We are still not having fun but there is one bright spot. Gnu missed the deadline to apply for that open overhead position that I mentioned last week so, as we have been for over two years now, we are still attached at the hip as she will remain in the classroom.
I also mentioned last week that Uh-Uh-Uh returned to our classroom from the general education classroom that she was assigned to and I now know why. Her parental units, who are around the school a lot, and do some volunteer work at the school, found out that there was no inclusion teacher support for Un-Uh-Uh in her general education classroom. As you recall, there was an inclusion teacher in the room but this person was given the open teaching position in a life skills classroom so the inclusion teacher position is open. Apparently, not having an inclusion teacher supporting Uh-Uh-Uh is illegal and the parental units had a child advocate bring this to the attention of our school. With the child advocate involved, the quick fix was to allow Uh-Uh-Uh back into our classroom. That is so frustrating for Gnu. Uh-Uh-Uh spent two years with Gnu and from a behavior standpoint, she was one of Gnu's least worries and does not belong in a special education classroom any more. I'm was made aware that the BigB2 has been interviewing for our open inclusion teacher position so hopefully, in a week or two, someone will be hired and we can move Uh-Uh-Uh back into the general education classroom.
Quoting Paul Harvey, "now you know the rest of the story" about our kindergarten classes. To refresh your memory, a kindergarten teacher resigned on the very first day of school. This resulted in three kindergarten classrooms being merged into two. That's a lot of little five year olds in two classrooms (26) and as you can image there were issues. The first issue was with a young scholar that I was involved with when this scholar was in pre-school. At the age of four this scholar would get so active that he'd just run around the room sometimes throwing objects and other time trying to hit his classmates. He behavior was so poor in pre-school that he was moved from full days to half days. Well, he is now in kindergarten and his behavior hasn't changed much. He is still just as active but with so may other scholars in his classroom his teach starts calling me to remove him before someone gets hurt. This has happened so many times that when our classroom phone rings, Grr! owns the responsibility to answer it, he will just look back at me and point in the direction of the kindergarten classes and off I go to the rescue. The second issue was with a scholar in the other kindergarten classroom. I'm not sure how this whole episode started but the classroom phone rang, Grr! answered it, looked at me and said, "it's for you Mr. Schultz." It was the BigB2 and she asked me to come to the office area to assist with a student transport so off I go. As I'm passing the LittleBB's office I look inside and see BigB2, LittleBB, and a scholar under LittleBB's desk. I also notice that all of the items have been knocked off the LittleBB's desk. The BigB2 is talking, "Mr. Schultz, we need to remove this scholar from this office before he causes any more damage." "Ok," is my response. "Where would you like me to take him?" "Can we take him to your classroom and put him in the timeout room until I can figure out what to do with him?" "Sure," I say. The BigB2 then gets down on the floor to try and remove the scholar from under the desk. The scholar sees her and moves away from her. Unfortunately for this young scholar he moves in my direction, I grab the scholar, remove him from under the desk, move him a safe distance from the desk, released him, and he promptly kicks me on the shin. I'm speaking to the BigB2, "how would you like me to transport him?" The response was, "any way you can." "Ok, with your permission, I'll just pick him up and carry him." Approximately and hour later a social services agency arrived and this young kindergarten scholar is removed from the school and of this writing, I don't think he has returned. On a lighter note, a third kindergarten teacher was hired and will start on Monday. I met this new teacher on Friday evening as I was leaving the school. The first thing to enter my mind as I introduced myself and shook hands with the new teacher was, "are you old enough to be a teacher."
Please take note, due to advance years I went into brain failure and what I'm about to tell you is out of sequence. Just prior to Uh-Uh-Uh rejoining our classroom she walked over to the table Gnu sits at with the scholars in the cafeteria during lunch to sit down with the group. As she approached, Oil put his foot up on the seat Uh-Uh-Uh was going to sit on and said to her, "you can't sit here." Huey, seeing what just happened knocked Oil's foot from the chair so Uh-Uh-Uh could sit down. Oil's reaction was to stand, move toward Huey, and promptly punch him in the eye. Huey start crying and returned to the classroom. I get his attention and get him to remove his hand from his eye to assess the damages. After a quick look, I'm off to our first aide room to get an ice pack.
It's our recess and lunch time slot and Gnu is with the scholars as I eat my lunch. As the scholars are entering the classroom following their lunch Grr! has his hand over his right eye. "What happened to you," I ask him. "I got hit in the eye but it's ok as it was my fault." "So, what happened," I ask Grr!. "I was playing a game at recess, turned to run away from a scholar and ran into a pole and hit my head." "Let me see that eye," I say to him. There is significant swelling under the right eye and I'm off again to get another ice pack.
A little bit of academics and then I'm finished. If there was any humor in the classroom during the week this was it. We are in our reading block and Gnu wants the scholars to work on their writing ability. She introduced the subject matter and starting by telling them they need a "hook" when they are writing to catch the readers attention. It took the scholars a while to figure out what she was talking about but eventually they got the idea. Gnu then told the scholars they had to come up with their own story. As anticipated, they didn't have any idea what to write about. After dropping a few hints to the scholars, one by one, each scholar had to stand and tell their classmates what they were going to write about. Grr!, to no ones surprise, is going to write about dinosaurs, S&T chose John Cena a member of the World Wrestling Federation, Oil's topic was boxing, BayBee chose a write about a combination of a Lego/Ninja superhero, Tourette selected basketball, and Huey informed everyone that he was going to write about fencing (yes, the Olympic sport).
