It's Saturday evening and I'm sitting in a restaurant called Lindo Mexico with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse, Big E, and Little E. We ordered some guacamole and as our hostess was making the guacamole fresh right at our table it popped up in my head that an anniversary was rapidly approaching. When our drinks arrived, one large Dos Equis Amber, one small Dos Equis Amber, one margarita on the rocks with salt on the rim of the glass, and one sippy cup with water, I mentioned the anniversary date. Big E was the first to question the anniversary date and asked me what was going on. I said to her, "let's see if you can figure it out." My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse remained silent because she new about the anniversary. Little E also stayed out of the conversation because she was more interested in eating the guacamole plus she can't talk. One by one Big E was offering ideas on the anniversary. One by one she was wrong. Finally, I said to her, "you want a hint?" "Yes, but don't make it so easy that I guess the answer right away." As I'm sitting there trying to come up with an appropriate hint my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse says, "he could write a book." I immediately recognized that this was to easy of a hint and I was correct. With little thought, Big E said, "it's a blog anniversary." Correct! On March 19th, I will celebrate my third year anniversary of writing this blog.
This week was the culmination of the procedural text discussions in our reading bloc. Gnu spent about six days on the subject with a lot of time spent preparing the scholars to write their own procedural text. When Gnu finally arrived at that point she asked the scholar to come up with an idea for a procedure they could write. Below are the scholars ideas.
Knapper, how to operate a toy robot
Huey and MiniJ, how to make a grill cheese sandwich
Uh-Uh-Uh, how to make a cheese cake
Tourette, how to shoot a free throw
S&T, how to play a video game
Grr!, how to feed a T-rex
BigHouse, how to make a pizza on an English Muffin
WLnutt, has been absent most of the week and Gnu and I really don't know where he is.
Each scholar had to list the ingredients or items needed for their idea. They then had to list correctly the steps needed to perform their task with Gnu diligently questioning them about their steps, especially is she saw they were out of order. Once the scholars had completed their written procedural text, they had to stand in front of the class and give their presentation. Knapper was the first scholar to get up in front of the classroom. When he finished his presentation all the scholar applauded and Knapper started to return to his desk. After only a couple steps Gnu stopped him. "You can't sit down yet, people may have questions about your procedure." Knapper back up a couple steps and then asked if there were any questions. Hands went up immediately. I won't go over the questions asked as that is not the important part of the lesson. What I want to do is remind you of the type of classroom Gnu and I sit in and again mention that she, moving slowly through a lesson plan, did so in a manner that every scholar couldn't wait to get up in front of their classmates to give their presentation.
This past Friday was the final exam for the lesson on procedural text but before I get to that there is one item I need to share. I had just finished my lunch and was heading outside for recess. On my way outside I decided to cut through our administrative offices to use the restroom. As I opened the door, the BigB2 and Little B were moving quickly in my direction with a young scholar wedged between them. As the BigB2 approached me, she asked if our timeout room was available. I told her it was as our class was at recess. As they moved past me I asked if they needed any assistance and the response was, "no!" Thinking to myself I say, "good, I know who you are escorting and you need to be careful or you will get hit."
Twenty five minutes later I returned to the classroom with Gnu and the scholars. Immediately, as I entered the classroom, I noticed that the door to our timeout room was standing wide open. I also noticed several pieces of ceiling tile on the floor in the timeout room and no adults were around. Slightly irritated that our timeout room was a disaster I walked into the room to see what else had been damaged. Although there was no other damage, the room had a urine smell to it. No longer slightly irritated but bordering on angry I head to the front office. I couldn't find the BigB2 but LittleB crossed my path. Composing myself a little I said, "our timeout room is a disaster. When I entered the room to begin the cleanup process the room smelled of urine. Did the scholar you escorted into my time out room urinate on the floor. I need to know so I can determine what type of personal protective equipment I need to put on to be safe."
