Tic-tac-toe is a paper and pencil game, although we actually have a game board in the classroom, for two players who take turns marking spaces on a grid. It's a pretty simple game unless one of the competitors has an anger issue and the other competitor has an oppositional defiant disorder. One competitor placed an X on the game board. The second competitor decided to change the rules so he can win by playing two O's at the same time. The competitor playing X asked the competitor playing O to remove one piece as it is considered cheating. The competitor playing O refuses. The competitor playing X again asks the other competitor playing O to remove one piece. Again, the competitor playing O refuses. The competitor play X smacks the competitor playing O up the side of his head. The competitor playing O moves quickly behind the competitor playing X and puts him into an arm bar choke hold. Competitor Y, who was observing, quickly separates the competitors, picks up the tic-tac-toe game, announces the game is going into timeout for several weeks, and the day continues. One of the competitors was Grr! and the other was Oil. I'll let you try and figure out who was playing X and who was playing O.
"Schultz, I have two Patricia Polacco books that I want you to read," Gnu says to me. "I'd read them to the scholars but I'm afraid I'd start crying during the stories," she continued. I started with Junkyard Wonders and, as the story progressed, it was interesting to listen to what the scholars had to say about the setting and characters in the story. I'll give you the abridged version of the story. The setting is a special education classroom in, what I think is, a middle school. In this school, the classroom is called the junkyard by a lot of scholars who are not in the special education classroom. The teacher for the junkyard scholars has the task of convincing them that they are geniuses and can go on to accomplish many great things. As I introduced the junkyard scholars to our scholars it was interesting to watch their reaction when they heard why each individual scholar was in the junkyard. In the book, there is a very intelligent scholar who stutters. We have a scholar who stutters. There is a scholar who is very tall for his age. We have a second grade scholar who is in the 150th percentile for growth and is two inches short of being the tallest scholar in our classroom. There is a scholar in the junkyard, Patricia Polacco herself, who can't read due to dyslexia. We have three scholars with dyslexia. There is a scholar with Tourette's Syndrome. We have a scholar with the same disorder. In the book there is also a scholar with very thick eye glasses who loved to dance and a scholar who is non-verbal. After all the characters were introduced I asked the scholars what it was like for them to be in the junkyard of our school. There was no response. So I said to them, "you are in the junkyard, you are just like the scholars in this story." Still, there was no response and that was interesting because when you read to these scholars they usually can't wait to make a contribution to the story.
At the end of the story Patricia Polacco tells a little bit about the scholars when they reached adulthood. Polacco, who couldn't read until the age of fourteen, is an author. The scholar with the stutter was a math genious who went on to work for NASA. The non-verbal scholar ended up in New York City as a fashion designer. The scholar with the thick glasses works for a ballet company in New York City. The scholar who was exceptionally tall for his age, and the reason Gnu had me read this story, died of his disease during the school year. In the end I think our scholars enjoyed the book and may have recognized themselves in the story. Hopefully, one or two of them will overcome the obstacles they face and accomplish great things when they reach adulthood. Before they do that however, they'll have to figure out how to avoid starting a brawl over a game of tic-tac-toe.
My day of origination has come and gone. That's correct, I advanced another year. I chose not to say anything to Gnu or the scholars on my birthday and I had a good reason. Gnu's spouse has the same day of origination, with about forty years difference between us, and I knew she would be busy planning for his birthday. It was a couple minutes before I left school for the day when I finally said something to Gnu. "Can you do me a favor," I ask her. When she looked at me I said to her, "say happy birthday." "Why didn't you tell me. You know I'm terrible at remembering dates," she said to me. I explained the reason for my silence and she was good with that. The next morning I was first to arrive and I went through my standard day beginning routine. As I sat at my desk checking my email Gnu walked in carrying something that required hot pads. "Birthday cake," I asked. "No, belated birthday breakfast casserole." I laughed. She laughed. The scholars arrived, stuffed their faces and the day began. About an hour into the day, Tourette walked over to my desk to do a reading station. As he sat down across from me he asked me how old I was. I told him I was 67. He looked at me and said, "and you can still walk."
There is a running race coming up in my city. It is called the Monumental Marathon and there are around thirty scholars from my school in training to run the 5K leg of the race. If you could see them, it wouldn't take you long to figure out that none of the thirty or so scholars are avid runners. Training for the race takes place right after our buses leave the school area so the scholars have to run with whatever they were wearing during the school day. That doesn't seem to bother them at all because, for whatever reason, they just like to run. The starting point for the daily run is inside the school. They run from east to west in the school, exit onto a side walk, turn south for a short distance, to back east for another short distance, turn north for a short distance and then re-enter the school. They repeat this course three times right now and then call it a day. On one training day, Gnu was staying after school to tutor EM and S&T when there was an announcement that teachers were needed to help the running club. Gnu, being in the school, volunteered to stand and hold open one of the doors to the school so the runners would not be slowed down. EM stayed close to her and worked on his homework. S&T asked Gnu if he could run. Gnu said, "sure, go ahead." S&T was off in a sprint. He managed to make it through two laps when he ran out of gas and stopped by Gnu. Part of Gnu's responsibility, besides opening a door, was to place a mark on the back of each runners hand when they passed her. If, with the run completed, a scholar didn't have three makes on the back of his/her hand the coaches would be made aware. Gnu decided to pay closer attention to EM, who was sitting close by, to help him with his homework, so she gave the marker to S&T. One by one, as the runners ran by, S&T placed a mark on the back of the runners hand. With practice over, EM, S&T, and Gnu were headed back to the classroom when S&T said to Gnu, "this was one of my best days ever."
I have just a brief update on EM. He is still in the general education fifth grade classroom and for the most part he is holding his own as we approach the end of the first grading period. Unlike, Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and MiniJ, EM has a chance to succeed for one reason. He has access to an inclusion teacher that spends time with him in his general education classroom daily. EM also has a guardian angel to help him with his homework everyday that he has homework. Not too many people know about this guardian angel. I suspect EM's homeroom teacher is aware but that is about it. Well, technically, I'm aware of the guardian angel as she sits across the classroom from me everyday. Does this guardian angel get paid by the school corporation to tutor someone after school? Surely, I jest. Does this guardian angel get paid by EM's parental unit for tutoring. No! Even if EM's parental unit made the attempt, the guardian angel would turn down the money. So why does Gnu do this? Because she is a school teacher, like thousands of other school teachers, who cares about her scholars. And maybe, just maybe, there is something that Gnu sees in a young scholar that has battled dyslexia everyday of this life, that will bring out his inner genius so he can on and do great things some day.
