It's A Blue Ribbon Committee - I'll Use A Military Term To Describe It

I never imagined that I'd make a reference to a military term that was used in Vietnam in my blog but today it will happen.  But first, a review of the scholars activity for the past week.

A fifth grade scholar was sent to our room for the day.  His fifth grade teacher was absent, they couldn't find a substitute for the class, so the Big B decided to break up the fifth grade class amongst all of the classrooms in the school.  It's a little unusual for our room to participate in this break up process but on Friday in walked The Head.  He arrived with both math and literacy worksheets and sat at an empty desk and started working.  He stay focused for several minutes and then got up and started to walk across the room.  I asked him where he was going and he said there was something on the floor that needed to be picked up.  As he was passing me on his way back to his desk he told me he had an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and items out of place bothered him.  A couple minutes later he says to me, "this math is too hard."  I say to him,  "join me at my desk and I'll help you."  He then tells to me that his teacher allows him to use a calculator.  My BS detector goes up right away so I ask him to show me his math worksheet.  I looked at it and then said to him, "what is nine times two"?  He responds "eighteen" and I said "good you don't need a calculator so get to work".  A short while later it is time for our specials class (music) and the scholars are lining up at the door.  Just as we are about to depart The Head walks back into the classroom.  Again, I asked him "where are you going?"  He responds, "all the chairs need to be pushed in under their desks."  By the end of the day I'm thinking I like OCD and I wonder if we can trade a few ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) for a few OCD.

I've been watching reruns of M.A.S.H. on Netflix for about a week now.  One of the episodes was called "5 O'clock Charlie."  This is an episode about a North Korean fighter pilot who is trying to bomb an ammo dump near the 4077th M.A.S.H.  The North Korean arrives promptly at 5 o'clock, hand drops his one bomb, and badly misses the ammo dump every time.  We don't have a 5 o'clock Charlie but we do have 2 o'clock first grader I'll call Quiet.  Quiet has been coming to our classroom for a couple weeks now.  He apparently looses his focus around 2:00pm and becomes quite disruptive in his classroom so he comes and visits Gnu and I in an attempt to get him to settle down.  When I was called to pick him up this past Friday he was wearing a big red and white Cat In the Hat hat and was holding what looked like a baton.  When I got his attention and ask him to come with me he responded, "no".  So I walk over to him and say "pick up your worksheets, it's time to go."  Again, I get "no".  So I say to him, "if you come with me you can wear your hat but the baton needs to stay in your room."  I'm successful and we are off.  Because The Head is occupying the desk nearest to me Quiet has to sit at my desk which he promptly does.  He immediately starts on his work sheets but I notice that he keeps adjusting the hat on his head.  Finally I say to him, "If your hat is bothering you, why don't you take if off."  He leans forward a little and takes off the hat.  As he does, out falls from his hat an eraser, a few Lego pieces and some round sight word cards.  Quiet then scratches his head for a few seconds,  picks up all of the items that fell out of his hat, puts them back in the hat, and then places the hat back on his head and gets back to work.

The case conference to finalize the situation with Buxton occurred on Friday and as expected he will be a permanent member of our classroom.  The reality of Buxton being in the room hit home about 3:55pm on Friday when Gnu and I were in the classroom alone.  Gnu was first to discuss the matter when she said "I'll have to start gathering academic material for him."  "I guess I'll have to do that over the weekend as he will walk in the door a little after 10:00am on Monday."  Therein is the challenge, Buxton will add a third academic level to the room and one that will require a lot of personal, one on one, teaching.  That means the other four scholars will work as a group and that presents a problem because two of them, Grr! and EM, require a lot of individual attention as they are learning to read.  If Gnu works with Buxton and I take Grr! and EM that means that Uh-Uh-Uh and MiniJ will have to complete assignments by themselves and they are only capable of doing that for short periods of time.  In addition to the academic challenges there is this.  Buxton and MiniJ do not get along.  Buxton in particular does not like MiniJ and has already been in shoving matches with him.  In addition, Buxton tried to cut MiniJ's hair with some scissors and has hit him in the head with a spiral notebook.  Quite surprisingly MiniJ has maintain his composure and not struck back.  The unknown is for how long can MiniJ stay calm and not retaliate?  Hopefully for a real long time because if he can't then Buxton will feel the full force of a round house right hand right up the side of his head.   

