It's the last week of October, trick or treat. Well, technically it's trunk or treat but I'll get to that a little later.
My blog post, We Are Defenseless, caught the attention of as far west as Utah. As a reminder, the names I use in this blog are totally made up for the scholars, staff, and those who read the blog. So, if you haven't figure it out, as far west as Utah is a friend of mine and as you might guess, she is in Utah. As far west as Utah is a retired teacher who appears to be more protective of jack rabbits that intruders and she shared with me the defensive strategy used in classrooms in her former school corporation. Like my school, they do intruder lock down drills where the door is locked, lights turned off and scholars are moved into areas in the classroom that are out of sight of the classroom door. However, in Utah, their lock down drill training carries it a couple steps further. The scholars are told to use desks, chairs and any other item available to block the door. The scholars are also instructed to grab books and any objects that can be thrown as a means to protect themselves. Now I know some of you may be getting a bit agitated and think this is stupid but these are delaying tactics and hopefully they will delay a gun carrying intruder long enough until the police arrived. If you are already agitated at this defensive strategy then this next one will probably set you off. Interested teachers in Utah can sign up for gun safety classes and guess what, they do. And even better, these interested teachers can and do carry weapons into the schools and classrooms. I have one final comment on being defenseless in an Indiana school. I did an internet search about school shootings in Utah and there haven't been any. Maybe Indiana should merge with Utah.
Oreo, our behavior specialist, was out for a couple days and that meant I get promoted to bus captain for arrival of the morning buses. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a bus captain which is probably why I'm qualified but like any other position at my school it's always an adventure. Here is an overview of my two days as morning bus captain. Day one, one bus discipline referral form handed to me for a female scholar who absolutely refused to sit in her assigned seat and a fight between two male scholars, one of which was Straw, a former scholar that I worked with in the third and fourth grade. Day two, three male scholars were overly animated on the bus distracting just about everyone. Interestingly, there was no bus dismissal referral form to go with this incident. Also on day two, I was contacted by our administrative czar, who guards the front door, about a scholar on a particular bus. The administrative czar informed me that there is reason to believe that this scholar, who has a green backpack and is wearing a red shirt and khaki pants, may be carrying some brass knuckles to school. As a reminder, I don't make this stuff up. Fortunately for me, no one getting off the bus fit that description. Although I'm not the bus captain, I also have bus duty at the end of the school day so if you think my bus captain duties in the morning were interesting just wait until you read this. One second grade scholar, I believed I mentioned him last year (Tourette is his name) was in a major eruption spewing forth a string of obscenities that would rival any of the worse language I have ever heard. The bus monitor and bus driver demanded that he be removed from the bus and suspended from the bus. Working with the evening bus captain, we managed to get him off the bus and into the school office. With our bus captain, as well as the Big B, talking to Tourette, they managed to get him settled down so off to the bus we go for a second time. Tourette is not on the bus for thirty seconds when the obscenity tirade resumes. The bus captain, after almost ten minutes, gets Tourette to settle down and the bus finally departs. The next day, a third grade scholar, goes off on the bus and is in a major anger outburst all because he didn't like his assigned seat. The bus captain, after about fifteen minutes of de-escalation talk, settles this scholar down and the bus leaves. One final comment about buses. At some point in the future you will hear on television or radio or in the newspaper stories about bus incidents that question the decisions of the bus monitor or bus driver. Before you come to a conclusion about the bus incidents ask yourself this question, were you on the bus? All those bus incidents that I just wrote about happened in two days and I can tell you this, I'll side with the bus monitor and bus driver every time until I see definitive proof otherwise.
Our reading block starts with the song, "Oh My Darling, Clementine" for the last time as we are down to the last two chapters plus it's Friday and we have work to do before the Halloween festivities start. Gnu gets out the cowboy hats for the scholars to wear and then pulls out a large plastic bag from behind her desk. She announces to the scholars that, like the characters in the story who are settling down for the night, we'll have to settle down for the night. So she pulls from her plastic bag authentic western blankets that her gentleman caller acquired while he was in Texas. With everyone properly covered in their blank the reading begins. In the penultimate chapter the scholars are told about a song called "Red River Valley" that is mysteriously heard on a player piano in the ghost town's hotel. As I expected, out comes Gnu's iPhone and the next thing we hear is "Red River Valley" playing on the iPhone as the final pages of the story are read.
So much for academics as now we move on to Halloween. Our first assignment is to make sugar cookies from scratch with the scholars actively participating in the making of the cookies. As in the past, my role is to sit on the sidelines until the project is completed and then clean up the mess. At around 10:30am the dough is prepared and the scholars are now using a rolling pin to smooth out the dough before using cookie cutters to shape their cookies. At around 11:20am the cookies are prepared and are on their way to the oven. After recess, lunch, and music, the cookies are cool and it is decorating time and also time for round two of making a mess for me to clean up. By 2:30pm, the cookies have been consumed and now it's movie time so out come the western blankets, that I just neatly folded about an hour earlier, as the scholars plus Gnu settle down on the floor to watch "Casper the Friendly Ghost". I know I've said it before but I'll say it again, I really enjoy working with this wonderful teacher and if she wants to make a mess in the classroom, I'm fine with that.
Although it's been quite some time I need to tell you again how lucky I am to work at this school. Under the leadership of the Big B, the school is hosting a trunk or treat after school at 6:00pm in our school parking lot. Many of the teachers and other staff members have agreed to stay after school to decorate their personal cars in a Halloween theme and then hand out candy from the trunks of their cars to our scholars and their parental units. After trunk or treating, the scholars and their parental units will go back into school for pizza and drinks and then watch a scary Halloween movie. These after school activities, where no one is getting paid, that took place until 8:00pm on a Friday evening. Please keep this in mind the next time you hear one of the lowest life forms, their pointy headed intellectuals that fill their heads with nonsense, and other naysayers who criticize our schools and our teachers. I work in a great school and I will defend it against uninformed attackers all day long.
One quick Halloween story and I'm out. My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I went out to dinner on Halloween evening to a local family owned restaurant for a burger and a beer or two. As we arrived we saw Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" entering the restaurant ahead of this. I'm thinking what a great costume until I realize that Dorothy was smoking a cigarette. I know I'm getting old and maybe my memory is slipping a little but I pretty certain that Dorothy did not smoke a cigarette while on her way to Oz. That's it. I'm out.
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