Ta-da! The grill is fired up, hamburgers are about to feel the heat and I'm out of here. Thank you for continuing to follow the musings of an old man that has a view from the back of the room.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Finally Academics and Some Fun
I was the first one to arrive in the classroom. It was around 8:10am and, as I always do, I removed all of the scholars chairs from the top of their desks and placed them on the floor, pull out the attendance record sheet and the cafeteria head count sheet, update the school calendar on my desk, and sharpen all the pencils. It's now around 8:20am and Gnu has not arrived and I'm getting a little nervous. When I get nervous, I send her a simple, one word, text message "location." Just before I hit the send button she walks into the classroom looking like an old bag lady carrying all of her worldly possessions. "What's in the bags," I asked her. "I've been shopping," she responds. "I needed to pick up the ingredients for a Thunder Cake." Finally, after approximately twenty-eight days in the classroom, we're going to have some fun.
The author is Patricia Polacco and she has written a series of children's books. For my Michigan friends, Ms. Polacco moved to Union City after her parents divorced. There she lived with her mother, grandmother, and brother on a farm which is the settings for many of her stories. Ms. Polacco struggled in school because she was unable to read until the age of fourteen due to dyslexia. Like so many of the scholars that have passed through the classroom where I have a view from the back of the room that have dyslexia issues like Ms. Polacco, they try and hide it by refusing to read. Fortunately for Ms. Polacco, a classroom teacher recognized that she could not read and started to help her. Because of one teacher, alert to what was going on in a classroom, Patricia Polacco went on the write and illustrate several children books to include "Thunder Cake."
Gnu's doing the introduction to "Thunder Cake." I'm sitting in the back of the room enjoying the view. One by one, Gnu asks the scholars to name something that makes them scared or afraid. Not getting any volunteers Gnu states, "I'm afraid of bugs. I hate bugs because they have so many legs." She then writes the word bugs on the white board. She then asked the scholars again, to name something that scares them. With the ice broken, the following words wound up on the whiteboard, heights, dark places, snakes, and bugs for a second time. With the background set, Gnu begins to read the book and hopefully what I'm about to do isn't illegal because this is directly from the book.
A loud clap of thunder booms, and rattles the windows of Grandma's old farmhouse. "This is Thunder Cake baking weather," calls Grandma, as she and her granddaughter hurry to gather the ingredients around the farm. A real Thunder Cake must reach the oven before the storm arrives. But the list of ingredients is long and not easy to find...and the storm is coming closer all the time! The granddaughter is Patricia Polacco and she is frightened by the sound of thunder. Grandma, or Babuska, as Patricia calls her is her Grandma. And, as with all of the other Patricia Polacco books, each story has a direct link to Ms. Polacco.
Although this was a thunder free day the baking of the cake, from scratch so each of the scholars can help, begins. "Gnu, how long is it going to take you to get the cake ready for baking?" I ask. "Hopefully, only twenty minutes of so," was her response. "Thanks, I'm going over to the staff lounge and preheat the oven." "Good, preheat to three hundred and fifty degees." "Ok," and off I go. When I returned to the classroom the cake preparation was in full swing as there was flour everywhere. The smaller size ingredients were being added when I hear, "Schultz, I need your help. Go to the staff lounge and get the three eggs I left in the refrigerator. When you get back, separate the inside of the eggs so we have egg white and yoke." A couple minutes later I'm back in the room and I have three helpers, Un-Un-Un, BigHouse, and MiniJ. I got off to a good start by separating the egg white and from yoke from the first egg. In doing so I failed to notice something, MiniJ had picked up an egg. With the egg white almost separated from the yoke on the second egg I hear it, crack! MiniJ just poked a hole in the egg with his thumb. "Don't move," I say to him. "Stay completely still so you don't damage the egg any further." MiniJ literally freezes in position as he realizes he screwed up. I eventually removed the egg from MiniJ's hand and completed the separation of the egg white from the yoke, handed the ingrediates to Uh-Uh-Uh and BigHouse, and direct them to the front of the room. A minute of so later, "Schultz, spray some Pam into the baking pans." So you know, we are making a round, two layer cake. Gnu hands me the two pans and I pick up the Pam. "Mr. Schultz, can I do it?" MiniJ asks. "Yes, but get over to the sink so we don't have Pam all over the room." At the sink, I'm holding the pan and MiniJ gets to spray the Pam. "Stop!" I say to him. We now have so much Pam in the bottom of the pan I can swirl it around. Fortunately, paper towels are nearby and the problem is solved. A couple minutes later, with the cake batter in the pan, I'm off to the kitchen to bake the cake.
When I returned to the classroom with the cake, the scholars were in the midst of clean up. The flour, that was everywhere is now off of Gnu's table and off the floor around the table. All of the leftover ingredients have been packed up and put away, and the biggest surprise of all was the Gnu and S&T were at the sink in our classroom washing the dishes. When the cake was finally cool enough to eat Gnu passed out some paper towels, to act as plates, and started to cut the cake. One by one the scholars walked over to Gnu to get a piece of the cake they just made. I was fun to watch them. "This is really good cake," was said by one of the scholars. All the others agreed and promptly consumed the cake like beavers attacking a small tree along the shore of a stream.
I got the last piece of the cake and as I was sitting at my table with a view from the back of the room and I'm looking at Gnu in the front of the room. She is sitting at her table finishing up her piece of the cake and I'm thinking to myself, "how did she manage, with seven scholars, all with their various degrees of baggage, manage to get them all to work together to make this cake." Gnu must have sensed that I was looking at her as she looked up and made eye contact with me. So I raised up my piece of the cake and said, "the cake turned out pretty good." She smiled and about fifteen minutes later the scholars had left for the day and the classroom was silent.