One of the lowest life forms, the politician, has decided to form a Blue Ribbon Committee to try and address a teacher shortage problem here in the state of Indiana.  In order to do this forty nine people have been hand selected to be on this committee.  There is a military term that is used when there are too many people in close proximity to each other and it is called a cluster f.......  Do you know what good comes out of one of these clusters?  In Vietnam, a lot of good men can get killed quickly.  In the political word nothing good can happen when a one of these clusters is formed.

So you have a feeling for the make up of this political cluster I'll share with you information on the participants.  To start with, there are seventeen PhD's and two politicians.  There is only one member from a charter school and one member from a private school but there are three members of union organizations.  There are three members from one school district (who happen to be from the same school district as the co-chair of this cluster) but not one member from my school corporation. 

The first meeting was held about two weeks ago and the first order of business was to hire to consultants to present "data driven evidence" that there is a teacher shortage.  Brilliant!  A forty nine person cluster with seventeen PhD's was just formed to address the teacher shortage and two consultants were hired to confirm that there is a shortage.  As I said before, nothing good ever came out of a cluster f......., especially one created by a politician.

Several days ago a good friend of mine, I'll call her 30+Sped, posted a video on my Facebook page.  This video is called "Where Have All the Teachers Gone?" and was created by a organization called AJ+.  The lead-in to the video stated there is a teacher shortage in the U.S. so we got some hardworking teachers to tell us what's wrong with public education.  I tried, for about an hour, to post this video on my blog but I was not successful so I've recreated the talking points below.         

Where Have All The Teachers Gone?

• "Well, if teaching were easy, we wouldn't have a shortage, right?" 
• "It is a result of the sick and fractured system of education."
• "I think I always had it in me to become a teacher, but I never wanted teacher pay."
• "We're underfunded, we have less resources, we're kinda expected to give up our time, we're expected to go the extra mile all the time, without being asked even if we can."
• "You know, I think it's as important to guide students through an education as it is to help someone in the hospital who is sick or uphold the law in a courtroom."
• "There is a certain amount of demonization of teachers that goes on.  Knowing how hard we work, and knowing what's actually happening in a classroom, it's hard to hear people put down your profession."
• "In somebody's class is the next bio scientist.  In somebody's class is the next discoverer.  It's so important that we renegotiate what we think about teachers."
• "I would say on a national level, it's too much politics involved in public education.  There's too much money tied to policies and ideas about what education should be and how education should happen.  There's not a lot of actual educators in that conversation which I find extremely problematic."
• "If you look at the education system, the highest-needs students usually have the lowest, smallest amount of resources."
• "It is difficult, especially when you teach in communities of color or low-income communities.  They bring a lot of trauma into the room."
• "If you have students arriving every day and their minds are elsewhere, they don't know where they are going to sleep at night, they're cold, they're hungry, their stomachs are growling, across the board generally, like, they're not going to thrive."
• "I think when you talk to teachers the thing we're most frustrated with in regards to our kids is the amount of testing that they have to go through."
• "We are testing children to death and we're testing teachers to death.  Twenty years ago, we might have spent as much as two weeks testing.  Today, in 2015, the average number of weeks a child spends taking tests can be up to six weeks."
• "And it just seems like a recurring thing that's just happening over and over again.  Let's try a new test, let's try new standards, let's mandate them, let's see what happens."
• "We've been putting on Band-Aids and we've been trying to backtrack and replace parts.  Why don't we look at a way to create a more holistic education, which includes social, emotional content and curriculum?"
• "Of the best part, where do I begin."
• "The kids, right?  The students, the young adults, they're the best part of the job."
• "I wouldn't give it up for the world.  It's the best choice I ever made, to be an 8th grade English teacher."
• "For every teacher, it's when you see the spark.  When you see a student engage, they're doing something that they love, they're good at it, and they feel confident.  They feel like they found their place in the world.  That's my favorite part."
• "A teacher I worked for kinda mentored me and he thought that I could be a good teacher, but he was wrong - I'm not a good teacher, I'm a great teacher!"
• "The person sitting in that room is teaching to our future, is teaching to the hope of a nation, is teaching to the potential of a world.  Might we value that more as a society?  Might we value that more?"