Amateurs, with teaching licenses, were doing a task better suited for instructional assistances that don't have teaching licenses. Although instructional assistants don't have a teaching license, they do have enough sense to recognize that a scholar is throwing shoes at the ceiling tiles in a time out room. The instructional assistant would have immediately entered the time out room, at risk of injury, to remove the shoes so that ceiling tiles and possibly light fixtures don't come crashing down on this scholar's head. Once the angry scholar had de-escalated and vacated the time out room the instructional assistant would have cleaned up the mess rather that just leaving it for someone else to clean up.
Now for the final exam on procedural text. It was a two part test. First was the written exam and all the scholars passed the test. That was immediately followed by a hands on, let see if you can do this, exam. Gnu divided the scholars into three groups. She then gave each group a different recipe for making lemonade. One group had to squeeze fresh lemons. The second group had a package of powered lemonade and the third group had a container frozen lemonade. She then had each group read their individual recipe for the necessary ingredients. When they had finished reading the ingredients she told all three groups simultaneously that all the ingredients to make lemonade were on her front table. There was an immediate stampede to the front table. With the necessary ingredients in hand the scholars returned to their designated work place. Tourette, S&T, and Whale had the frozen lemonade at my table. Knapper, MiniJ, and Huey had the packaged lemonade and were at a side table with MJ, our behavior therapist, overseeing them. Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and Grr! were at a counter top with Gnu and HillsGirl, our other behavior therapist, overseeing the group that had the fresh lemons.
The fresh squeezed lemonade group needed the most help as they were clueless as to what to do with the lemons. Once they got passed that obstacle they were fine. It was fun to watch the scholars as I'm certain none of them had ever made lemonade before. They were all so careful as they measured and added the ingredients, especially the water. When each group was finished, Gnu allowed them to taste their lemonade using small Dixie cups. She also allowed them to make an adjustment to their lemonade if it didn't taste right by telling them they could either added more water or add more sugar. After the first taste testing, one group added water and the other two groups added sugar. When they were satisfied with the taste of their individual lemonade they were allowed to taste the other two lemonades. To determine the best tasting lemonade, Gnu set up a blind taste test and chose Whale to do the tasting. After sampling all three lemonades Whale told Gnu they all tasted good. Gnu responded by telling Whale that he could only chose one lemonade and so he tasted them again and chose the frozen lemonade recipe as best of show.
As I sat in the back of the room watching the final taste test I thought to myself, she did it again. She managed to put together a project that required the scholars to work as a team and often they don't like that. She also had a team win the contest that could possibly have resulted in the other teams getting angry and that didn't happened. She had this wonderful activity and it worked to perfection. Well, almost to perfection.
It's around 2:45pm and the scholars just drank a lot of lemonade that contained sugar. Do you know what happens to scholars, who are often over hyped to start with, when they consume too much sugar? They go into hyper overload. They were all over the classroom talking to each other, incapable of sitting still, and making way to much noise. And then, this happened. HillsGirl and MJ had purchased cookies (more sugar) for the scholars to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. The scholars immediately recognized that there were more cookies than scholars and convinced HillsGirl and MJ to give them two sugar cookies with green frosting on them. We have now gone from hyper overload to wild. MJ managed to work her way over to my table and sat down. As she sat down I said to her, "do you think the scholars had enough sugar today?" She looked at me, laughed and said, "yes, but the school day ends in less that five minutes, the scholars will leave to go home, and their parental units can deal with their sugar overload." I laughed and said to her, "teachers revenge."
Finally, I can say this, "I'm on spring break for two weeks." I'd also like to say this. Today, Sunday, March 19th, is the three year anniversary of this blog. There have been one hundred and eighty-seven blog posts, nearly ten thousand page views and people from approximately twenty countries that have view my blog at one time or another. To all of you that follow along I give you a heartfelt thank you.