I think Gnu has five of Patricia Polacco's books in our classroom. The next book up is called, "Junkyard Wonders." and we'll talk about this book next week. Before I call it a day I want to say a little about reading, dyslexia and the teachers who recognized that scholars were struggling with reading and did something about it. It was in the third grade when I first met CorP. He hated reading and it was not unusual to see him get angry and throw his reading book across the room whenever he had to read out loud. A teacher recognized this and began to work with CorP. Although it took a couple attempts to pass IRead3, CorP did pass. Here is a scholar that went from throwing books to reading. Base G was CorP's teacher in the third grade and like Patricia Polacco's teacher, he did his job. Thanks BaseG. Grr! and EM have dyslexia and to a lessor extent, so does Tourette, S&T and BayBee. I've watched Grr! and EM struggle with reading since their arrival in the classroom. Fortunately for them, teachers like BaseG and Gnu recognized the obstacles that these two scholars faced and worked with both scholars to help them read and progress has been made. BaseG, working with CorP made progress fairly quickly. Sadly, Grr! and EM, are progressing slowly. Here is why there was a difference. When CorP was in the classroom with BaseG, there were only four scholars. Grr! and EM have been in classroom with anywhere from eight to ten scholars. There can be a real focus on academics when there are only four scholars in an EH classroom. With eight to ten scholars in an EH classroom, you are no longer an academic setting, you are a warehouse created by adults in overhead positions who sit in an office all day. That's not fair to Gnu and more importantly, that is not fair to the ten scholars that walk through the doorway to her classroom everyday.
The granddaughter is in the house. The neighbor's chickens are running free and we are heading over for a close up look at the chickens. Will she show an interest in the chickens or will she be scared to death of the chickens. I'll know in about ten minutes. Thanks for continuing to follow along.
The author is Patricia Polacco and she has written a series of children's books. For my Michigan friends, Ms. Polacco moved to Union City after her parents divorced. There she lived with her mother, grandmother, and brother on a farm which is the settings for many of her stories. Ms. Polacco struggled in school because she was unable to read until the age of fourteen due to dyslexia. Like so many of the scholars that have passed through the classroom where I have a view from the back of the room that have dyslexia issues like Ms. Polacco, they try and hide it by refusing to read. Fortunately for Ms. Polacco, a classroom teacher recognized that she could not read and started to help her. Because of one teacher, alert to what was going on in a classroom, Patricia Polacco went on the write and illustrate several children books to include "Thunder Cake."
Gnu's doing the introduction to "Thunder Cake." I'm sitting in the back of the room enjoying the view. One by one, Gnu asks the scholars to name something that makes them scared or afraid. Not getting any volunteers Gnu states, "I'm afraid of bugs. I hate bugs because they have so many legs." She then writes the word bugs on the white board. She then asked the scholars again, to name something that scares them. With the ice broken, the following words wound up on the whiteboard, heights, dark places, snakes, and bugs for a second time. With the background set, Gnu begins to read the book and hopefully what I'm about to do isn't illegal because this is directly from the book.
A loud clap of thunder booms, and rattles the windows of Grandma's old farmhouse. "This is Thunder Cake baking weather," calls Grandma, as she and her granddaughter hurry to gather the ingredients around the farm. A real Thunder Cake must reach the oven before the storm arrives. But the list of ingredients is long and not easy to find...and the storm is coming closer all the time! The granddaughter is Patricia Polacco and she is frightened by the sound of thunder. Grandma, or Babuska, as Patricia calls her is her Grandma. And, as with all of the other Patricia Polacco books, each story has a direct link to Ms. Polacco.
Although this was a thunder free day the baking of the cake, from scratch so each of the scholars can help, begins. "Gnu, how long is it going to take you to get the cake ready for baking?" I ask. "Hopefully, only twenty minutes of so," was her response. "Thanks, I'm going over to the staff lounge and preheat the oven." "Good, preheat to three hundred and fifty degees." "Ok," and off I go. When I returned to the classroom the cake preparation was in full swing as there was flour everywhere. The smaller size ingredients were being added when I hear, "Schultz, I need your help. Go to the staff lounge and get the three eggs I left in the refrigerator. When you get back, separate the inside of the eggs so we have egg white and yoke." A couple minutes later I'm back in the room and I have three helpers, Un-Un-Un, BigHouse, and MiniJ. I got off to a good start by separating the egg white and from yoke from the first egg. In doing so I failed to notice something, MiniJ had picked up an egg. With the egg white almost separated from the yoke on the second egg I hear it, crack! MiniJ just poked a hole in the egg with his thumb. "Don't move," I say to him. "Stay completely still so you don't damage the egg any further." MiniJ literally freezes in position as he realizes he screwed up. I eventually removed the egg from MiniJ's hand and completed the separation of the egg white from the yoke, handed the ingrediates to Uh-Uh-Uh and BigHouse, and direct them to the front of the room. A minute of so later, "Schultz, spray some Pam into the baking pans." So you know, we are making a round, two layer cake. Gnu hands me the two pans and I pick up the Pam. "Mr. Schultz, can I do it?" MiniJ asks. "Yes, but get over to the sink so we don't have Pam all over the room." At the sink, I'm holding the pan and MiniJ gets to spray the Pam. "Stop!" I say to him. We now have so much Pam in the bottom of the pan I can swirl it around. Fortunately, paper towels are nearby and the problem is solved. A couple minutes later, with the cake batter in the pan, I'm off to the kitchen to bake the cake.
When I returned to the classroom with the cake, the scholars were in the midst of clean up. The flour, that was everywhere is now off of Gnu's table and off the floor around the table. All of the leftover ingredients have been packed up and put away, and the biggest surprise of all was the Gnu and S&T were at the sink in our classroom washing the dishes. When the cake was finally cool enough to eat Gnu passed out some paper towels, to act as plates, and started to cut the cake. One by one the scholars walked over to Gnu to get a piece of the cake they just made. I was fun to watch them. "This is really good cake," was said by one of the scholars. All the others agreed and promptly consumed the cake like beavers attacking a small tree along the shore of a stream.
