Still No Fun

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.