About fifteen minutes into the assignment Tourette walked over to my desk and said he needed some help. I asked him to read what he wrote, which he did, and I told him that he was off to a real good start. I then said to him that he was using the wrong pronoun to tell his story. He looked at me and I knew he had no idea what I was talking about even though we'd spent the better part of the week doing pronoun worksheets. So I asked him who was telling the story and he responded that he was so I said to him "read your second sentence". I'm paraphrasing as Tourette began to read, "he dribbled the ball to the left and," then I told him to stop. "Who is he," I asked him. "I'm he," he responded. I said to him, "you can't be he as he is somebody else, you have to be I." The look on his face was total confusion so I told him to change the word he to I and re-read the sentence which he did. "Does that sound better," I asked him. "Yes, Mr. Schultz." "Please continue reading your story, Tourette." "The clock was running down, he stepped back over the three point line," stop Tourette. "What is he's name," I asked him. "What Mr. Schultz?" "You said he stepped back over the three point line. It sounds like you are no longer dribbling the ball so you should give he a name so everyone reading your story will know who has the ball. "I'm still dribbling the ball Mr. Schultz." "Well Tourette, you can't be he you have to be I because he is somebody else."
Later that evening I home sitting at the dinner table with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse, and I'm telling her about Tourette's story. She looked at me and said, "this sounds just like that old Abbott and Costello Who's On First routine." "What," I say. She started to repeat herself and then I got that look so I changed the subject.
Gnu and I are still not having any fun. Preparing for her wedding and doing lesson plans for three grade levels and five academic levels is taking it's toll on her. Having four new scholars in the room that can't quite hold themselves together for the entire day wears down your patients. Gnu's wedding is this coming Saturday so hopefully having this huge task completed will ease some of the pressure she is facing. That's it for today. It's really hot and humid outside, I'm tired and I think I'll call it a day pretty early today. Thank you for continuing to follow along.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Sunday, August 21, 2016
The Boiling Point
Obstacles, if not complete road blocks, continue to disrupt Gnu as she tries to find our academic groove. The challenge is the same as last year, we have three different grade levels and five different academic levels in the classroom. Last year Gnu established three work stations and that worked fairly well. Gnu manned one of the work stations. I had the second work station and the third one was a self guided work station that worked because it was an independent reading station and the scholars were using the iPads. Trying to re-establish them this year has been a struggled and it is due primarily to one scholar, Oil. Oil, like a previous scholar I called NoFouls, has an oppositional defiant disorder as well as an attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder and no matter what you tell him, he will have an objection and will shout out, "why do I have to do this, I want to do that." So, everyday, in either our reading block or our math block, Oil raises his objections and the entire class is disrupted and academic time is lost.
I'm going to switch gears for a moment to update you on changes that are happening in my school. First, and this one hurt, we had a kindergarten teacher tender her resignation on the very first day of school. I know, so what does this have to do with Gnu and me? Nothing right now but you may find out the rest of the story in the next blog. With this resignation, three kindergarten classes were combined into two. The two remaining kindergarten teachers now have twenty-six scholars, aged five, in their respective classrooms. Next, for the first eight days of the school year we had a SpecEd classroom without a teacher. As you are well aware, instructional assistants can't lead the classroom as you need a licensed teacher in the room. Well, for eight days there wasn't a licensed teacher in the classroom. For eight days they wasn't even a substitute teacher in the classroom. Why did this happen? For some reason, there is a teacher shortage, especially for SpecEd teachers, and our school corporation, as well as the state of Indiana, can't seem to figure out how to solve the problem. So, for eight days, the instruction assistants did their job and kept the classroom moving forward. On day nine, a teacher arrived in this SpecEd classroom and Gnu and I are waiting to see what the repercussions will be as this teacher previously occupied our SpecEd inclusion teacher position.
I'm standing next to Professor Peabody and Sherman as we are entering the Wayback Machine. Our destination is the last couple days of the last school year. "Schultz, here is my plan for the next school year. EM will be in the fifth grade and I will no longer be his teacher of record but I will visit him in his classroom to support him when needed. Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ will be in a general education fourth grade classroom. I will support them when they are in their new classroom similar to what an inclusion teacher will do. When I'm out of the room, you will work with the scholars in our room. I believe we will only have three so it should work." With the game plan in place, Gnu informed the BigB and the overhead personnel of her plan and also informed them that in order for this to work, no new scholars could be assigned to our classroom because she will be the teacher of record for six scholars. Re-entering the Wayback Machine and it is now the first week of this school year. Gnu's plan was blown up by the overhead personnel. Oil, Huey, BayBee and Tourette arrived and Gnu can't go and support Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ. Even worse, the inclusion teacher assigned to support Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ just vacated her position to take the open teaching position in our SpecEd classroom. Here is the bottom line, there is no teacher to support our three scholars as they transition to a general education classroom. That has the potential to be a recipe for disaster.
With Gnu's plan promptly blown up, frustration levels in our classroom is high. Gnu is reaching her boiling point and I realize the seriousness of the situation at 8:10am on a Friday as Gnu tells me, "I've sent an email message to the BigB2 and I'm applying for the open inclusion teacher position." Her comment to me was met with silence, I didn't know what to say. As I was heading home for the weekend I was thinking to myself, "Gnu and I are attached at the hip. If she gets this inclusion teacher position and leaves our classroom there is no reason for me to stick around."
It's Friday evening and I'm standing in the kitchen informing my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse about what Gnu just did. I'm paraphrasing. "If she accepts this position it will be a complete waste of her talent. She needs to stay in the classroom. In fact, if any teacher has an objective of being an inclusion teacher that solely works with one or two scholars at a time then maybe they shouldn't be teachers. In fact, why are schools wasting their money hiring an inclusion teacher. What they need to do is take the money budgeted for an inclusion teacher and hire three instructional assistants to sit at the back of the room. This way a lot more scholars will get the help they need."