I got the last piece of the cake and as I was sitting at my table with a view from the back of the room and I'm looking at Gnu in the front of the room. She is sitting at her table finishing up her piece of the cake and I'm thinking to myself, "how did she manage, with seven scholars, all with their various degrees of baggage, manage to get them all to work together to make this cake." Gnu must have sensed that I was looking at her as she looked up and made eye contact with me. So I raised up my piece of the cake and said, "the cake turned out pretty good." She smiled and about fifteen minutes later the scholars had left for the day and the classroom was silent.
I think Gnu has five of Patricia Polacco's books in our classroom. The next book up is called, "Junkyard Wonders." and we'll talk about this book next week. Before I call it a day I want to say a little about reading, dyslexia and the teachers who recognized that scholars were struggling with reading and did something about it. It was in the third grade when I first met CorP. He hated reading and it was not unusual to see him get angry and throw his reading book across the room whenever he had to read out loud. A teacher recognized this and began to work with CorP. Although it took a couple attempts to pass IRead3, CorP did pass. Here is a scholar that went from throwing books to reading. Base G was CorP's teacher in the third grade and like Patricia Polacco's teacher, he did his job. Thanks BaseG. Grr! and EM have dyslexia and to a lessor extent, so does Tourette, S&T and BayBee. I've watched Grr! and EM struggle with reading since their arrival in the classroom. Fortunately for them, teachers like BaseG and Gnu recognized the obstacles that these two scholars faced and worked with both scholars to help them read and progress has been made. BaseG, working with CorP made progress fairly quickly. Sadly, Grr! and EM, are progressing slowly. Here is why there was a difference. When CorP was in the classroom with BaseG, there were only four scholars. Grr! and EM have been in classroom with anywhere from eight to ten scholars. There can be a real focus on academics when there are only four scholars in an EH classroom. With eight to ten scholars in an EH classroom, you are no longer an academic setting, you are a warehouse created by adults in overhead positions who sit in an office all day. That's not fair to Gnu and more importantly, that is not fair to the ten scholars that walk through the doorway to her classroom everyday.
The granddaughter is in the house. The neighbor's chickens are running free and we are heading over for a close up look at the chickens. Will she show an interest in the chickens or will she be scared to death of the chickens. I'll know in about ten minutes. Thanks for continuing to follow along.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
The Tower
The morning started out quietly. Gnu and I were the only two people in the room as the main entrance door to the school just opened to let the scholars into the building and the busses were still unloading. Grr!, as he always does, as he is a car rider, is the first to arrive. S&T arrives next which indicates that the bus riding students are in the building. The surprise is that Knapper is the third person to arrive as he is a walker and is almost always the last to arrive. When Knapper walks into the room he immediately walks to his desk, crosses his arms on the top of the desk and then rests his forehead on his arms. I don't pay it too much attention as it is early and he is probably tired. With all the scholars now in the classroom, Gnu has them get out their morning worksheets as we are about the begin the day. When Gnu sees that Knapper still has his head on his arms she walks over to him and rubs his head a little thinking she is waking him up. When she removed her hand Knapper said to her, "leave me alone." Gnu and I make eye contact, no words are exchanged, and she heads to the front of the room to begin the day. About ten minutes later I walk over to Knapper desks, place my hand on his shoulder and shake him a little. Without raising his head he said to me, "leave me alone." Gnu and I make eye contact for the second time and we both know this is not a good situation. We got together off to the side of the room and it's decision time. We have two choices, continue the day with Knapper in the room or evacuate the room. Gnu chooses the later, I agree, and the scholars and Gnu are on their way to our safe place which is the library.
For reasons unknown, the demon, as I call it, has entered his head again. With the room empty I'm sitting at my desk and Knapper is directly in front of me. I choose to remain silent knowing that if I continue to try and make contact with him, he will escalate and say to me, "leave me the f..... alone." I'm not exactly sure how long I sat silent watching him but eventually he raised up his head and looked around the classroom. I'm still silent. He then leans over, looks inside his desk and grabs a piece of paper and I know immediately the escalation has begun and I'm very confident as to what is going to happen over the next several minutes. As Knapper begins tearing the paper into little pieces I text FBG first, as he is a member of our crisis team, to let him know what is going on in the classroom. I then text Gnu to tell her that Knapper is escalating. FBG responds back quickly and asks if I need help. I responded, "not yet." With all of the loose pieces of notebook paper torn into pieces, Knapper brings out his folders and spiral binders and continues shredding paper. At this point I still have not spoken to him as I know it will not help the situation. Apparently tired of shredding paper, he now starts to ball the paper up in his hands. As he does so, he looks around the room, selects a target, and throws the paper at the target. This continued for several minutes. Tired of throwing paper, he now brings out is pencil box. He opens the box, selects one pencil, looks at it, and then randomly tosses it across the room. He continues this process until the majority of his pencils have been tossed out of his pencil box. Next, he selects a dry erase marker and starts scribbling on his desk top and occasionally on his arms and pants with the marker. So far, he is following his usual progression as he escalates and with no objects thrown in my direction, I remain seated directly behind him.
With his desk thoroughly covered with dry erase marker scribbling, he stands up, stretches and looks around the classroom. As I expected he turns to his right and heads toward a table and chairs near the exterior windows of the classroom. He carefully moves the three chairs away from the table, slides the table away from the wall, and then starts to turn the table over onto its side. Rather than just let the table drop onto the floor he tries his best to carefully lay the table on its side. With the table on its side he studies its position and then moves it a little so the table forms a triangle with the corner walls of the classroom. Now satisfied with the table position he begins to build his tower. The first five chairs he chose are close to the table and he carefully moves them, turns them upside down, and places them next to the table. The next chair is at Huey's desk which is very close to my desk. As he picks up Huey's chair, he raises it up above his head so I stand up. He looked at me, turned around, and placed Huey's chair near the table. This process continued until there were seventeen chairs stacked around the table. At no time did he throw a chair into position. Each chair was carefully placed onto the tower.
