If you are reading this blog post then you realize that our country did not implode at noon last Friday. While it didn't implode, there is pepper spray in the air, their is CS gas in the air, our police offices are being pepper with rocks, vehicles are on fire, people have been injury, people have been shot, private property, as well as public property, has been destroyed. It is Sunday at 1:14pm and I have yet to hear any of the constituents from the losing party renounce the violence that anarchist from their party are responsible for across our country.
It's Wednesday morning, 9:30am, and I'm heading to math in a general education classroom with Knapper and BigHouse, when I'm told that the general education classroom that I'm heading to is in the computer lab. Knowing this, I alter my route and enter the computer lab. The teacher is there and informs me that her class has to take part in a pre-mandatory state testing exercise to see if the software used for the mandatory testing can stand the load coming from thousands of school computers. I was told that this load test, in combination with a practice math test on the computers, would last for one hour. After getting all of the scholars logged in, they started the practice math test. The testing was going on for about fifteen minutes when it happened. The first scholar was kick off the website. Shorty after that another scholar and then another scholar and then another scholar was kicked off the website. When all was said and done, approximately forty percent of the scholars participating in the load test were kicked off the website. For a number of years now, the software used for the statewide testing in the state of Indiana has failed. For a number of years now the lowest life form on earth, the politician, and their colleagues, the pointed headed intellectuals, that are responsible for this test, continue to do the same thing over and over knowing that the process is a complete failure. I don't think there is another state in the nation that keeps spending millions and millions of dollars on a failed process. Well, there is Washington, DC but technically, it is not a state.
Speaking of general education classrooms, Uh-Uh-Uh, MiniJ, Knapper, and Big House have been to going to a general education classroom daily for both math and reading. I'm only involved with the math portion so I can't speak as to how the scholars are doing in reading but let me tell you about math. I am proud to announce that our scholars, often referred to THOSE scholars, are holding their own. Twice a week, our scholars take a timed, seventy-two math problems test, that lasts six minutes. The problems are either multiplication or division with the test problems ranging from easy, Level A, to hard, Level D. Although Uh-Uh-Uh is still stuck on Level A, MiniJ and Knapper have advanced to Level C and best of all, BigHouse has advanced to Level D. Here is the motivator that has our scholars, whenever they have a few minutes of free time, wanting to practice multiplication and division. When you pass Level D, that is, answering a combination of seventy-two multiplication or division problems correctly in six minutes, you get to celebrate. So, how do you celebrate. Right in the middle of this general education classroom is a large, wooden, octagon shaped picnic table. When you pass Level D, you get to climb up on the picnic table, the teacher puts on a song from Kool and the Gang called "Celebration" and you get to show of your best dance moves. As the celebrant is dancing, all the other scholars in the classroom have to mimic the celebrating scholars dance moves. Last Friday, BigHouse asked me twice to give him the Level D practice test when he had some free time. The first time he didn't do very well as the classroom was too noisy. On his second attempt he got seventy-one out of seventy-two correct. On either Tuesday or Thursday of next week, BigHouse is going to past the test and when he gets up on that picnic table to dance I am going to do whatever is necessary so that his teacher of record, Gnu, is in the classroom to celebrate with him.
Here is a Blank update. He was at my math station with S&T, Huey, and Whale and they were working on two digit math problems in their workbook. S&T, Huey, and Whale were doing fine but I noticed that Blank, rather than doing the first math problem, was on the adjoining page of the workbook counting all the letters in math story problem. I watched him for a short time and then decided to get him back on track. I reached across my table at the back of the room and told him he needed to get back on task and pointed to the math problem that he was supposed to start on. When I did this he immediately started to raise his voice sounding angry. Rather than force the issue and have him go into a full scale anger eruption I backed away but continued to observe what he was doing. The first math problem was twenty-seven subtract fourteen and as I watched him I figured out what he was doing. On the adjoining page of story problems, Blank was at the first problem. He started with the first word of the first problem and starting counting the individual letters until he got to the twenty-seventh letter and then he stopped. Then he looked back at the math problem on the proceeding page and saw the number fourteen. He then started counting letters backward, crossing off the individual letters, until he got to fourteen. From there, he started counting the remaining uncrossed off letters and came up with the right answer to the first math problem. I've watched, over the years, our scholars use a lot of different techniques to add or subtract but this was a first for me.
Alright, let's introduce prego pilates. It's Thursday morning and I'm sitting at my back table when Gnu arrives. We exchange greetings and she walks up to her table at the front of the room and logs in on her laptop to check her email. At one point, I looked up at her and saw her rubbing her stomach, which is slowly enlarging. A little concerned at what I see, I asked her if she is alright. "Yes, I'm fine," she responded. "I'm just a little sore this morning." "You're sore," I say. "Yes, my doctor was a little concerned that I would not have the strength to push the baby out during the delivery process so she has me enrolled in pilates for pregnant women. I never realized how weak I was and right now my entire body aches." I thought I had the perfect come back comment to make but after thirty-eight years of marriage I've learned when it is the right time to keep my mouth shut.
Fast forward, it's still Thursday but now it's 4:00pm and I'm about to leave for the day. S&T is at the front table with Gnu as he is staying late to improve his reading skills. Just as I'm about walk out the door Gnu said to S&T, "you have to come with me for a walk around the school." "Miss Gnu," S&T responded, "I want to stay in the classroom and do MindPlay." Mindplay is a reading website that our scholars use when they are at the independent reading station. "No, you have to come and walk with me. My body is so sore that I just need to move around so you are coming with me to make sure that I walk fast enough and far enough," Gnu tells S&T. As I say my good byes to Gnu and S&T I think to myself, we've gone from prego pilates to prego power walking in just a matter of days, so I wonder what it will be like working with Gnu during the month of May through the first week of June.
It's time to stop. I'm going to turn on the television to catch the latest from the anarchist of the loosing political party and then watch some NFL football. Assuming that the anarchist won't be annoyed with me and decide to torch my house, I'll be back next week.
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