It's Monday morning. Gnu and I are both in the classroom preparing for the day. Neither one of us is talking. My curiosity finally got the better of me, "did you hear from the BigB2 about the inclusion teacher position," I ask her. "She said no," was Gnu's response. I was prepared for both a yes or no response. I'm speaking, "so you know, my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse wanted me to tell you this if you didn't get the position." She said, "you should feel pretty good that the BigB2 said no because your talents are needed in the classroom as a teacher where you have been so successful." "Tell her I said thanks," was Gnu's response.
So what has been going on in the classroom? Keep in mind, I don't make this stuff up. BayBee was the target of some fishing by Oil and Tourette. They got to him and he started screaming at them. That caused the conversations and anger to escalate and I'm up moving in their direction. As I'm walking toward the three of them BayBee shouts out as loud as he could, "I'm a real sensitive kid so stop picking on me." Gnu and I made eye contact and then I had to turn around because I was on the verge of laughing out loud. Huey had his first eruption in the classroom but before I tell you about it, let me tell you a bit about this young scholar. Huey is in the second grade and he is in the 150th percentile for growth. His behavior in the classroom is on the level of a three year old. He is a constant, almost non-stop whiner. On this particular day he was upset about something. I can't recall exactly what it was but he started to escalate by threatening to beat up so and so, do this to so and so, and told me that he was going back to his old school. My response to him was to "get yourself settled down and get your worksheet completed." "I'm not doing that stupid worksheet. I'm going to start throwing some chairs around," he said to me. Obviously, that got my attention so I'm watching him closely. Huey grabs Tourette's chair with his right hand and I'm ready to stand up as Huey is about eight feet from me. As he grabs the chair, he gently lays it on it's side. He then grabs his next chair and does the same. After chair number three is gently laid on it's side I'm thinking to myself, "what the hell is this?" Last one. Tourette had his second major outburst. This one was in the classroom and he was quickly guided into our time out room. As he is in their screaming forth several obscenities, BayBee walks over as he has never seen our time out room put to use. When Tourette sees him looking in his direction he shouts at BayBee, "why don't you go and suck your daddy's d*ck."
It's mid week and the repercussions from the lack of an inclusion teacher to work with Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ are felt as one of those scholars returned to our classroom. Gnu made contact with the BigB2 to voice her objections but the objections fell on deaf ears. This scholar is here to stay. Two years worth of work with this scholar just came crashing down because there is a teacher shortage. The water is heating up. Slowly tiny bubbles are forming. Gradually these tiny bubbles turn to a full boil. "Schultz, just so you know, I've applied for an open overhead position within our school corporation."
I've sat in a classroom with Gnu for approximately three hundred and seventy five days and I can tell you this with no uncertainty, neither one of us is having any fun. Hopefully next week I'll hear laughter coming from the scholars. Gnu will have that sly little smile on her face, and I'll be sitting in my chair and again enjoying my view from the back of the room.
Ta-da! Another blog completed. Thanks for sticking around. See you next week.
I'm going to switch gears for a moment to update you on changes that are happening in my school. First, and this one hurt, we had a kindergarten teacher tender her resignation on the very first day of school. I know, so what does this have to do with Gnu and me? Nothing right now but you may find out the rest of the story in the next blog. With this resignation, three kindergarten classes were combined into two. The two remaining kindergarten teachers now have twenty-six scholars, aged five, in their respective classrooms. Next, for the first eight days of the school year we had a SpecEd classroom without a teacher. As you are well aware, instructional assistants can't lead the classroom as you need a licensed teacher in the room. Well, for eight days there wasn't a licensed teacher in the classroom. For eight days they wasn't even a substitute teacher in the classroom. Why did this happen? For some reason, there is a teacher shortage, especially for SpecEd teachers, and our school corporation, as well as the state of Indiana, can't seem to figure out how to solve the problem. So, for eight days, the instruction assistants did their job and kept the classroom moving forward. On day nine, a teacher arrived in this SpecEd classroom and Gnu and I are waiting to see what the repercussions will be as this teacher previously occupied our SpecEd inclusion teacher position.
I'm standing next to Professor Peabody and Sherman as we are entering the Wayback Machine. Our destination is the last couple days of the last school year. "Schultz, here is my plan for the next school year. EM will be in the fifth grade and I will no longer be his teacher of record but I will visit him in his classroom to support him when needed. Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ will be in a general education fourth grade classroom. I will support them when they are in their new classroom similar to what an inclusion teacher will do. When I'm out of the room, you will work with the scholars in our room. I believe we will only have three so it should work." With the game plan in place, Gnu informed the BigB and the overhead personnel of her plan and also informed them that in order for this to work, no new scholars could be assigned to our classroom because she will be the teacher of record for six scholars. Re-entering the Wayback Machine and it is now the first week of this school year. Gnu's plan was blown up by the overhead personnel. Oil, Huey, BayBee and Tourette arrived and Gnu can't go and support Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ. Even worse, the inclusion teacher assigned to support Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ just vacated her position to take the open teaching position in our SpecEd classroom. Here is the bottom line, there is no teacher to support our three scholars as they transition to a general education classroom. That has the potential to be a recipe for disaster.
With Gnu's plan promptly blown up, frustration levels in our classroom is high. Gnu is reaching her boiling point and I realize the seriousness of the situation at 8:10am on a Friday as Gnu tells me, "I've sent an email message to the BigB2 and I'm applying for the open inclusion teacher position." Her comment to me was met with silence, I didn't know what to say. As I was heading home for the weekend I was thinking to myself, "Gnu and I are attached at the hip. If she gets this inclusion teacher position and leaves our classroom there is no reason for me to stick around."
It's Friday evening and I'm standing in the kitchen informing my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse about what Gnu just did. I'm paraphrasing. "If she accepts this position it will be a complete waste of her talent. She needs to stay in the classroom. In fact, if any teacher has an objective of being an inclusion teacher that solely works with one or two scholars at a time then maybe they shouldn't be teachers. In fact, why are schools wasting their money hiring an inclusion teacher. What they need to do is take the money budgeted for an inclusion teacher and hire three instructional assistants to sit at the back of the room. This way a lot more scholars will get the help they need."