Satisfied with his work, Knapper climbs up on the book case next to his tower and works his way into the back side of the tower and sits down on the floor. When he sits down, I sit down. There is silence for a few minutes and then Knapper says to me, "Mr. Schultz, there is a spider in the corner." "What kind of spider is it?" I ask him. "It's a daddy long legged spider," he says. "Is it a big one or a little one," I ask him. He responds, "it's a big one." "Are you allergic to spider bites," I ask him. "No," is the response and I go silent and continue watching him. After a couple minutes Knapper starts to climb out from behind his tower. As I watch him, I stand and move toward the classroom door as he is moving outside his normal progression. As he approaches me he says, "Mr. Schultz, I need to use the restroom." It's decision time for me. Do I block his way or let him use the restroom. During this whole tower building episode, he never was either verbally or physically aggressive. He just calmly went through his normal progression so I decided to let him us the restroom. As he exited the classroom I walked behind him. He went into the restroom, exited shortly, washed and dried his hands and started to walk back to the classroom. As he was walking toward the classroom, I turned to open the classroom door. With my back to him I hear, "bye." I turned back toward him and he is running down the hallway. As I watch him run, I pull out my cellphone and text FBG to let him know Knapper is running the hallways and heading to the second floor. I also text a second crisis team member who is on the second floor and ask this crisis team member watch for Knapper. Rather than follow Knapper down the hall and up the stairs I decided to take the elevator and that was my mistake. When I get to the second floor I exit the elevator and can now look down each hallway and he is not in sight.
I'm now getting a little worried as I've lost track of him. I head back down the elevator and walk toward the offices to tell the BigB2 and/or LittleBB that Knapper is running the hallways and I've lost track of him. I also know I can check the security cameras in the main office and hopefully see him on one of the cameras. When I get to the office I tell the Administrative Czar what is going on and he tells me Knapper is outside the building on the side near the interstate highway and the BigB2 and LittleBB are pursuing him. I believe my response was, "damn" and I'm now running to the west exit door of the school. When I'm outside on the street I look left and right and I don't see anyone. I go back to the office to tell the Administrative Czar that I can't find them. He tells me they are at this street location and I'm off running again and this time I see them about a block and a half from the school. As I'm running I see that FBG is at the location and has a hold of Knapper and he keeping him from going farther from the school. When I arrived at the street location I apologize to the BigBig2 and look at FBG and quietly say, "what do you need me to do?" He looks at me, shakes his head to indicate do nothing for now. As I'm standing there I explain to the BigB2 what happened and said to her it was my fault he got outside the building as I thought he was running up to the second floor and failed to see that he started up the stairs and then turned around the left the building.
As I'm standing on this street corner watching Knapper continue to struggle I asked the BigB2 about getting him back to school. She quietly informed me that she has called the school police for assistance. Shortly after this conversation my cellphone rings and I have a text message from Gnu. "I'm nearing crisis mode and I need help quickly," is how the message read. I inform the BigB2 and I'm now running back to the school and the library. When I arrived in the library, Gnu was trying to corral all the scholars back to our classroom. Once in the classroom the scholars look at the condition of the classroom and Oil says, "what happened in here?" Gnu tells them it is none of their business and then assigns each scholar a task to put the classroom back in its normal condition. While returning the classroom to its normal condition Gnu and I get the word that the school police arrived took Knapper home.
This was the fourth time that demons have entered Knapper's head since arriving in our classroom last school year. Never, up to this point, he had ever run away from the classroom. I caught a huge break after losing track of Knapper, one of the classroom teachers saw him outside the building and called the main office. I had to make a decision as Knapper was running from me. I knew from previous experience that if a pursue a scholar on the run the scholar will just run faster. With this in mind, I let him run. My mistake was I should have following him down the hallway rather than take the elevator to the second floor. If I did this I would have seen him leave the building and could have chased him down. That mistake on my part could have been costly and it is one that I will not make again.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning. There is not a cloud in the sky and the outdoor temperature is around sixty-four degrees. Today is opening day for the National Football League and my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I have been invited to the Colts game against the Detroit Lions. Our seats are near the tunnel onto the field that the Lions will use to enter and leave the playing field. We are seated between the five and ten yard line about fifteen rows up. As the Lions either enter or exit the playing field I'll wave so you can see me.
For reasons unknown, the demon, as I call it, has entered his head again. With the room empty I'm sitting at my desk and Knapper is directly in front of me. I choose to remain silent knowing that if I continue to try and make contact with him, he will escalate and say to me, "leave me the f..... alone." I'm not exactly sure how long I sat silent watching him but eventually he raised up his head and looked around the classroom. I'm still silent. He then leans over, looks inside his desk and grabs a piece of paper and I know immediately the escalation has begun and I'm very confident as to what is going to happen over the next several minutes. As Knapper begins tearing the paper into little pieces I text FBG first, as he is a member of our crisis team, to let him know what is going on in the classroom. I then text Gnu to tell her that Knapper is escalating. FBG responds back quickly and asks if I need help. I responded, "not yet." With all of the loose pieces of notebook paper torn into pieces, Knapper brings out his folders and spiral binders and continues shredding paper. At this point I still have not spoken to him as I know it will not help the situation. Apparently tired of shredding paper, he now starts to ball the paper up in his hands. As he does so, he looks around the room, selects a target, and throws the paper at the target. This continued for several minutes. Tired of throwing paper, he now brings out is pencil box. He opens the box, selects one pencil, looks at it, and then randomly tosses it across the room. He continues this process until the majority of his pencils have been tossed out of his pencil box. Next, he selects a dry erase marker and starts scribbling on his desk top and occasionally on his arms and pants with the marker. So far, he is following his usual progression as he escalates and with no objects thrown in my direction, I remain seated directly behind him.
With his desk thoroughly covered with dry erase marker scribbling, he stands up, stretches and looks around the classroom. As I expected he turns to his right and heads toward a table and chairs near the exterior windows of the classroom. He carefully moves the three chairs away from the table, slides the table away from the wall, and then starts to turn the table over onto its side. Rather than just let the table drop onto the floor he tries his best to carefully lay the table on its side. With the table on its side he studies its position and then moves it a little so the table forms a triangle with the corner walls of the classroom. Now satisfied with the table position he begins to build his tower. The first five chairs he chose are close to the table and he carefully moves them, turns them upside down, and places them next to the table. The next chair is at Huey's desk which is very close to my desk. As he picks up Huey's chair, he raises it up above his head so I stand up. He looked at me, turned around, and placed Huey's chair near the table. This process continued until there were seventeen chairs stacked around the table. At no time did he throw a chair into position. Each chair was carefully placed onto the tower.
