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.