It's Monday morning. Gnu and I are both in the classroom preparing for the day. Neither one of us is talking. My curiosity finally got the better of me, "did you hear from the BigB2 about the inclusion teacher position," I ask her. "She said no," was Gnu's response. I was prepared for both a yes or no response. I'm speaking, "so you know, my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse wanted me to tell you this if you didn't get the position." She said, "you should feel pretty good that the BigB2 said no because your talents are needed in the classroom as a teacher where you have been so successful." "Tell her I said thanks," was Gnu's response.
So what has been going on in the classroom? Keep in mind, I don't make this stuff up. BayBee was the target of some fishing by Oil and Tourette. They got to him and he started screaming at them. That caused the conversations and anger to escalate and I'm up moving in their direction. As I'm walking toward the three of them BayBee shouts out as loud as he could, "I'm a real sensitive kid so stop picking on me." Gnu and I made eye contact and then I had to turn around because I was on the verge of laughing out loud. Huey had his first eruption in the classroom but before I tell you about it, let me tell you a bit about this young scholar. Huey is in the second grade and he is in the 150th percentile for growth. His behavior in the classroom is on the level of a three year old. He is a constant, almost non-stop whiner. On this particular day he was upset about something. I can't recall exactly what it was but he started to escalate by threatening to beat up so and so, do this to so and so, and told me that he was going back to his old school. My response to him was to "get yourself settled down and get your worksheet completed." "I'm not doing that stupid worksheet. I'm going to start throwing some chairs around," he said to me. Obviously, that got my attention so I'm watching him closely. Huey grabs Tourette's chair with his right hand and I'm ready to stand up as Huey is about eight feet from me. As he grabs the chair, he gently lays it on it's side. He then grabs his next chair and does the same. After chair number three is gently laid on it's side I'm thinking to myself, "what the hell is this?" Last one. Tourette had his second major outburst. This one was in the classroom and he was quickly guided into our time out room. As he is in their screaming forth several obscenities, BayBee walks over as he has never seen our time out room put to use. When Tourette sees him looking in his direction he shouts at BayBee, "why don't you go and suck your daddy's d*ck."
It's mid week and the repercussions from the lack of an inclusion teacher to work with Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ are felt as one of those scholars returned to our classroom. Gnu made contact with the BigB2 to voice her objections but the objections fell on deaf ears. This scholar is here to stay. Two years worth of work with this scholar just came crashing down because there is a teacher shortage. The water is heating up. Slowly tiny bubbles are forming. Gradually these tiny bubbles turn to a full boil. "Schultz, just so you know, I've applied for an open overhead position within our school corporation."
I've sat in a classroom with Gnu for approximately three hundred and seventy five days and I can tell you this with no uncertainty, neither one of us is having any fun. Hopefully next week I'll hear laughter coming from the scholars. Gnu will have that sly little smile on her face, and I'll be sitting in my chair and again enjoying my view from the back of the room.
Ta-da! Another blog completed. Thanks for sticking around. See you next week.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
He Was Spanked Three Times
Saturday evening is go out to dinner night so my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I went out to a restaurant called Smokey Bone's. Normally, I get the three bones order of ribs but we had a coupon so I ordered the six bone order. As normal, when you eat ribs you order an adult beverage. My choice was a Sun King WeeMac. Truthfully, I had two WeeMac's. While we were eating my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse asked me about the blog. I told her that I've been thinking about it all day and wasn't sure what I was going to write about. She looked over at me and said, "from what you told me this past week, you sure don't have anything happy to write about." She's right, I don't.
Last week I forgot to mention our school year beginning convocation so I'll start there. Every employee, in every school, in our school corporation, from the custodians down to the principals are invited (that's not right, told to go, in my opinion, is more accurate) to the convocation. This year's convocation was a little boring but then out came the professional speaker. During the speakers introduction the gathering was told that he went to our school corporation for elementary school, middle school, and high school. He then went on to college, played football in college, was drafted into the NFL, and now makes a living as a motivational speaker. He had a most interesting speech and I'll let you in on it a little later. Why not now? It will fit into the blog much better at the end.
Let's start with our previous scholars, who as you know, are now in a general education classroom. With the exception of Big House, who is doing well, the other three have taken steps backwards and I can easily see the frustration on Gnu's face. EM continues to struggle making it all of the way to his fifth grade classroom. Uh-Uh-Uh stepped back the most as she walked out of her classroom at least twice that I'm aware of. On one of the walkouts, I was asked to track her down. It took me, and others, almost twenty minutes to contain her. MiniJ sustained an injury at recess. Apparently, as all of the scholars at recess were lining up to re-enter the school, someone cut in line in front of MiniJ. MiniJ's response was to push this scholar out of line. The scholar responded with a round house right to MiniJ's eye and he is now walking around school with a black eye. In keeping with the mantra to shut down the suspension to prison pipeline the disciplinary action was minimal, if anything at all. It is apparent now, that fighting is no longer a suspendable offense, so what signal is being sent to the scholars at my school?
