It's not everyday that I get to paraphrase the Wicked Witch of the west but I thought it was the perfect title for this weeks blog.
It was a strange start to the week as a blog reader requested a name change. Mout (it rhymes with ought) contacted me and asked to have his name changed to Jr. I know Mout (it rhymes with ought) quite well as he is the second off spring of Schackie and Virg of Bay City, so I considered his request and offered a counter proposal. "How about calling you Honest Jr" I suggested. He agreed so I thought we were finished with our conversation. Nope! He then asked me "why didn't you have a fake name?" I respond, "what do you suggest?" He said, "The Fixer." I'll consider it. Some of you are probably thinking who cares but I felt it was an important event of week three and it offered me a chance at having a little fun and here is why I needed to have some fun. Week three of our school year SUCKED!
I don't even know where to begin. I'm sitting in my favorite blogging place, the screened in porch on the back of my house, and the more I try and sort out what transpired this past week the more agitated I get. It's pretty obvious to Gnu and I that we have scholars who just don't like each other. The sides have been drawn, EM, MiniJ, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Grr! are on one side and WaxOn is on the other. For reasons unknown, WaxOn's bus was seriously late every day of the week but Friday. He has been walking into the classroom somewhere between 9:45am and 10:00pm. All the other scholars are in the classroom by 9:05am and they are settled and academics have started. When WaxOn arrives the reactions are negative to the point that Grr! will state "I'm out of here" and he will walk to the far side of the room. EM, Uh-Uh-Uh, and MiniJ don't get as animated as Grr! but their facial expressions show their displeasure. This is not a good situation and in my role as The Fixer I'm not sure what I can do so the challenge is for Gnu to resolve this conflict. Gnu's challenge is to change the behavior of a scholar who is defiant, disrespectful, overly active, ridicules, if not out right taunts, his classmates, and according to one of our behavioral support team members "has the attention span of a gnat."
A scholar from last year, Leftside, had some sort of major eruption in his new classroom. The anger was at such a level that there was a call for a Crisis Team to support the teacher. I'm not a member of the Crisis Team that was called so I only have piecemeal information on the event and it goes something like this. Due to Leftside's eruption the classroom was vacated and Leftside was left in the classroom alone with people monitoring his behavior through the window in the classroom door. The Crisis Team, when they arrived, tried to contain him in the room but he essentially overpowered them and was out in the hallway. While still seriously angry he was looking for his teacher and in order to avoid a confrontation with Leftside the teacher vacated the area with Leftside in pursuit of her. That is an ugly, dangerous situation but everything ended well as additional support arrived. A Crisis Team lost containment and adjustments were made by creating a new Crisis Team. I am now on this new team plus remain on my regular Crisis Team. So in the future, when Leftside and only Leftside erupts, I'm, along with another male teacher, required to respond. Great! We have enough chaos in our classroom and now I have to leave Gnu alone in the room to deal with scholars that are strong enough that I take my glasses off when I'm required to respond because I now have to deal with angry scholars much closer to my size.
We are at recess in the gym. Everyone has their own basketball and it's calm. EM misses a shot and the ball bounces toward WaxOn. WaxOn grabs the ball and gives the one he is holding to EM and keeps EM's ball. EM asks for his ball back and WaxOn refuses. EM again asks for his ball back and now WaxOn is taunting him and making EM chase him around the gym. MiniJ sees what is going on and is yelling at WaxOn to give the ball back to EM. WaxOn's response was to fire the basketball and MiniJ. Now MiniJ escalates and fires his basketball at WaxOn and I'm up and moving in their direction. I check on MiniJ and he is fine. When I look for WaxOn, he's left the gym. Uncertain as to his location, I walk into the main office to check the security cameras that are monitoring all the hallways. While in the office their is an overhead announcement, it's a call for a Crisis Team, the Crisis Team that needs to respond when Leftside is angry. The timing was terrible as I was already irritated as this was approximately the fifth time that I've had to search the hallways for WaxOn this week, so my response to the office people was a loud, "I don't have time to deal with that as I have to again look for the knucklehead from my classroom." I lost my temper in the main office and that is unacceptable behavior for an adult.
Gnu has the scholars in PE and I'm with Grr! in the classroom as he is to angry to go with the class. The friction between WaxOn and Grr! escalated to the point earlier in the day that Grr! said to no one in particular "I'm going to have to kill him." While that sounds bad, this is a usual response from Grr! and once he de-escalates he probably will not even remember saying it. While in PE, Uh-Uh-Uh walked up to a scholar and said something like this, "you are too fat, you need to go stand in front of a mirror so you can see how fat you are." When Gnu asked Uh-Uh-Uh why she would say that she responded "he was in another school with me and bullied me all the time." Later in the day Gnu made inquiries about this other school and found out that this other scholar had never attended school with Uh-Uh-Uh. This caused red flags to go up everywhere as Uh-Uh-Uh made similar comments about other scholars while outside at recess on a number of occasions and Gnu and I believe her. That will not happen again and this information was shared with our school Behavior Therapist who was totally surprised with what transpired.
Gnu is doing math with MiniJ, EM and Grr! at her desk. Uh-Uh-Uh is working with me and WaxOn is essentially doing nothing with the math worksheet he has. Gnu's attention is focused on EM and Grr! when I hear her say loudly, "MiniJ did you just staple your hand?" Not only did he staple his hand he slammed the stapler on his hand. Gnu is up and holding his hand and moving toward the hand washing sink near the back of the room that is also our first aid station. She exams the hand with the staple in it and says "I can't get it out." She tells me to stay with the class as she is heading to our official first aid room. I call the office to inform them as to what happened so someone can support Gnu. I'm in the classroom with the scholars for approximately fifteen minutes when I hear the siren. A 911 call was made and the ambulance is arriving and so is the Indianapolis police department. The EMT's attempted to remove the staple but then decide to transport MiniJ to the hospital to remove it. When Gnu returned to the room you could tell she was distraught. Gnu speaking to me, "I didn't know what to do." "The whole time the EMT's were working on MiniJ's hand all I could do was sit there and hug him." "I just couldn't let go of him." So you know, the staple was removed and MiniJ was at school the next morning with no evidence of injury.
There is a verbal exchange between WaxOn and EM. I'm not sure how it started but I know how it ended. EM, angry and looking at WaxOn, "I wish you father was dead." After he said it EM turned and looked at me. When I looked at him I could tell by his facial expression that he realized he made a mistake. When we made eye contact he turned from me and put his head down on this desk and softly cried. It wasn't long after this incident that the day (Thursday) ended. Gnu and I are alone in the classroom and she said something like this, "that's it, he (WaxOn) has got to go." "If he stays in this classroom than I can't continue doing this."
Ugly, ugly week. I'm trying to think of a time during my three plus years in a classroom for scholars with emotional handicaps that both adults in the room lost them tempers in the same week. It hasn't happened, not once, until this week. I'm even more agitated now than when I started writing this blog. I'm also nervous and a bit concerned that soon I'll write a blog post that will be titled, The Day the Music Died.
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