Satisfied with his work, Knapper climbs up on the book case next to his tower and works his way into the back side of the tower and sits down on the floor. When he sits down, I sit down. There is silence for a few minutes and then Knapper says to me, "Mr. Schultz, there is a spider in the corner." "What kind of spider is it?" I ask him. "It's a daddy long legged spider," he says. "Is it a big one or a little one," I ask him. He responds, "it's a big one." "Are you allergic to spider bites," I ask him. "No," is the response and I go silent and continue watching him. After a couple minutes Knapper starts to climb out from behind his tower. As I watch him, I stand and move toward the classroom door as he is moving outside his normal progression. As he approaches me he says, "Mr. Schultz, I need to use the restroom." It's decision time for me. Do I block his way or let him use the restroom. During this whole tower building episode, he never was either verbally or physically aggressive. He just calmly went through his normal progression so I decided to let him us the restroom. As he exited the classroom I walked behind him. He went into the restroom, exited shortly, washed and dried his hands and started to walk back to the classroom. As he was walking toward the classroom, I turned to open the classroom door. With my back to him I hear, "bye." I turned back toward him and he is running down the hallway. As I watch him run, I pull out my cellphone and text FBG to let him know Knapper is running the hallways and heading to the second floor. I also text a second crisis team member who is on the second floor and ask this crisis team member watch for Knapper. Rather than follow Knapper down the hall and up the stairs I decided to take the elevator and that was my mistake. When I get to the second floor I exit the elevator and can now look down each hallway and he is not in sight.
I'm now getting a little worried as I've lost track of him. I head back down the elevator and walk toward the offices to tell the BigB2 and/or LittleBB that Knapper is running the hallways and I've lost track of him. I also know I can check the security cameras in the main office and hopefully see him on one of the cameras. When I get to the office I tell the Administrative Czar what is going on and he tells me Knapper is outside the building on the side near the interstate highway and the BigB2 and LittleBB are pursuing him. I believe my response was, "damn" and I'm now running to the west exit door of the school. When I'm outside on the street I look left and right and I don't see anyone. I go back to the office to tell the Administrative Czar that I can't find them. He tells me they are at this street location and I'm off running again and this time I see them about a block and a half from the school. As I'm running I see that FBG is at the location and has a hold of Knapper and he keeping him from going farther from the school. When I arrived at the street location I apologize to the BigBig2 and look at FBG and quietly say, "what do you need me to do?" He looks at me, shakes his head to indicate do nothing for now. As I'm standing there I explain to the BigB2 what happened and said to her it was my fault he got outside the building as I thought he was running up to the second floor and failed to see that he started up the stairs and then turned around the left the building.
As I'm standing on this street corner watching Knapper continue to struggle I asked the BigB2 about getting him back to school. She quietly informed me that she has called the school police for assistance. Shortly after this conversation my cellphone rings and I have a text message from Gnu. "I'm nearing crisis mode and I need help quickly," is how the message read. I inform the BigB2 and I'm now running back to the school and the library. When I arrived in the library, Gnu was trying to corral all the scholars back to our classroom. Once in the classroom the scholars look at the condition of the classroom and Oil says, "what happened in here?" Gnu tells them it is none of their business and then assigns each scholar a task to put the classroom back in its normal condition. While returning the classroom to its normal condition Gnu and I get the word that the school police arrived took Knapper home.
This was the fourth time that demons have entered Knapper's head since arriving in our classroom last school year. Never, up to this point, he had ever run away from the classroom. I caught a huge break after losing track of Knapper, one of the classroom teachers saw him outside the building and called the main office. I had to make a decision as Knapper was running from me. I knew from previous experience that if a pursue a scholar on the run the scholar will just run faster. With this in mind, I let him run. My mistake was I should have following him down the hallway rather than take the elevator to the second floor. If I did this I would have seen him leave the building and could have chased him down. That mistake on my part could have been costly and it is one that I will not make again.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning. There is not a cloud in the sky and the outdoor temperature is around sixty-four degrees. Today is opening day for the National Football League and my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I have been invited to the Colts game against the Detroit Lions. Our seats are near the tunnel onto the field that the Lions will use to enter and leave the playing field. We are seated between the five and ten yard line about fifteen rows up. As the Lions either enter or exit the playing field I'll wave so you can see me.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Day Twenty-Five
September 2nd was the twenty-fifth school day of the year and it still has not been a fun year. There was a glimmer of hope that things were getting into a good groove as we had two solid academic days in a row. For the first time in quite a while the look on Gnu's face at the end of the day was satisfaction and not that "I survived another day" look. However, that ended abruptly, as the demons entered his head the moment he walked into the classroom. There is a picture on the right side of the blog that will give you an idea as to how Wednesday of last week started. Rather than discuss the construction of the Tower of Babel now I'm going to let you ponder that picture for a while and she if you can figure out how it was constructed.
My first encounter with Tourette was when he was in kindergarten. He was being removed from the classroom for very disruptive behavior. When I arrived at his classroom, he had cornered himself behind the classroom door out in the hallway. When I looked behind the door, he looked up at me and, true to form, loudly directed a couple obscenities at me and then pulled the door closer to himself to avoid me. As he did so, I'm thinking to myself "thanks" as all I have to do now is put my foot by the door and you can't escape. It's now two years later and he hasn't changed or, for that matter, shown any improvement. Although I can't recall the exact date I do know that it was around 2:30pm when LittleBB walked into the classroom and left with Tourette in tow. Gnu was informed later in the day that he was picked up by a social services agency. Tourette missed a day of school before he returned and Gnu was informed that he was staying with people from another social services agency. This agency dropped him off at school and picked him up from school for a couple days but that ended abruptly. As I understand it, the people at this second social services agency decided that he was too much for them to handle and were not going to deal with him any more. As I was leaving school on this day, I walked past LittleBB's office and noticed the BigB2, FBG, and Tourette sitting in the office with her and then it clicked in my head. It was time for Tourette to go home but he did not have a home or a social services agency to go to.