It's the end of the school day. The scholars are being dismissed in groups. First are the care riders so Grr! and Huey exit the room as they should. Right behind them is Tourette who yells, "I'm a car rider today," which is a lie and he runs out of the room. The walkers are dismissed so Knapper leaves the room. That leaves the bus riders so our remaining scholars walk with Gnu and me to the bus pick up point. As the scholars start to board the busses, I get Gnu's attention, wave at her to signal I'm returning to the classroom, and leave. Leaving the bus area was a mistake as you are about to see. I've returned the classroom to it's original order and was waiting for Gnu to return. As I'm waiting, a teachers steps into the classroom and says to me, "one of your scholars attacked Gnu." I'm out the classroom door quickly and I'm heading to the bus pick up area. I didn't get there as the scholar involved, Tourette, is cornered by several adults in the main office. In his typical fashion, the language coming out of his mouth was obscene. Sadly, at dismissal time, parental units are in the office for various reasons and I'm sure they got a earful of language better suited from drunks in a bar than the main office of our school. With the BigB2, LittleBB, and crisis teams members surrounding Tourette, I decided not to get involved and returned to the classroom. Shortly after I returned to the classroom, Gnu walks in and pulls out our parental unit contact list. Gnu speaking to me, "he's not a car rider today, he is supposed to get on the bus. We got him on the bus but he charged out of the bus and was running wildly around the gymnasium yelling he was going to walk home." Gnu finally makes contact with the parental unit, informs this person as to what is going on, and the parental unit informs Gnu that she will pick Tourette up. I leave the classroom, head back to the main office and let the BigB2 know that Tourette's parent unit is enroute to school to get him. I then walk back to the classroom thinking this incident is about over as Tourette lives pretty close to the school. Wrong again.
I'm about to leave for the day when Gnu walks into the classroom with Rope. For those of you that are keep score, Rope is a SpecEd teacher who was involved with the Tourette incident. As they entered the classroom, Rope walked over to me and showed me her hand. "Look what he did to me," she says. I look, her wrist is swollen and so is the index finger on her right hand. Rope was involved in the containment of Tourette and in the process got kicked at a few times and a foot hit her right hand. After a visit to the doctor Rope was informed that nothing was broken but as of today she is wearing an Ace wrist bandage and also has a splint on her index finger. According to the clinic doctor it will take six months before Rope has full use of her right hand. We are closing the suspension to prison pipeline. The discipline issued for this incident, Tourette cannot return to the classroom until he writes apology letters. The length of classroom time Tourette missed while writing apology letters, less than an hour. Rope will not gain full use of her right hand for six months.
Before I move onto the convocation speech I have some food for thought. My good friend A.O. of Vino, posed a question to me prior to a cycling class a couple days ago. "Allan, can you think back to your days in school and recall the most serious school violations that you witnessed?" I can't recall my exact words to A.O. of Vino, but it was something like this, "I don't recall anything happening when I was in school that would compare to what I've seen in school these days." So, give it some thought yourself. What is the worst school rules violations you witnessed and what were the consequences. For the record, I'm a product of a Catholic grade school education. If I told Sister Ambrose to "f-off" I'm pretty sure the majority of the readers of this blog would have a pretty good idea what happened to me first at school and later at home.
I'll be paraphrasing. "Good morning everyone, my name is X and I attended grade school, middle school, and high school in your school corporation. After graduating from high school I went on to college and played football and earned a degree. After college I was drafted by the NFL and now I travel all over the country as a motivational speaker. Today, I'm going to talk to you about my favorite teacher. This is a teacher that I stayed in contact with for many years, right up until her death a couple years ago. There are two things that I will share with you about this teacher. The first one is she spanked me three times for fighting. The second one is right after spanking me she talked to me. She told me that I am someone. I am a person who can do great things some day. She knocked me down and then she picked me right up."
There were somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000 people in attendance when this speaker said, "I was spanked." Somewhere amongst these 5,000 people were the overhead personnel that are shutting down the suspension pipeline to prison and they sat silent. Amazing! A speaker, a product of my school corporation, said he was spanked and he wasn't booed off the stage. Amazing! A speaker, a product of my school corporation, said he was spanked and he wasn't physically dragged from the stage. Amazing! When this speaker stop talking, numerous people in attendance gave him a standing ovation. The suspension pipeline to prison will continue to be shut down. Sadly, as this is happening, teachers are being flipped off, cussed at, and injury while doing something they love to do, teach. Is a pipeline being shut down or is there a new pipeline opening. Both, but the one that is most troubling is the pipeline that contains teachers that are abandoning their chosen profession because there is no way that a teacher should have to take the crap that they have to take in our school corporation or any school corporation.
We are two weeks into the school year. Since the start of the school year, a kindergarten teacher, on the first official day with scholars in her classroom, resigned. Because of this resignation, there are now twenty-six scholars in each of our two remaining kindergarten classes. That is an ugly situation for the two remaining kindergarten teachers. We also now have an open inclusion teacher position. Someone you know applied for that position. So far, the BigB2 has ignored this request. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully, the next blog post will contain happy stories. That's it for today, it's granddaughter time for me. Bye!
Last week I forgot to mention our school year beginning convocation so I'll start there. Every employee, in every school, in our school corporation, from the custodians down to the principals are invited (that's not right, told to go, in my opinion, is more accurate) to the convocation. This year's convocation was a little boring but then out came the professional speaker. During the speakers introduction the gathering was told that he went to our school corporation for elementary school, middle school, and high school. He then went on to college, played football in college, was drafted into the NFL, and now makes a living as a motivational speaker. He had a most interesting speech and I'll let you in on it a little later. Why not now? It will fit into the blog much better at the end.
Let's start with our previous scholars, who as you know, are now in a general education classroom. With the exception of Big House, who is doing well, the other three have taken steps backwards and I can easily see the frustration on Gnu's face. EM continues to struggle making it all of the way to his fifth grade classroom. Uh-Uh-Uh stepped back the most as she walked out of her classroom at least twice that I'm aware of. On one of the walkouts, I was asked to track her down. It took me, and others, almost twenty minutes to contain her. MiniJ sustained an injury at recess. Apparently, as all of the scholars at recess were lining up to re-enter the school, someone cut in line in front of MiniJ. MiniJ's response was to push this scholar out of line. The scholar responded with a round house right to MiniJ's eye and he is now walking around school with a black eye. In keeping with the mantra to shut down the suspension to prison pipeline the disciplinary action was minimal, if anything at all. It is apparent now, that fighting is no longer a suspendable offense, so what signal is being sent to the scholars at my school?