This video ran about six minutes and the quotes you see above come from either six or seven classroom teachers.  As I watched the video I recognized that there was no unique characteristic about any of these teachers.  There were just teachers sharing their feelings about being a teacher, why there is a teacher shortage, and in my opinion them summed it up pretty well.  Sadly, the state of Indiana and the lowest life form, the politician, decided to form a cluster f..... of forty nine people and hired two consulting companies to determine why there is a teacher shortage when all they had to do is watch a six minute video. 

The sunset right now is beautiful.  My daughter and son-in-law drove out to the suburbs today for a belated birthday celebration and they came bearing gifts.  The meal we consumed was excellently prepared by my part time consultant, part time editor, and full time spouse.  Life can't get much better.  I'm out. Thanks for continuing to read the musing of an old guy who just aged another year.

Nuts!  I forgot something.  One of the teachers at my school has been absent for a while to address a health concern.  It's not one of those easy to address health concerns but something a little more complicated so I'd appreciate it very much if you would keep her in your prayers. 

The Revolving Door - Who Is Out and Who Is In

WaxOn speaking loudly and to no one in particular, "I'm going to beat up my teacher."  His timing was terrible as Gnu was speaking to his parental unit on the telephone in the back of the room.  The parental unit was the one who initiate this call.  It arrived just as IvyL was beginning our morning group session.  Although I wasn't part of the telephone conversation I could hear Gnu say a number of times "he's not in any trouble."  Apparently the parental unit wasn't buying Gnu's statement that her scholar is not in trouble and continued to press the issue.  At about this point, WaxOn realized who Gnu was talking to and started to get agitated.  As Gnu continued to talk to the parental unit he shouted out, '"I'm going to beat up my teacher."  Gnu promptly relays this statement to WaxOn's parental unit.  When WaxOn loudly stated that he '"did not say that" Gnu's asks WaxOn's parental unit if she'd like to speak to him.  She agrees and WaxOn is now speaking to his parental unit and denying everything.  With our group session in progress Gnu moves to the front of the room to participate.  When WaxOn finishes talking to his parental unit he wants to hand the telephone back to Gnu.  Gnu says to him, "tell your parental unit that I can't talk right now and I'll call he later."  WaxOn relays the information and then he looks at me and says his parental unit would like to talk to me.  I look at Gnu, she shrugs her shoulders, so I take the phone and step out into the corridor.  Like Gnu, I'm asked why WaxOn is always in trouble.  I respond that he is not always in trouble.  I further state that the students in our classroom are there because of behavior issues and at one time or another they have all made bad decisions.  I continued by saying that just because they made a bad decision does not mean they are in trouble.  I concluded by saying about the only way a scholar could get in serious trouble is if a scholar did something to intentionally hurt himself or hurt another scholar.  As I expected, the parental unit brought up the "beat up my teacher" statement and I told her that WaxOn said it.  She states that he told her he didn't say it.  I respond by saying, IvyL, our behavior therapist, was sitting about three feet from him and I was within eight feet of him when he said it quite loudly and clearly.  Although I'm standing outside the room I can see through the window that something is building as Grr! has left the group session and he has his mad look on and WaxOn is up and moving around the classroom.  I inform WaxOn's parental unit that something is going on inside the classroom and that I needed to end the conversation and re-enter the classroom.

The threat to "beat up my teacher" was eventually relayed to the Big B.  Then a telephone call was made to WaxOn's parental unit to come and pick him up for the remainder of the day.  That was followed by a very animated conversation between the parental unit and the Big B.  When Wednesday arrived, no WaxOn.  It's the start of the day on Thursday and still no WaxOn.   I'm standing next to BigJ, our in-school suspension person, while on bus duty and mention that WaxOn is missing.  He responds that he is eighty percent certain that he is at another school.  It's late in the day on Thursday and there is a telephone call for Gnu.  The call was from a representative of a charter school requesting information about WaxOn.  Gnu speaks to this representative for a few minutes and she is told how well WaxOn is behaving at his new school.  The representative at this chart school states that his behavior is so good that if it continues this way the funding his parental unit receives because of his behavior issues will have to be discontinued.  I'm fairly certain that if that happens there will be another very animated conversation involving the parental unit.  It's now 3:00pm on Friday.  Gnu has gathered all of the information requested by the charter school and I'm off to the fax machine.  I insert the documents into the fax machine, dial the telephone number, hit the start button, the transmission runs it course and just like that the door revolves and WaxOn is gone.

