Here is an update on my light at the end of the tunnel situation that I mentioned last week. So far our school corporation's school board has not made an announcement about the changes to the start time and end time of the school day so it's still a waiting game. However, the elimination of the emotionally handicapped classroom has taken an interesting turn. A few days ago, one of those special education overhead personnel walked into the classroom and had a conversation with Gnu while I occupied the back of the classroom. A short while later this same overhead person re-entered the classroom and pulled up a chair next to me with the intent of observing the scholars behavior during an academic lesson. With the overhead person sitting within arms reach of me I decided to ask about the elimination of the emotionally handicapped classroom. The response I received back was quite animated with the overhead person questioning me about who is starting these rumors. What the overhead person did not know was that I asked Gnu what the overhead person spoke to her about earlier and Gnu told me that she was advised to look at other teaching opportunities as her job may be eliminated. It's interesting, the overhead person took the time to advise Gnu about this upcoming change but chose to leave me in the dark. Dear overhead person, I don't need to do what I do, I choose to do what I do and you telling Gnu one thing and me something entirely different really pisses me off.
Gnu spent the better part of the last two school weeks studying early Native Americans during our morning reading block. She read two different stories, the first was about the Native Americans in the northwest part of our country and the second one was about Native Americans from the southwest part of our country. As anticipated, because these two stories took place outside the one mile radius of our school, the scholars were clueless about the location of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Fortunately, for these geographically challenged scholars, our classroom was the recipient of that really nice quilted map that you seen Gnu pointing to on the right side of this blog. As Gnu read each story, the scholars auditory skills remained consistent as they could easily recall the stories to included the vocabulary words that went with each book. It was also not surprising that the scholars knew about the Native American teepee. What was surprising was that the scholars were clueless when discussing the totem pole. While the book had pictures of a totem pole Gnu took it a step further and did an image search for totem poles on the internet so the scholars could get a better look at one. As the scholars were looking at the pictures Gnu retrieve the Play Dough from a storage closet, set the containers on her front table, and asked the scholars to join her in designing their own totem pole. As each scholar completed their totem pole, Gnu informed them that they had to describe what they put on their totem pole and why. One by one the scholars talked about their totem pole. Some were pretty simple but others, Grr!, Uh-Uh-Uh, and Huey, went into some pretty good detail. As the assignment was winding down Gnu looked up at the clock on the wall and announced that we were late for lunch and everyone needed to line up quickly. In less than a minute everyone was out the door and heading for lunch with the exception of the old guy that has a view from the back of the room. He was left behind to clean up the mess on the front table.
I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but as Gnu was discussing the early Native Americans in our country, an email message poured in from the BigB2 that was sent to her by our school corporation. This email message was written by a gentleman of Native American ancestry and to say he had an attitude is an understatement. I'll keep this short as I need to get to the Dear Parental Unit part so I'll only mention two items that offended this Native American. First, the person was offended that Native Americans were all lumped into one culture. According to this person, the Native Americans are made up of numerous cultures so to group them all together is insulting. The second item that offended this person was the fact that schools, mainly at the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten level, would have their very young scholars design, out of colored construction paper, a headdress. For two paragraphs this person ranted on about schools being so insensitive to Native Americans that they would tolerate teachers having pre-kindergarten and kindergarten scholars making headdresses out of construction paper. So, the schools, as well as the teachers, have been forewarned, headdresses are off limits. As a side note, I'm considering writing my own letter of outrage. On numerous occasions I've seen, and if my memory serves me correctly, BassG, a former teacher at our school was asked to address this during his time at this school, scholars arriving at school wearing a rosary as if it were a piece of costume jewelry. If the Native Americans can voice their displeasure about the headdress, what can't the Catholics voice their please about using a rosary as a piece of costume jewelry?
Dear Parental Unit, you just moved again. This is the third time in less that half a school year that you have moved. What the hell are you thinking? Do you know how much time over the past three school years teachers, behavior specialists, behavior therapists, and an instructional assistant have spent trying to give your scholar the best possible education so he can be a productive citizen of this country some day but you keep moving? Do you know that your scholar was getting free before school after school tutoring help with his homework because you totally failed to help him yourself? Do you know that your scholar had one place where he could go and feel safe and wanted and you just moved again? Do you know, because you decided to move outside our school corporation boundary, what kind of additional stress you just put on your scholar who already has anxiety issues? Dear parental unit, are you mental? EM and his family just moved again and are outside our school boundary and we can no longer help him.
Dear Parental Unit, have you ever noticed that your scholar leaves for school wearing one type of pants and returns home wearing a completely different type of pants? Because you are apparently clueless and have not noticed this I'm going to tell you why this is happening. Gnu was the first one to smell it and she new immediately where the order was coming from. Huey had just pooped his pants for the third time this school year. With Huey directed out of the classroom, Gnu passed my desk and said to keep the scholars on task and that she would be back in a couple minutes. Huey was the first to arrive back in the classroom. When I looked in his direction, he was wearing construction barrel orange colored pants. He looked absolutely ridiculous and I had to do my best not to laugh out loud. Gnu walked in immediately after Huey and when I looked at her she had this huge smile on her face and was doing her best not to laugh out loud. Rather than walk to the front of the classroom, Gnu sat down next to me and told me what happened. The orange pants were the only thing she could find that fit Huey. She also told me that he wasn't wearing any underwear and when she questioned Huey about his lack of underwear he said he didn't have any. When Gnu questioned Huey a second time about his lack of underwear he responded that he actually had underwear but every time he went to put on some underwear they were still dirty. Gnu also informed me that she now knows why Huey walks in such an odd fashion, his shoes are one and maybe two sizes to small for his feet. Slightly irritated that Huey is subjected to such piss poor parenting I asked Gnu if she was going to talk to the school corporation social worker about this matter. Gnu stated that she was and would do so at the end of the school day. The very next morning, all of the scholars are in the classroom and Gnu is about to start our reading block when the social worker walks into the classroom carrying a package. Inside the package are pants and shoes for Huey. Dear parental unit, are you even aware that you scholar pooped his pants three times in less than half the school year, arrives at school without any underwear, and when your scholar does want to wear underwear they are so dirty he refuses to put them on? Dear parent unit, did you not notice that you scholar returned home wearing a brand new pair of pants and brand new shoes? Dear parental unit, are you blind or just plain mental?
I have one more dear parental unit but I'm going to save it for next week. We just rolled into the month on December and Gnu has started a wonderful lesson on London, England during the Industrial Revolution that will also introduce the scholars to Charles Dickens and will eventually lead to a reading of Dickens book, A Christmas Carol. Stick around for a while because what she has prepared for the scholars is really quite special and to be honest I didn't think the scholars would enjoy this subject matter. Boy, was I wrong.
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