It's the end of the school day. The scholars are being dismissed in groups. First are the care riders so Grr! and Huey exit the room as they should. Right behind them is Tourette who yells, "I'm a car rider today," which is a lie and he runs out of the room. The walkers are dismissed so Knapper leaves the room. That leaves the bus riders so our remaining scholars walk with Gnu and me to the bus pick up point. As the scholars start to board the busses, I get Gnu's attention, wave at her to signal I'm returning to the classroom, and leave. Leaving the bus area was a mistake as you are about to see. I've returned the classroom to it's original order and was waiting for Gnu to return. As I'm waiting, a teachers steps into the classroom and says to me, "one of your scholars attacked Gnu." I'm out the classroom door quickly and I'm heading to the bus pick up area. I didn't get there as the scholar involved, Tourette, is cornered by several adults in the main office. In his typical fashion, the language coming out of his mouth was obscene. Sadly, at dismissal time, parental units are in the office for various reasons and I'm sure they got a earful of language better suited from drunks in a bar than the main office of our school. With the BigB2, LittleBB, and crisis teams members surrounding Tourette, I decided not to get involved and returned to the classroom. Shortly after I returned to the classroom, Gnu walks in and pulls out our parental unit contact list. Gnu speaking to me, "he's not a car rider today, he is supposed to get on the bus. We got him on the bus but he charged out of the bus and was running wildly around the gymnasium yelling he was going to walk home." Gnu finally makes contact with the parental unit, informs this person as to what is going on, and the parental unit informs Gnu that she will pick Tourette up. I leave the classroom, head back to the main office and let the BigB2 know that Tourette's parent unit is enroute to school to get him. I then walk back to the classroom thinking this incident is about over as Tourette lives pretty close to the school. Wrong again.
I'm about to leave for the day when Gnu walks into the classroom with Rope. For those of you that are keep score, Rope is a SpecEd teacher who was involved with the Tourette incident. As they entered the classroom, Rope walked over to me and showed me her hand. "Look what he did to me," she says. I look, her wrist is swollen and so is the index finger on her right hand. Rope was involved in the containment of Tourette and in the process got kicked at a few times and a foot hit her right hand. After a visit to the doctor Rope was informed that nothing was broken but as of today she is wearing an Ace wrist bandage and also has a splint on her index finger. According to the clinic doctor it will take six months before Rope has full use of her right hand. We are closing the suspension to prison pipeline. The discipline issued for this incident, Tourette cannot return to the classroom until he writes apology letters. The length of classroom time Tourette missed while writing apology letters, less than an hour. Rope will not gain full use of her right hand for six months.
Before I move onto the convocation speech I have some food for thought. My good friend A.O. of Vino, posed a question to me prior to a cycling class a couple days ago. "Allan, can you think back to your days in school and recall the most serious school violations that you witnessed?" I can't recall my exact words to A.O. of Vino, but it was something like this, "I don't recall anything happening when I was in school that would compare to what I've seen in school these days." So, give it some thought yourself. What is the worst school rules violations you witnessed and what were the consequences. For the record, I'm a product of a Catholic grade school education. If I told Sister Ambrose to "f-off" I'm pretty sure the majority of the readers of this blog would have a pretty good idea what happened to me first at school and later at home.
I'll be paraphrasing. "Good morning everyone, my name is X and I attended grade school, middle school, and high school in your school corporation. After graduating from high school I went on to college and played football and earned a degree. After college I was drafted by the NFL and now I travel all over the country as a motivational speaker. Today, I'm going to talk to you about my favorite teacher. This is a teacher that I stayed in contact with for many years, right up until her death a couple years ago. There are two things that I will share with you about this teacher. The first one is she spanked me three times for fighting. The second one is right after spanking me she talked to me. She told me that I am someone. I am a person who can do great things some day. She knocked me down and then she picked me right up."
There were somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000 people in attendance when this speaker said, "I was spanked." Somewhere amongst these 5,000 people were the overhead personnel that are shutting down the suspension pipeline to prison and they sat silent. Amazing! A speaker, a product of my school corporation, said he was spanked and he wasn't booed off the stage. Amazing! A speaker, a product of my school corporation, said he was spanked and he wasn't physically dragged from the stage. Amazing! When this speaker stop talking, numerous people in attendance gave him a standing ovation. The suspension pipeline to prison will continue to be shut down. Sadly, as this is happening, teachers are being flipped off, cussed at, and injury while doing something they love to do, teach. Is a pipeline being shut down or is there a new pipeline opening. Both, but the one that is most troubling is the pipeline that contains teachers that are abandoning their chosen profession because there is no way that a teacher should have to take the crap that they have to take in our school corporation or any school corporation.
We are two weeks into the school year. Since the start of the school year, a kindergarten teacher, on the first official day with scholars in her classroom, resigned. Because of this resignation, there are now twenty-six scholars in each of our two remaining kindergarten classes. That is an ugly situation for the two remaining kindergarten teachers. We also now have an open inclusion teacher position. Someone you know applied for that position. So far, the BigB2 has ignored this request. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully, the next blog post will contain happy stories. That's it for today, it's granddaughter time for me. Bye!
Sunday, August 7, 2016
One Week Down
Crap! Two days into the new school year and four new scholars landed at our classroom door. Here is an updated listing. Please also note that last week I listed Big House as one of our scholars. That did not happen as Big House is starting the year in a general education classroom.
The scholars, hopefully, with no further additions.