It's mid-week and a teacher from our life skills classroom walks in about 3:50pm and sits at the front desk near Gnu.  This teacher is a regular visitor to our room, especially at the end of the day.  When he stepped into the room in the past he usually leaned on a cabinet right by the door and conversed with us.  On this day he walked past me, sat down by Gnu, and I knew something was up.  He begins by saying that he was at a case conference earlier regarding one of his scholars that needed to be assigned to a different classroom or even a different school.  This scholar is either in the second or third grade and because of the changing population in the life skills classroom he is now a head and shoulders taller than his classmates.  This size advantage, in combination with his anger control issues, is what caused the case conference to take place.  Sadly, post case conference, there was some uncertainty as to where this scholar should be placed.  As the life skills teacher continued to talk about the options that were available for this scholar Gnu and I made eye contact and it was clear to both of us that our classroom was going to the best case scenario for this scholar.  Although our classroom may be the best case scenario there is a problem.  Our classroom is for scholars with emotional handicaps and this scholar does not, at least on paper, fit that category.  So what do we do? 

As the conversation continued about this scholar I started to think about the challenges that he will bring.  Unlike Gnu, I have a history that goes back at least two or maybe three years with this scholar.  Unfortunately, this is not a good history.  My first encounter with him was a couple years ago when he was temporarily placed in my classroom for the day as there was a substitute teacher in his classroom.  That didn't work out very well as he managed to evade me and get out into the hallway.  As I pursued him, he decided to exit the school and that is not good.  As soon as he exited the school I pulled out my cellphone and called the front office for assistance.  Unfortunately, the telephone rang at least thirty times without being answered.  To say that I was not happy with this situation is an understatement.  Luckily this ended well as the scholar walked back into the school by himself.  So you know, life skills classrooms don't have a self contained time out room, they have self contained restroom, so when a scholar needs a time out she/he is brought down to our room.  As it stands right now, this scholar that we are talking about has spent more time in our time out room than any other scholar that I've worked with.  While in our time out room he has spewed forth some of the most inappropriate language that I've heard including the B-word, F-word, and the N-word.  He is skilled at extending his middle finger and has determined that the best avenue for escape from our time out room is to take off his shoes and try to break the window with them. 

So what do we do with a scholar that has the potential to seriously disrupt our classroom?  Although I've said it a number of times in the past I'll say it again.  I'm working with a great teacher.  A loving and caring teacher who will, I'm certain, always do the right thing.  So the next morning, at 10:20am the revolving door at the back of our classroom turns and in walks Buxton and he is placed in his assigned seat.  Where in the room is this seat?  Right next to me so he to can enjoy a wonder view from the back of the room.

It's been a interesting couple of weeks.  I was invited by Oreo to be an interim bus captain during her absence.  I was either voted on to or was selected to be on an advisory committee with the BigB where I'm the only male in the room.  A sizeable chunk of money was made available to our school to increase the ratio of computers to scholars and I get to participate in discussions on how the money will be spent.  Conversations have started regarding the teacher shortage and what to do about it.  I watched the revolving door turn as WaxOn departed and Buxton arrived.  And most importantly I fretted for the better part of an entire week about Gnu's continued involvement at this school.  It's this last item that I'd like to elaborate on a little because it provided a special moment for me.  On the day Gnu told me she wasn't leaving I felt relieved.  Later that evening I received a rather lengthy text message from her.  I won't tell you the content of the entire message, only the important part.  The text message read, "I couldn't/wouldn't be able to do this without you in the classroom."  The challenges of my job often leave me wondering why I keep doing this.  A text message that contains only thirteen words is the reason I continue.

