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.
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