Knapper - fourth grade
Grr! - third grade
S&T- third grade
Oil - a new scholar, fourth grade
BayBee - a new scholar, second grade
Huey - a new scholar, second grade
Tourette - a new scholar, although I've mentioned this scholar in the past, third grade
The former scholars.
EM - fifth grade
MiniJ - fourth grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - fourth grade
Big House - fourth grade
I also need to make an adjustment to the adults as we have now have a behavior therapist.
Gnu - teacher
Me - assistant
BigB2 - principal
LittleBB - vice principal
FBG - behavior specialist
SuePer - the new addition, and our behavior therapist
Although it's only been a week, I have to give a big shout out to my partner in the classroom, Gnu. So far, and God I hope I don't jinx us, all four of our scholars that went from a Special Education classroom to a General Education classroom had a successful week. I mentioned this for two reasons. First, from what I can tell, this is a huge accomplishment. For a teacher to successfully move one scholar from a SpedEd classroom to a GenEd classroom is considered a big accomplishment. Well, Gnu just moved four of her former scholars to a GenEd classroom. That I believe is unheard of. Here is the second reason for bring this up. As of this blog entry, not one single individual from the SpecEd Department or our school corporation has taken the time to recognize Gnu for this accomplishment. There is a teacher shortage going on right now and especially in the SpecEd field and people wonder why. I can give you one reason why, school corporation leadership fails miserable when it comes to recognizing teacher accomplishments.
Ok, where to begin as it was a hectic week. I'll start with a former scholar, EM. On the first day of school he was a no show. From what we could find out, there was a death in his family. On the second day of school, Gnu found him wandering the hallways well after all of the scholars were in their assigned classrooms. When Gnu found him wandering around she directed him to her classroom. While EM wanted to enter the room, she told him no, as this was no longer his classroom. Gnu directed EM to sit on the floor outside our classroom. Now I know someone out their isn't going to like Gnu's actions but she did the right thing by not allowing him in her classroom as it's time for him to move on. I found EM sitting on the floor outside our classroom when I was returning from my morning bus duty. I stood in the doorway until I got Gnu's attention and then sat down next to EM. "Why are you sitting here," I asked him. There was no response so I asked him again. "I don't want to go to school today," he replied. "Why don't you want to go to school," I asked. Again, no response. It took me almost twenty minutes to get him off the floor and moving toward his classroom. Fortunately, Wednesday morning went much better for EM. He arrived on the bus, walked into the school, picked up his breakfast and promptly walked to his classroom.
It's now Thursday morning. The telephone in our classroom rings and Gnu answers it. When she hangs up the telephone she looks at me and says, "can you go to the front of the school and see if you can get EM out of his parental units car and into the school?" I head out the classroom door to the front of the school. As I approach the car I notice writing on the windows on the side of the car. I took me a few seconds to figure out what I was looking at and then it hit me. This car was in the funeral procession on Monday. There was an R.I.P on one window and what appeared to be a gang affiliation symbol on the other window. When I get to the car, EM is sitting in the back seat with his head down and turned away from me. My first reaction was that he had been crying. When I told him it was time to come into the school he said, "I don't want to go to school today." After almost a half hour, EM finally departed his parental units car for school.
For those of you that have been following along for a while now I'm sure you recognized that I like EM. He's a real good scholar that sat within ten feet of me for three schools years. Sadly, his anxiety issues got the better of him this week and that is why he struggled entering the school. With that said, I continue be disappointed, frustrated, and at times get down right angry when I see what his life is like. The inside of the car he was sitting in was absolutely filthy. The front driver seat was reclined back to it's farthest point because it was broke and would not go upright which made me wonder how his parental unit could even drive the car. Finally, amongst all of this squalor was EM's littlest sibling standing in a diaper on the front seat of the car and not in the car seat. As I said previously, I like EM. He is a wonderful young scholar who does not deserve to have the home life that he has. Please keep him in your prayers.
This post is getting a little lengthy so you are about to get the abridged version of our academic week. Knapper got off to an excellent start and answered numerous questions that resulted in Gnu giving him several high fives. Grr! struggled for a while recalling previous subject matter but got into a pretty good groove by the end of the week. S&T continued to struggle academically. He couldn't recall even some of the simplest subjects we covered last year. Oil, is a new scholar, and it was difficult to determine his academic capabilities as he was very active, seldom staying stationary for any length of time. I believe he will fall into the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) category. BayBee, is a new scholar, and he did quite well academically. Unfortunately, his attention span is limited like Oil's. BayBee is also interesting as Gnu and I can't determine if he has a hearing deficiency or some other malady. On Thursday, BayBee was sitting directly in front of me about an arms length away and I had to call his name four times to get his attention. When he finally heard me, he sort of jerked like a startled him. Gnu had the exact same experience with him when he sat at her table. Huey is also a new scholar and he is going to be a challenge. Academically, he may be at the kindergarten level even though he is in the second grade. At one point, while sitting with me, I pointed to the word fish and asked him to pronounce the word and put it in a sentence. Huey looked up at me and said, "what is a sentence?" Huey is also the type of student that could get under our skin. He is a whiner and complainer and has to be told several times to stop talking before he will go silent. Tourette, academically, didn't surprise us as we knew he would do well. Tourette has other issues and I'll tell you about them in the next blog. That's it. We will again have three grade levels with scholars at five different academic levels and only two adults in the room. Can Gnu and I expect any assistance with the academics? We are not counting on it.
Week one is in the books and to be honest, I could have easily doubled the length of this blog. Unfortunately for you, you'll have to wait until next week for part two. Earlier today I invited a friend to read my blog and he agreed. Knowing that he will be reading along I thought I'd say hello to him. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi!
Thanks to everyone who returned for another year to read the musing of an old man who has a view from the back of the classroom.
The scholars, hopefully, with no further additions.