Thanks for continuing to follow a blog written by an old man who now shares his view from the back of the room with a scholar, with a totally fictitious named that I made up, called Buxton.  That's it, I'm out.   

          


       

Thinking Outside the Box

I attended a professional development day on Wednesday that was put on by our school corporation.  I've attended development days in the past and have mixed feelings about attending but I go because they are labeled as MANDATORY.  As in the past, the person giving the welcoming speech was from the main office of our school corporation.  At today's meeting it was our new Officer for Special Education so I was immediately interested in what he had to say because this is the person that referred to our scholars as "exceptionalities."  When I first heard the word "exceptionalities" I immediately thought this person falls into the pointy headed intellectual category but I was wrong.  When he spoke you could sense the sincerity in his voice as he thanked all of the instructional assistants that were in attendance for the work that we do.  When our new Officer for Special Education finish his remarks I had a pretty good feeling about being in attendance.  Sadly, that feeling went away as representatives from Human Resources were up next.

Before I move on to the HR presentation I have to tell you about the first note I made on the margin of the agenda that I had in front of me.  I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this but the First Lady of the US, Michelle Obama, has been on a campaign to insure that healthy meals are served in all of our schools.  That bit of information brought a smile to my face as I noticed that our school corporation was serving donuts in the morning and if you stuck around for the entire day you would earn a bag of potato chips.  So, in my finest penmanship, in the top left corner of my paper, was this note.  Donuts, chips and Michelle Obama's healthy meal campaign.

Ok, on to the HR presentation and I'm going to try and get through this without using any bad words.  "Good morning everyone, my name is Ms. HR, and I'm here today to talk about your job description."  On the big screen at the front of the room were the following bullet points.

• You must be able to push, pull and lift up to 50 pounds.
• Tardiness and absenteeism - you must be on time when reporting to school.
• Breaks and lunch - you can't take any additional time on your breaks or during your lunch. 

At about the seven minute mark of this presentation I was getting agitated.  Just a few minutes earlier a speaker spoke with sincerity and thanked us for what we do.  Now, in front of me stands a person who is talking to us as if we are common laborers.  I wanted to say to this person do you have any idea what we do everyday in our classrooms.  We are not common laborers.  We support a teacher by taking a small group of scholars and present to them a daily academic assignment.  We work in an environment where we are at risk of injury when a scholar with "exceptionalities" goes off and starts throwing objects, when a scholar starts screaming at us using the most vulgar language, when a scholar hits, kicks or scratches us with some degree of regularity.  I wanted so bad to say, Ms. HR we are instructional assistants, we are not common laborers.  Obviously I remained silent otherwise I wouldn't have anything to write about in this blog post as I would be unemployed.  As Ms. HR continued to speak she paused for a minute to ask if anyone had any questions.  As soon as I heard this I thought back to my previous career where I had many opportunities to speak in front of gatherings both small and large.  One thing I learned when speaking was to be very careful when you ask if anyone has any questions as in all likelihood you could open up a can of worms.  Well, for Ms. HR, it was too late as numerous hands were raised.  "When are we going to get a raise?"  The teachers got a raise, when can we expect our raise?"  "Is there something you can do to change the school calendar so that we don't have some many days off without pay starting in October and going through December?  "It is hard enough to make ends meet with the little pay we receive and it gets worse during the holidays because there are so many days where we don't get paid."  As the HR person is getting peppered with questions she finally tries to put and end to it by saying all of these questions need to be directed to your union president as they are all bargaining points.  She then walks over to a flip chart and writes down the union president's name and cell phone number on it.  As she returns to the center of the room a gentleman seated behind me just stands and starts to speak.  "I just completed my degree requirements and I'd like to know if I will get an increase because I now have a degree."   Ms. HR speaking, "there will not be an increase."  "There is nothing in the union contract language that addresses instructional assistants that earn a degree."  "If you want, you can take it to your union representative and ask them to put it on the bargaining table." 