The first former scholar to return was Uh-Uh-Uh. A few days later Gnu was notified that BigHouse would be returning. The very next day Gnu was informed that MiniJ was returning. That just leaves EM in a general education classroom and even if he wanted to return to Gnu's classroom he couldn't as he in now in the fifth grade. This school year started out with a pretty high degree of confidence on Gnu's part that all of her former scholars could adjust to the general education classroom, but sadly, it was a failure. Why did this fail? Simple, adults failed to do their job. Adults in this absolutely wonderful school where I work plus adults in our SpecEd overhead department failed to do their jobs. So when school reconvenes on Wednesday after Labor Day there will be ten scholars in Gnu's classroom. Ten! How much fun will that be? I'll let you think about it.
Remember the ice bucket challenge that took place a couple years ago, well, today's version of the ice bucket challenge is the eraser challenge. MiniJ walked into the classroom one day and as he walked past me I notice a scab on the back of his right hand. I didn't question him about it as he was headed to the front of the classroom to give Gnu a box of her favorite cereal that he picked up in the cafeteria. What is Gnu's favorite cereal you ask? Anything with too much sugar in it that she eats dry as a snack. As he was headed out of the classroom I got his attention and said to him, "let me see that hand." "What did you do to get this scab," I asked. "I did the eraser challenge Mr. Schultz," and he put his foot up on the chair next to me to show me another scab near his ankle. Here is how you do the eraser challenge. First, you need one of those pink erasers that are about an inch long and just over a half an inch wide. Second, you need a competitor with the same type of eraser. Third, you start rubbing the eraser on your chosen body part until one of the two competitors quits. I'm going to assume MiniJ won the contest as he literally rubbed the skin off his body......twice.
Although I could put the exact date that this happened in this blog I chose not to as it is a regular occurrence in our classroom. BayBee and Oil had a loud conversation, what we label as verbal aggression, in the cafeteria breakfast line. Upon arrival in the classroom, BayBee went about his normal routine but Oil could not let the cafeteria incident go. Oil shouted, "I need help," as he attempted to get started on his morning warm up worksheet. Gnu walked over to help him but he put his head down and refused to do anything. Not wanting any help, Gnu walked away to help someone else. As Gnu walked away Oil's response was to starting pounding on his desk with his fist. Since his arrival in the classroom he has been disruptive and defiant. The morning work assignment had to do with the weekly spelling words, there are ten of them. Oil was asked to read the spelling words. His response was, "do I have to read all of these?" He then, once again, put his head down on his desk and did nothing. A short time later Oil asked for help again. Gnu said to read the first word. He angrily said, "I don't know the word." I believe the word he didn't know was "easy." He continues to be defiant. He asks for help and then does nothing. This process repeated itself a number of times. It's now 9:37 and since his arrival at 9:00am he has done little or nothing. I'm working with Uh-Uh-Uh at my table where I have a view from the back of the room when Oil walks up to the table. He reaches toward Uh-Uh-Uh and takes the pencil out of her hand. When she asked him to give it back, he refused. When I asked him to give the pencil back to Uh-Uh-Uh he again refused to give it back. When I ask him to give me the pencil he said, "no" and hid the pencil behind his back. Oil just stepped over the line and he was removed from the classroom to our in-school suspension room for a timeout. When you have to deal with behavior like this almost daily it's no wonder there is not a lot of smiling going on in the classroom.
Enough of that crap, it's time to smile. My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I are in the car and we are heading north to attend the wedding. It's a perfect day, in fact, to quote Billy Idol, "it's a nice day for a white wedding." We are seated in church on the bride's side near the back and TheSpouse is the first person to walk down the aisle and promptly takes his position near the alter. Immediately following are the brides maids and the grooms men. Then, standing in the back of the church, is something I haven't seen in quite some time, a smile. As she walked down the aisle the smile continued, non-stop. For three hundred and eighty five days I sat in a classroom with Gnu and never seen her smile so much. As she move down the aisle heading to the alter and was passing me I had tears in my eyes as she looking absolutely beautiful. This was a Catholic ceremony and after the exchanging of the wedding vows was communion. Because I was seated near the back of the congregation I was one of the last people to receive communion. Just before I stepped up to the priest I looked up at Gnu sitting next to TheSpouse. She saw me, turned to TheSpouse, and whispered to him, "there's Schultz." As I'm sitting here right now I'm smiling. Even on her wedding day, I'm "Schultz." Maybe, one day, she will actually call me by my first name.
I know this is getting a little long but I'm going to continue with the wedding. After the ceremony the wedding party exited the church. At first I was a bit confused as to what was happening as, one by one, the brides maids and grooms men climbed into the respective pick up truck. When Gnu and TheSpouse passed by they promptly stepped into a huge 4x4 fire engine red pick up truck and then the wedding party exited the church parking lot for the reception hall. The reception was held at a golf course, actually a real nice golf course, one that I've played before. As my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse arrived the wedding party was heading out onto the golf course in golf carts. Apparently there are a couple scenic spots on the golf course that are perfect for wedding pictures. As Gnu was attempting to get into a golf cart with her wedding dress on my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse looked at me and said, "did you see what Gnu was wearing?" "No," I respond. "She has cowboy boots on under that wedding dress." With the wedding party out on the golf course I found an empty table out on a balcony and took a seat. As I was sitting there a lady walks up to the table and said, "you must be Schultz." I turned to my left and there standing right next to me is Gnu's mother. As I turned toward her to introduce myself Gnu's mother said to me, "she talks about you all the time."
My part time editor, part time consultant, full time spouse and I stayed at the reception for around two hours and during that time I saw that smile and I heard the laughter. Those two images of my classroom partner will stay with me for a long time. The end. I'm outta here. Thanks for following along.
My first encounter with Tourette was when he was in kindergarten. He was being removed from the classroom for very disruptive behavior. When I arrived at his classroom, he had cornered himself behind the classroom door out in the hallway. When I looked behind the door, he looked up at me and, true to form, loudly directed a couple obscenities at me and then pulled the door closer to himself to avoid me. As he did so, I'm thinking to myself "thanks" as all I have to do now is put my foot by the door and you can't escape. It's now two years later and he hasn't changed or, for that matter, shown any improvement. Although I can't recall the exact date I do know that it was around 2:30pm when LittleBB walked into the classroom and left with Tourette in tow. Gnu was informed later in the day that he was picked up by a social services agency. Tourette missed a day of school before he returned and Gnu was informed that he was staying with people from another social services agency. This agency dropped him off at school and picked him up from school for a couple days but that ended abruptly. As I understand it, the people at this second social services agency decided that he was too much for them to handle and were not going to deal with him any more. As I was leaving school on this day, I walked past LittleBB's office and noticed the BigB2, FBG, and Tourette sitting in the office with her and then it clicked in my head. It was time for Tourette to go home but he did not have a home or a social services agency to go to.