Knapper - fourth grade
Grr! - third grade
S&T- third grade
Oil - a new scholar, fourth grade
BayBee - a new scholar, second grade
Huey - a new scholar, second grade
Tourette - a new scholar, although I've mentioned this scholar in the past, third grade
The former scholars.
EM - fifth grade
MiniJ - fourth grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - fourth grade
Big House - fourth grade
I also need to make an adjustment to the adults as we have now have a behavior therapist.
Gnu - teacher
Me - assistant
BigB2 - principal
LittleBB - vice principal
FBG - behavior specialist
SuePer - the new addition, and our behavior therapist
Although it's only been a week, I have to give a big shout out to my partner in the classroom, Gnu. So far, and God I hope I don't jinx us, all four of our scholars that went from a Special Education classroom to a General Education classroom had a successful week. I mentioned this for two reasons. First, from what I can tell, this is a huge accomplishment. For a teacher to successfully move one scholar from a SpedEd classroom to a GenEd classroom is considered a big accomplishment. Well, Gnu just moved four of her former scholars to a GenEd classroom. That I believe is unheard of. Here is the second reason for bring this up. As of this blog entry, not one single individual from the SpecEd Department or our school corporation has taken the time to recognize Gnu for this accomplishment. There is a teacher shortage going on right now and especially in the SpecEd field and people wonder why. I can give you one reason why, school corporation leadership fails miserable when it comes to recognizing teacher accomplishments.
Ok, where to begin as it was a hectic week. I'll start with a former scholar, EM. On the first day of school he was a no show. From what we could find out, there was a death in his family. On the second day of school, Gnu found him wandering the hallways well after all of the scholars were in their assigned classrooms. When Gnu found him wandering around she directed him to her classroom. While EM wanted to enter the room, she told him no, as this was no longer his classroom. Gnu directed EM to sit on the floor outside our classroom. Now I know someone out their isn't going to like Gnu's actions but she did the right thing by not allowing him in her classroom as it's time for him to move on. I found EM sitting on the floor outside our classroom when I was returning from my morning bus duty. I stood in the doorway until I got Gnu's attention and then sat down next to EM. "Why are you sitting here," I asked him. There was no response so I asked him again. "I don't want to go to school today," he replied. "Why don't you want to go to school," I asked. Again, no response. It took me almost twenty minutes to get him off the floor and moving toward his classroom. Fortunately, Wednesday morning went much better for EM. He arrived on the bus, walked into the school, picked up his breakfast and promptly walked to his classroom.
It's now Thursday morning. The telephone in our classroom rings and Gnu answers it. When she hangs up the telephone she looks at me and says, "can you go to the front of the school and see if you can get EM out of his parental units car and into the school?" I head out the classroom door to the front of the school. As I approach the car I notice writing on the windows on the side of the car. I took me a few seconds to figure out what I was looking at and then it hit me. This car was in the funeral procession on Monday. There was an R.I.P on one window and what appeared to be a gang affiliation symbol on the other window. When I get to the car, EM is sitting in the back seat with his head down and turned away from me. My first reaction was that he had been crying. When I told him it was time to come into the school he said, "I don't want to go to school today." After almost a half hour, EM finally departed his parental units car for school.
For those of you that have been following along for a while now I'm sure you recognized that I like EM. He's a real good scholar that sat within ten feet of me for three schools years. Sadly, his anxiety issues got the better of him this week and that is why he struggled entering the school. With that said, I continue be disappointed, frustrated, and at times get down right angry when I see what his life is like. The inside of the car he was sitting in was absolutely filthy. The front driver seat was reclined back to it's farthest point because it was broke and would not go upright which made me wonder how his parental unit could even drive the car. Finally, amongst all of this squalor was EM's littlest sibling standing in a diaper on the front seat of the car and not in the car seat. As I said previously, I like EM. He is a wonderful young scholar who does not deserve to have the home life that he has. Please keep him in your prayers.
This post is getting a little lengthy so you are about to get the abridged version of our academic week. Knapper got off to an excellent start and answered numerous questions that resulted in Gnu giving him several high fives. Grr! struggled for a while recalling previous subject matter but got into a pretty good groove by the end of the week. S&T continued to struggle academically. He couldn't recall even some of the simplest subjects we covered last year. Oil, is a new scholar, and it was difficult to determine his academic capabilities as he was very active, seldom staying stationary for any length of time. I believe he will fall into the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) category. BayBee, is a new scholar, and he did quite well academically. Unfortunately, his attention span is limited like Oil's. BayBee is also interesting as Gnu and I can't determine if he has a hearing deficiency or some other malady. On Thursday, BayBee was sitting directly in front of me about an arms length away and I had to call his name four times to get his attention. When he finally heard me, he sort of jerked like a startled him. Gnu had the exact same experience with him when he sat at her table. Huey is also a new scholar and he is going to be a challenge. Academically, he may be at the kindergarten level even though he is in the second grade. At one point, while sitting with me, I pointed to the word fish and asked him to pronounce the word and put it in a sentence. Huey looked up at me and said, "what is a sentence?" Huey is also the type of student that could get under our skin. He is a whiner and complainer and has to be told several times to stop talking before he will go silent. Tourette, academically, didn't surprise us as we knew he would do well. Tourette has other issues and I'll tell you about them in the next blog. That's it. We will again have three grade levels with scholars at five different academic levels and only two adults in the room. Can Gnu and I expect any assistance with the academics? We are not counting on it.
Week one is in the books and to be honest, I could have easily doubled the length of this blog. Unfortunately for you, you'll have to wait until next week for part two. Earlier today I invited a friend to read my blog and he agreed. Knowing that he will be reading along I thought I'd say hello to him. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi!
Thanks to everyone who returned for another year to read the musing of an old man who has a view from the back of the classroom.
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