Right after the HR person finished speaking we took a break so I got up and walked over to the gentleman who just earned his degree.  He was around fifty years old.  I introduced myself to him and said I also have a degree and I wanted to be sure that I heard the HR person say you would not get a raise and you had to take the issue to your union.  He said that I heard it correctly and then he said, "it took me a long time to earn this degree and if that is how I'm going to be treated I won't be here next year."  Right now there are several teacher openings in my school corporation and we are at the end of the first grading period.  The last time I looked there were fifty open instructional assistants positions and our HR person just took the position she took with a man that just earned his degree.  Given the conversation that took place between a recent degree earner and HR, I wonder how much time and energy HR spends trying to figure out why they have so many open positions.

On a much lighter note, the next presenter was a paid professional speaker and I enjoyed listening to her.  She spoke on keeping scholars motivated as well as yourself.  As a part of her presentation she showed a short video on how one school principal attempted to keep his scholars motivated and it goes like this.  Every morning the principal greets the car rider students outside the school.  He plays popular music, holds a microphone in his hand and sings and dances to the music as the scholars get out of their cars.  He even hands the scholars the microphone to sing along or invites them to dance with him.  After the video ended, the presenter talked about thinking outside the box to keep scholars motivated and thought that what this principal was doing was definitely outside the box.  She then assigned each person in the room to a breakout group so we could share ideas on what we've done to think outside the box.  As I moved to the side of the room with my break out group I'm thinking this will be easy given the number of outside the box things that Gnu has done in the last year and a quarter.  When our group was assembled one of the members asked if anyone wanted to go first.  I remained silent for a while but spoke up as I don't think anyone had an outside the box item to offer.  Before I go on, a little background information for you.  Several weeks ago Gnu was struggling as the scholars were not getting along and it was causing large losses of academic time getting them to do anything.  Around 7:30pm, well after school was out, I got a text message from her.  I'll paraphrase as it's been a while.  "Just so you know there will be very little academics tomorrow."  "I'm mad as hell that these scholars can't get along so all day long we will be doing team building activities."  My text back to her said a simple, "ok!"   Going forward I'm going to tell you about the three team building activities Gnu came up with and these are the same outside the box thinking ideas that I shared with our professional speaker.

Because we had five scholars at the time, IvyL filled in as the sixth scholar so we could have teams of two and believe me, Gnu paired the ones that do not like each other together. 

1. The first exercise was a rescue at sea.  Each scholarly pairing was given one gummy worm, one gummy life saver, a clear plastic drinking cup, a straw, and two large paper clips.  The first objective was to get a life saver (gummy life saver) around the neck of the person (gummy worm) that fell out of the boat (plastic cup).  The second objective was to right the boat (plastic cup) as it tipped over.  The third objective was to lift the person (gummy worm) out of the water and into the boat (plastic cup). The fourth objective was to retrieve the oar (straw) and put it into the life boat (plastic cup).  Now, in order to do this each scholar was given a large paper clip.  The only object allowed to touch anything was the paper clip. 
2. The second exercise involved six red plastic drinking cups (you know, the kind you fill up with beer), a rubber band, and five pieces of yarn.  So you know, the five pieces of yarn were attached to the rubber band.  I also need to point out that each piece of yarn was held by a different scholar so this project was going to require all five scholars to work as a team.  The objective was to pick up each of the six red plastic drinking cups and stack them in a pyramid using only the yarn and rubber band to lift them.
3. The last one was my favorite.  Gnu speaking, "ok, line up at the door as we are going outside."  "We need to stop by my car first to get something and them we'll gather on the lawn outside our classroom window."  With all of the necessary items in hand we settle down on the lawn.  Gnu gets up and picks up a large piece of canvas like material and spreads it out a little.  She then picks up a small duffle bag and empties out the contents.  Speaking to the scholars she says, "this is a tent and you have to put it together."  "Because all of you think you are so smart that you don't have to listen to me I'm not going to help you."  "You have to put this tent together and you can't go to lunch until it's up."  "And while you are putting it up I'm going to sit under this tree and eat this popcorn."  She then stood up, walked a short distance away and sat down in the shade of the tree and started eating the popcorn.  The scholars were pretty excited at first about the opportunity to put up the tent.  They managed to get the tent straightened out and then figured out how to assemble the tent poles.  From there, their frustration started to set in as they could keep the tent in the air.  Sensing their frustration I get involved and gave them some assistance as Gnu continues sitting in the shade eating popcorn.  As the tent slowly rises Gnu joins in.  As she is helping she says to me to go inside and get a part that I left in the classroom because we will need it to finish this project.  So off I go to retrieve the missing part.  My timing was perfect as when I returned the tent was up and everyone was sitting inside.  As I approached the tent there was a collective yell, "Mr. Schultz has pizza" and our lunch was consumed sitting inside the tent that was just outside our classroom window on a really nice day.