The first former scholar to return was Uh-Uh-Uh. A few days later Gnu was notified that BigHouse would be returning. The very next day Gnu was informed that MiniJ was returning. That just leaves EM in a general education classroom and even if he wanted to return to Gnu's classroom he couldn't as he in now in the fifth grade. This school year started out with a pretty high degree of confidence on Gnu's part that all of her former scholars could adjust to the general education classroom, but sadly, it was a failure. Why did this fail? Simple, adults failed to do their job. Adults in this absolutely wonderful school where I work plus adults in our SpecEd overhead department failed to do their jobs. So when school reconvenes on Wednesday after Labor Day there will be ten scholars in Gnu's classroom. Ten! How much fun will that be? I'll let you think about it.
Remember the ice bucket challenge that took place a couple years ago, well, today's version of the ice bucket challenge is the eraser challenge. MiniJ walked into the classroom one day and as he walked past me I notice a scab on the back of his right hand. I didn't question him about it as he was headed to the front of the classroom to give Gnu a box of her favorite cereal that he picked up in the cafeteria. What is Gnu's favorite cereal you ask? Anything with too much sugar in it that she eats dry as a snack. As he was headed out of the classroom I got his attention and said to him, "let me see that hand." "What did you do to get this scab," I asked. "I did the eraser challenge Mr. Schultz," and he put his foot up on the chair next to me to show me another scab near his ankle. Here is how you do the eraser challenge. First, you need one of those pink erasers that are about an inch long and just over a half an inch wide. Second, you need a competitor with the same type of eraser. Third, you start rubbing the eraser on your chosen body part until one of the two competitors quits. I'm going to assume MiniJ won the contest as he literally rubbed the skin off his body......twice.
Although I could put the exact date that this happened in this blog I chose not to as it is a regular occurrence in our classroom. BayBee and Oil had a loud conversation, what we label as verbal aggression, in the cafeteria breakfast line. Upon arrival in the classroom, BayBee went about his normal routine but Oil could not let the cafeteria incident go. Oil shouted, "I need help," as he attempted to get started on his morning warm up worksheet. Gnu walked over to help him but he put his head down and refused to do anything. Not wanting any help, Gnu walked away to help someone else. As Gnu walked away Oil's response was to starting pounding on his desk with his fist. Since his arrival in the classroom he has been disruptive and defiant. The morning work assignment had to do with the weekly spelling words, there are ten of them. Oil was asked to read the spelling words. His response was, "do I have to read all of these?" He then, once again, put his head down on his desk and did nothing. A short time later Oil asked for help again. Gnu said to read the first word. He angrily said, "I don't know the word." I believe the word he didn't know was "easy." He continues to be defiant. He asks for help and then does nothing. This process repeated itself a number of times. It's now 9:37 and since his arrival at 9:00am he has done little or nothing. I'm working with Uh-Uh-Uh at my table where I have a view from the back of the room when Oil walks up to the table. He reaches toward Uh-Uh-Uh and takes the pencil out of her hand. When she asked him to give it back, he refused. When I asked him to give the pencil back to Uh-Uh-Uh he again refused to give it back. When I ask him to give me the pencil he said, "no" and hid the pencil behind his back. Oil just stepped over the line and he was removed from the classroom to our in-school suspension room for a timeout. When you have to deal with behavior like this almost daily it's no wonder there is not a lot of smiling going on in the classroom.
Enough of that crap, it's time to smile. My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and I are in the car and we are heading north to attend the wedding. It's a perfect day, in fact, to quote Billy Idol, "it's a nice day for a white wedding." We are seated in church on the bride's side near the back and TheSpouse is the first person to walk down the aisle and promptly takes his position near the alter. Immediately following are the brides maids and the grooms men. Then, standing in the back of the church, is something I haven't seen in quite some time, a smile. As she walked down the aisle the smile continued, non-stop. For three hundred and eighty five days I sat in a classroom with Gnu and never seen her smile so much. As she move down the aisle heading to the alter and was passing me I had tears in my eyes as she looking absolutely beautiful. This was a Catholic ceremony and after the exchanging of the wedding vows was communion. Because I was seated near the back of the congregation I was one of the last people to receive communion. Just before I stepped up to the priest I looked up at Gnu sitting next to TheSpouse. She saw me, turned to TheSpouse, and whispered to him, "there's Schultz." As I'm sitting here right now I'm smiling. Even on her wedding day, I'm "Schultz." Maybe, one day, she will actually call me by my first name.
I know this is getting a little long but I'm going to continue with the wedding. After the ceremony the wedding party exited the church. At first I was a bit confused as to what was happening as, one by one, the brides maids and grooms men climbed into the respective pick up truck. When Gnu and TheSpouse passed by they promptly stepped into a huge 4x4 fire engine red pick up truck and then the wedding party exited the church parking lot for the reception hall. The reception was held at a golf course, actually a real nice golf course, one that I've played before. As my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse arrived the wedding party was heading out onto the golf course in golf carts. Apparently there are a couple scenic spots on the golf course that are perfect for wedding pictures. As Gnu was attempting to get into a golf cart with her wedding dress on my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse looked at me and said, "did you see what Gnu was wearing?" "No," I respond. "She has cowboy boots on under that wedding dress." With the wedding party out on the golf course I found an empty table out on a balcony and took a seat. As I was sitting there a lady walks up to the table and said, "you must be Schultz." I turned to my left and there standing right next to me is Gnu's mother. As I turned toward her to introduce myself Gnu's mother said to me, "she talks about you all the time."
My part time editor, part time consultant, full time spouse and I stayed at the reception for around two hours and during that time I saw that smile and I heard the laughter. Those two images of my classroom partner will stay with me for a long time. The end. I'm outta here. Thanks for following along.
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