Game Day

It's Monday and the day is over.  The scholars are on their way home.  I'm on my way to the Professional Development Center to be recertified on how to put my hands on scholars who have erupted and are at risk of hurting themselves or another scholar.  Gnu is still at school preparing for the next day and then she is heading to the big game.  It's approximately 5:00pm when my cell phone starts to vibrate.  It's Gnu and she just sent me a text message.  "The game hasn't even started yet and I'm already crying."  I respond, "is this good crying or bad crying?"  "I think this is like the best day of his life.  He looks so cute!  I'm taking 1000 pictures, I'll show you tomorrow" is the response I get.
"So it's good crying," I say, "and now you have me started."  Gnu replied, "Lol,  Yes!  Sorry!"  Wearing a green and white jersey with the number 33 on the back of it and representing our school in his first ever organized basketball game is EM.  The texting you just read took place while I was in a professional development classroom so a cardinal sin, texting when you should have been learning, was just committed.  I'm guilty and if caught I would have admitted my mistake to the instructor.  Luckily, I caught a break because nobody in the classroom saw me texting as I was a bit isolated from everyone else which also means nobody saw me wiping the tears from my eyes.  Some may say "what's the big deal, it's just a game," but this is a huge big deal because over the four years that I've been at this school, no scholar, that I'm aware of, from a special education classroom, has ever been on a sports team.  People have asked me, numerous times, why do I continue to remain in such a tough environment?  For the moments that you just read about is why I stay and will continue to stay.  I work at a great school with a great staff!  I love my job!  I love working with Gnu!  I love my view from the back of the room and then Monday ends and it's Tuesday morning.     

We just finished the Pledge of Allegiance and recited our school motto when I heard some commotion at our classroom door.  In walks Uh-Uh-Uh with her parental units and she has her mad look going big time to include her usual foot stomping as she walks.  I have a school letter for the parental units so I'm getting up to hand it to one of them.  The female parental unit follows Uh-Uh-Uh into the room trying to settle her down.  Uh-Uh-Uh turns and stomps back toward her parental and takes two swings at her plus two attempts to kick her.  I'm now heading toward the classroom door but I'm a bit uncertain as to what I should do.  I have two choices, either stand aside and let the parental units address the behavior or step between Uh-Uh-Uh and her parental units and take the necessary steps to reduce the tension.  Being uncertain, I look over at Gnu who is close by and make eye contact with her.  She nods her head and gives me a small hand signal to proceed.  I then step directly in front of the parental units, say good morning to them, and ask them to close the door as they leave as I'll take it from here.  They both step back, close the door, and walk away.  When I returned to my desk I thought to myself that I just took a risk intervening between an angry scholar and the parental unit as there have been incidents where the parental unit would have erupted and directed their anger at another adult who just told them, politely, to close the door and leave.  Tuesday got off to a rough start but we survived all the way to Thursday and then our next adventure began.   

A text message just poured in and again it's from Gnu.  "Scholar #2 gave his speech like a champ," the text message said.  What?  Initially I was totally lost.  What the heck is she talking about?  Then it sort of registered and I responded, "Who?  Grr!?"  "Yes!  He had to go up to the microphone and give a speech about his artwork," Gnu said.  Damn!  Another one of those teary eyed moments and this makes two in one week.  Back in the first quarter of the school year our scholars completed an Art assignment, to draw the skyline of a city.  The Art teacher displayed a few completed skylines from another class to our scholars and gave them the supplies to get started.  For the most part our scholars are pretty poor artists who spend a lot of time in Art class bugging me to help them.  This is not the case with Grr!  He likes to draw and immediately got started with the project.  When he finished he brought his project over to me so I could look at it.  "How does it look Mr. Schultz?" Grr! said.  "Great!" I say, "but you forgot one thing.  Put your name on the paper so you get credit for all of this work, and then turn it in."   I'm not sure who the judges were for this Art competition but they selected Grr!'s skyline and he was invited to the recognition program that was held in our school after hours.  Gnu attended the recognition program and informed me that there were several scholars being recognized for both their drawing abilities and for their poetry writing abilities.  In addition to the scholars in attendance, there were a lot of parents as well as representatives of our school in attendance.  As each scholar was recognized for their work, they were placed in front of a microphone so they could explain their project to all in attendance.  As you read in the first sentence, "Scholar #2 gave his speech like a champ."  So you know, this Scholar #2 has a pretty series anger control issue, dyslexia, and some pretty series anxiety issues, so for him to step up to a microphone in front of a fairly good sized audience and speak is amazing and I couldn't be prouder of him.  Again, people have asked me a number of time why I do what I do.  I believe you're starting to catch on.

Back to the morning of game day.  The busses arrive and EM and his little sister step off.  Both of them head into the school to get their breakfast.  As EM is nearing the cafeteria our PE teacher/basketball coach sees him, walks over to him and hands him his basketball uniform.  With his breakfast and basketball uniform in hand, he heads to the classroom.  When he arrives he is the talk of the room as the other scholars see his basketball uniform.  After a few minutes EM asks Gnu if he can put on his basketball uniform over his school uniform.  Gnu hesitates a little while and then says to him, "you can put your uniform on but before you do remember that once you put it on you become a school leader in our school and you have to act as a role model for all of the other scholars."  The uniform is on in an instant and the smile on his face is priceless.  When he walks over to me to show me his uniform I ask him if he knows what famous basketball player from Indiana wore number 33.  He responds, "no!".  So I say to him, "Larry Bird wore number 33 for the Boston Celtics and like yours, the uniform was green and white."  I'm sorry to tell all of you Hoosiers that EM has never heard of Larry Bird.  Obviously I have my work cut out for me when it basketball in this state.

It's cold outside.  It rained and then snowed on Saturday so I'm going to do the best thing possible during such lousy weather.  I'm going to take a nap.  Have a good weekend.  Bye!