scholar.
- New Scholar #1 - was enrolled but sadly his parental unit has apparently moved again so he is at another school. If my memory serves me correctly, Gnu informed my that this scholar would have been in the second grade and had already been in four different schools. I'll remove this scholar from our roster shortly.
- New Scholar #2 - is enrolled at our school but has yet to make an appearance. Numerous attempts were made to contact the parental unit via telephone but it appears that all the telephone numbers the parental unit listed are not operational. Our social worker even went directly to the mailing address listed on this scholars enrollment papers but could not get a response when she knock on the door. Our social worker decided to leave a note attached to the door of the house asking that the parental unit contact our school. A short time later the parental unit called our social worker to inform her that the scholar in question was enrolled at another school and had been at this school for the entire week. If I haven't mentioned it previously, we have a real good social worker and she did her due diligence and called this school. The response from this school was pretty simple, sorry there is no such scholar enrolled at this school. It appears, and I'm saddened to say, that New Scholar #2 is a product of P.P.P. and is stuck with this failure of a parental unit for her/his life. For those of you that are not familiar with P.P.P. is stands for piss poor parenting.
Academically and behaviorally it was a pretty uneventful week but that doesn't mean that odd things didn't happen or get said. On Monday Gnu had the scholars do an introductory project so that the scholars would know a little bit about each other. They were give a huge stack of magazines and told to search through the magazines for pictures that would describe who they were or what they liked. At one point, when working on the project, EM walked back to my desk and asked me for help cutting out a picture that he liked. It was a pretty small picture and he was afraid he would cut into two pieces rather than one entire piece. I agreed to help and when I finished cutting it out he got his glue stick and attached the picture to a piece of construction paper. While EM and I were working together WaxOn walked back to my table with his project to include his glue stick. EM and WaxOn were talking about their projects so I scanned the room to see if any of the other scholars needed assistance. While doing so, I hear EM say a little loudly, ohhhhhh! When I turned back in EM's direction WaxOn was holding his glue stick at about waist high and was emulating self gratification with it. To quote Arte Johnson from the old Rowan and Martin television show Laugh In, "interesting, very, very interesting."
From Tuesday through Thursday it really was pretty uneventful except for WaxOn. EM, Un-Uh-Uh, MiniJ, and Grr! pretty much stayed on task. In fact, they stayed on task so well Gnu and I were pretty much thinking the same thing, "this is to easy." I suspect at some point those words will come back and haunt us but for now were are enjoying it. WaxOn, however, is going to be a challenge. He reminds me of Yo! because he has the same behavior trait, defiant. Unfortunately, in addition to being defiant, he has an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So what we have here is scholar who is defiant and can't sit still while being defiant. I'll discuss WaxOn's behavior during the first week of the school in the next post so you can get an idea of what challenges Gnu and I will face with this young scholar.
It's now Friday morning and IvyL arrives for our daily group session. As a reminder the intent of these group sessions is to improve the scholars social skills and behavior skills. I'm all in favor of that but this year group is first thing in the morning and right now I'm undecided if I like group at this time of the day. Because it's Friday IvyL usually has a fun activity for the scholars. To start the new year she is going to have the scholars make a flubber like substance that they can use as a stress release when they feel their anger rising. As IvyL led the scholars through the creation of the flubber they all worked well with each other which is a real good sign. On many occasions, when our scholars are in close proximity to each other, bad things happen but not today. I can't recall exactly what ingredients were used to make the flubber but in the end the scholars each had their own piece. Sadly, with their own piece of flubber in hand we now have objects that can be tossed. The first projectile was launch by MiniJ and his target was Grr!. Fortunately his aim was off as he was a little high and wide right of hitting Grr! in the face. After a near disaster, the old guy that has a view from the back of the room stood up quickly and made the following announcement, "the next object that flies across the room is mine and it will be placed in the pit of no return (the trash can)."
It's now Friday afternoon and Gnu is going to do our first science project. Before Gnu gets started she gets my attention and says, "Mr. Schultz, where are our safety glasses"? Oh, Oh! I'm getting nervous as I don't recall ever using safety glasses last year for any type of project. As I'm retrieving the safety glasses Gnu announces the project, "we are going to make mini-volcanos." As I hand out the safety glasses I see on the front table the following; seven lemons with the bottom cut off so they can stand and the top half hollowed out to hold the ingredients to make the eruption. Also on the table is baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, spoons and tongue depressors. The scholars are pretty excited about this project and are working quite well together. As each ingredient is added Gnu explains the purpose of the ingredient and they listen carefully to what she is saying. As she enters the final stage of the science project Gnu has everyone put on their safety glasses as they are about to put in the ingredient to make the eruption. Knowing where we are with this project I ask Gnu, "how big will this eruption be?" Her response, "I'm not sure" so I move closer to the front table. As the scholar add the final ingredients the eruption begins as a bubbling, foamy substance starts flowing out of the volcano and the scholars are getting pretty animated as the project is working as designed. As I watch the eruption I'm relieved as it is a small eruption, nothing that even closely resembles the Mount Vesuvius eruption. Gnu also conducted a second science project but I'll tell you about that one in the next post as this one is getting a bit lengthy. For the record, Gnu has labeled Friday's as "fun Friday" and I'm always in favor of having fun doing academics. However, Gnu can call it "fun Friday" if she likes but I'm going to call it "Mr. Schultz gets to clean up the mess day."
That's it. One week in the books and we did not experience any volatile chair tossing or desk flipping incidents. I also wasn't punched, kick, scratched, or flipped off. There were a few minor punching incidents but no knock down fighting. Gnu had a solid academic agenda and for the most part the scholars completed their assignments.
So you can keep track of the adults they are listed below.
- The teacher - Gnu
- The instructional assistant - Me
- The behavior therapist - IvyL
- The behavior specialist - Oreo
- The leader of the school - Big B
- Our new in-school suspension person - Long
- We also have a new teacher in the EH room for the 5th and 6th grade that will appear occasionally in this blog - Knew2
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