There you have it.  Gnu's big team building day and my opportunity for fabulous bragging rights as I was the only instructional assistant in the room that had any outside the box thinking ideas and you just heard them.  For the record, have I ever mentioned that I am working with a wonderful teacher?

This post is getting real long but I ask you to bear with me for a little longer.  While the scholars were helping Gnu return her tent and duffle bag to her car we walked past three adults that were searching around in some flower beds and shrubs at the corner of the school.  When I asked if they needed help looking for something one of them said I lost my medication.  Because it was getting toward the end of the school day Gnu and the scholars kept moving but I hung back and helped search for the medication.  As I was looking, one of the adults walked up to me and said "I had way to much to drink last night, I passed out, and spent the night sleeping in this flower bed."  Again, let me remind you, I don't make this stuff up.

That's it. I'm out.  If you are still reading this, thanks for hanging in there.

A Pointy Headed Intellectual Labeled Them Exceptionalities

What are exceptionalities?  I don't know but I do know who are the exceptionalities and I'll give you some examples.

These three exceptionalities occurred on Monday.  (1)  A sixth grade scholar arrived via the school bus and was let off the bus early so he could attend to his business.  What kind of business could a sixth grade scholar have before school even started?  Simple, he managed to stink up the inside of the entire bus as he had crapped his pants so he was escorted off the bus so he could find some clean clothes.  (2)  A fifth grade scholar arrived via the school bus.  As he exited the bus he ran up to me and poked me in the stomach.  When I looked at him he started laughing and then ran into the school.  Approximately two hours later he is still running.  First out of his classroom, then down the hallway, then into and quickly out of the classroom that Gnu and I occupy.  He is eventually cornered and taken to the Big B's office and his parental unit is called.  As the story was relayed to me this scholar had run out of his thirty day supply of medication several days before his thirty day supply was scheduled to run out.  How is this possible?  I'll offer two options, you can decide which is the correct one.  First, someone else is taking his medication.  Second, his medication is being sold.  Because the supply of medication was mismanage this scholars parental unit was told to come to school and then take the scholar home.  The parental unit respond, "sorry, I don't have a car."  No problem, we'll have your scholar delivered.  A short time later a school corporation police officer arrived, place the scholar in his squad car and drove him home.  (3)  I was walking back to the classroom when I observed a scholar quickly duck into the school's parent lounge.  When I reached the doorway to this room I notice that the room was occupied with a member of the school's staff and a parent.  I also noticed that the scholar I observed earlier was in the back corner of the room so I walked into the room and headed to the back corner.  When the scholar saw me approaching he started moving boxes out of his way and he was trying to get inside a wall cabinet.  Just before I got within arms length of him he closed himself into the cabinet.  I cautiously opened the cabinet door and asked the scholar "what are you doing in this room?"  He responded, in an agitated voice, "I'm not going back to my stupid classroom."  Great!  There is a parent in this room and it is not his.  Rather than deal with the situation immediately I head to my classroom to get help.  I barely stepped into the classroom when I was told I was needed in the parent lounge.  So back I go and when I arrived I saw Oreo and a member of the school Crisis Team in the room.  They managed to extricate the scholar from the cabinet but were having difficulty containing him so they could remove him from the parent lounge.  Finally they succeed and took the scholar to the Big B's office.  Now that the scholar is in the office his aggressive behavior escalates.  First, he freed one of his hands and managed to grab some pencils.  I quickly remove the pencils from his hand before he could stab anyone with them.  He then, with his free hand, solidly lands an elbow into the chest of the Crisis Team member that is restraining him.  With the scholars hands now back under control the scholar rams the back of his head squarely into the jaw of the crisis team member.  Fortunately, there were no injuries.  What a great start to a new week.  And, by the way, here are the exceptionalities in the order the events happened; Straw, The Collector, and Wide.

