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.
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