PS - in case you are wondering how to feed a T-rex let me tell you what Grr! said. Items needed, one T-rex, a big enclosure with twenty foot high steel walls, a couple dead cows, and one crane. I inquired about the crane. "Mr. Schultz, you use the crane to lift the dead cows into the enclosure. If you tried to drag the dead cows into the enclosure the T-rex would eat you first and then eat the dead cows." Well thought out, Mr. Grr!.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Sunday, March 12, 2017
I Don't Make This Stuff Up
Usually when I say, "I don't make this stuff up," I only have one story. Today, I have four of them, and they all occurred during the last two weeks. Beware, one of them may be considered crude and offensive to some people.
WLnutt is the latest scholar to join our classroom. His parental unit recently relocated into our school boundary and he was scheduled to arrive on Monday, February 27th. On February 27th, WLnutt was a no show. On February 28th, WLnutt was a no show. On March 1st, WLnutt stepped off of his assigned bus. Later in the day he asked me what time his bus would stop to pick him up in the morning. I told him the bus will be at your residence at 8:03am. His response was, "that's too early, I'm not getting on that bus." March 2nd, WLnutt was not on the bus but he did show up at school an hour late. March 3rd, WLnutt was not on the bus and again he showed up around an hour late. On both days that WLnutt arrived late for school this was his routine. He walked into the classroom at a snail's pace to his desk. He sat down, pulled his hoodie up on his head, slid his butt down to the very front edge of his chair, leaned back to rest his head on the back of his chair, stretched his legs out as far as they would go, folded his arms across his chest and stayed in that position for approximately one hour.
Advancing forward to Monday, March 6th. Again, WLnutt was not on his assigned bus. Again, he arrived late for school. Again, when he arrived he went into his mummy position at his desk. For the remainder of the week, Tuesday through Friday, WLnutt did not arrive at school. On Thursday morning I asked Gnu about WLnutt's whereabouts and she said his parental unit had moved and the bus transportation schedule was being adjusted to pick him up at his new location. His parental unit moved. This person managed to move into our school boundary, stayed at this new location for just over a week and decided to move again. What is this parental unit thinking? Does this person not realize how far behind her scholar is academically. Does this person not realize that this fourth grade scholar can barely read. Do this person not realize that this fourth grade scholars diction is so poor that I have to give him my undivided attention to try and understand what he is saying an more times than not I have to ask him to repeat himself. Dear parental unit, you're constant moving is ruining your scholar's chance at getting an education so why and the hell do you keep moving?
It's Friday afternoon and Gnu set up a game of Jeopardy for the scholars. The categories were selected from a Magic Tree House story that was read to the scholars over the past week and a half. The categories were Moon Surface, Midnight on the Moon (the name of the book we just read), Spring Time, Quadrilaterals (the math topic of the week) and Geography. Gnu divided the scholars into two groups and they thoroughly enjoy playing the game because it's fun. Gnu also enjoys playing Jeopardy. Not because it is fun but because she uses it as her end of the week test to determine what the scholars retained and what they did not. We are about three-fourths of the way through a close game. Team One is huddling to try and determine the correct answer to a question. Team Two is getting impatient. BigHouse yells out, "you're taking too long," to Team One. Grr!, who is on Team One turns to look at Big House and says, "we are talking about our answer so give us some time." MiniJ, who is on Team Two then speaks up. "You guys need to answer the question and stopping jacking off."
Huey is driving everyone in the classroom nuts. He has been off of his medication for over a week now. As a result, he literally can't stay focused on anything for longer that five seconds. He is constantly moving around the classroom. As he his moving around he is also talking to himself. Unfortunately, the other scholars have had enough of Huey's antics and started yelling at him to sit down and be quiet. Gnu shut down that conversation real quick and then turned to Huey. "Why are you not taking your medication?" "We ran out," he responded. "How can your run out, you have a thirty day supply," Gnu fires back. "Well, we ran out and my parental unit went to the pharmacy to get more and the pharmacy said that they also ran out." Pausing for a second. Any one care to venture a guess as to what is going on? Gnu speaking again, "Huey is there anyone else taking your medication?" "Well, no. Ok, sometimes I see my parental unit take my medication."