It's now Tuesday, and as a reminder, the names are totally a figment of my imagination but the events are real.  I'm sitting in the classroom with my view from the back of the room when the classroom door opens.  It's Oreo and she asks for some assistance.  When I step out into the hallway I'm asked if I could help with a sixth grade scholar that is wandering the hallways.  "Sure," I say as Oreo and Knew2 point in the direction I need to go.  By the way, Knew2 is the teacher in the fifth and sixth grade for scholars with emotional handicaps.  She replaced Knew who only lasted one year.  I'm told by Knew2 that the scholar just entered the stairwell and closed the door.  As I head down the hallway, followed by my entourage, the stairwell door opens.  The scholar I'm looking for exits the stairwell carrying a wet floor sign in both hands and has it resting on his shoulder similar to the way a baseball player holds a baseball bat as he walks back toward me.  Knew2 shouts out the scholars name and tries to walk past me.  I immediately block her and tell everyone to stay behind me.  As I approached the scholar I ask him to put the wet floor sign down.  His response was, "no, I'm going to kill my teacher."  He then alters his direction in an attempt to get around me but I step in front of him.  Again I say, "put the sign down."  "No, I'm going to kill my teacher," and he again tries to sidestep me.  I block him again and say, "this is enough, you're angry and you need to start using one of your coping skills."  I then reach for the wet floor sign and take it from him with little effort.  With the wet floor sign in my hand I turn the scholar around and we go for a walk.  Any one want to venture a guess as to the identity of this exceptionality?  No?  Ok, it was Floss.

Just for clarification, in case there are any new followers to this blog, Straw and Floss are sixth grade scholars that were in my classroom two years ago.  The Collector and Wide are fifth grade scholars that were in my classroom last year.  When I worked with these four scholars they were referred to as have a either learning disability or an emotional disability or an emotional handicap.  Fortunately all four have moved beyond those labels and now have a new label.  With the start of the 2015/2016 school year our school corporation decided to hire a special education "officer."   During an early communication to the entire school community this new special education officer referred to the special education scholars as "exceptionalities."  In this same communication, the special education officer mentioned that the school corporation has 6,000 exceptionalities.  When I mentioned this number to my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse she said, "that can't be right."  As I thought about the statement that 6,000 scholars are exceptionalities I ran that number against the total school corporation enrollment.  Using a bit of rounding I calculated that approximately one out of every four and a half scholars in my school corporation is an exceptionality.  How can that be possible?  Poverty, poor education, a total breakdown of the family unit or just plain P.P.P.

One last comment on exceptionalities.  Our school corporation introduced a new School Code of Conduct for the 2015/2016 school year.  In the introductory letter to this new school code it stated that the objective was to reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions of scholars from our school corporation.  I don't have problem with this objective as there is clear evidence that the more a scholar is suspended the probability that she/he will drop out of school and potentially end up in jail rises considerably.  I also know that a number of scholars have figure out that if they intentionally act crazy in school they will be suspended for the remainder of the day and potentially the next day.  They also know that once they are suspended they can stay at home and play with their PS3 or Xbox all day long. So now that you know the objective of the new School Code of Conduct plus I gave you four examples of exceptionalities, who was suspended?  Here are you options, choose as few or as many as you like.  Straw, The Collector, Wide, or Floss.  You can give me your educated guess by posting a comment on the blog or contacting me directly via text message, email, or Facebook.

It's Sunday afternoon on Labor Day weekend and for some stupid reason I decided to write this blog post on my screened in porch on the back of the house where the outdoor is temperature is ninety two degrees.  Because it is Labor Day weekend I also have Monday off as it is a holiday.  Yes, I'm aware that you know Labor Day is a holiday but that may not be the case for the readers in Europe.  As an added bonus I also get Tuesday off as it is a designated professional development day.  Unfortunately, as a lowly instructional assistant, the professional development is not for me as I'm not a teacher.  So, on Tuesday, I don't receive any professional development and I also don't receive any pay for the day but I can live with that because I have four consecutive days without  exceptionalities.  Woohoo!

It's too damn hot on this porch.  Thanks for reading my blog.  I'm out.