Dear parental unit. Your scholar has been off of his medication for so long that that his brain is going a hundred miles an hour. Dear parental unit. Your scholar has such a short attention span that he can't focus long enough to recognize that he has to go to the bathroom. Dear parental unit. As a result, your scholar has shit his pants in the classroom for three consecutive days. Dear parental unit. There are days when I think to myself, "if I just had one bullet." Dear parental unit. You are lucky that I don't have one bullet.
Beware! Although some of you may have thought we passed the crude and offensive part, we have not. It's next. Hmm! I wonder if I'll need to explain anything? Maybe I should leave this one out. Nah!
During the thirty-four years in my first career plus an additional five years in my second career, I've sat around a big table in a conference room numerous times. Last week Wednesday, I again found myself sitting around a big table in a conference room. One of the agenda items was the school uniform policy. Given the environment that I work in, what a scholar wears to school is not as important as to how a scholar behaves so I was only half paying attention to the conversation. My half paying attention to the conversation came to an abrupt end when I heard this statement. Paraphrasing, "we really need to refocus on enforcing the uniform policy. The weather is warming up and I'm already tired of looking at scholars wearing tights that are so tight that I can see their camel toe."
Jumping forward one day and I'm heading to morning bus duty. While in route, I see the other male staff member that was in the meeting that took place at the big conference table. When I was standing right next to him, I said quietly, as we were in the corridor outside the cafeteria, "can you believe the word camel toe was used in our meeting yesterday?" He looked at me and said, "not once but twice."
As I said in the heading, I don't make this stuff up and this holds true with the next one. One of us, and this should be easy to figure out as I don't have a teaching license, was chosen as the teacher of the month for my school corporation's west division. Yes, Gnu was selected teacher of the month and I couldn't be happier for her. This young teacher busts her butt every day and is more that deserving to receive this honor.
Listen and listen carefully. There are five more school days and then Gnu and I will be on spring break. As I said last week, there are way too many scholars in our classroom and Gnu and I are in survival mode. Do you think we are looking forward to the two week break? Hell yeah?
PS - camel toe is a slang term and some may find it offensive. If you are familiar with the term and my using it offended you in anyway, please accept my apology.
WLnutt is the latest scholar to join our classroom. His parental unit recently relocated into our school boundary and he was scheduled to arrive on Monday, February 27th. On February 27th, WLnutt was a no show. On February 28th, WLnutt was a no show. On March 1st, WLnutt stepped off of his assigned bus. Later in the day he asked me what time his bus would stop to pick him up in the morning. I told him the bus will be at your residence at 8:03am. His response was, "that's too early, I'm not getting on that bus." March 2nd, WLnutt was not on the bus but he did show up at school an hour late. March 3rd, WLnutt was not on the bus and again he showed up around an hour late. On both days that WLnutt arrived late for school this was his routine. He walked into the classroom at a snail's pace to his desk. He sat down, pulled his hoodie up on his head, slid his butt down to the very front edge of his chair, leaned back to rest his head on the back of his chair, stretched his legs out as far as they would go, folded his arms across his chest and stayed in that position for approximately one hour.
Advancing forward to Monday, March 6th. Again, WLnutt was not on his assigned bus. Again, he arrived late for school. Again, when he arrived he went into his mummy position at his desk. For the remainder of the week, Tuesday through Friday, WLnutt did not arrive at school. On Thursday morning I asked Gnu about WLnutt's whereabouts and she said his parental unit had moved and the bus transportation schedule was being adjusted to pick him up at his new location. His parental unit moved. This person managed to move into our school boundary, stayed at this new location for just over a week and decided to move again. What is this parental unit thinking? Does this person not realize how far behind her scholar is academically. Does this person not realize that this fourth grade scholar can barely read. Do this person not realize that this fourth grade scholars diction is so poor that I have to give him my undivided attention to try and understand what he is saying an more times than not I have to ask him to repeat himself. Dear parental unit, you're constant moving is ruining your scholar's chance at getting an education so why and the hell do you keep moving?
It's Friday afternoon and Gnu set up a game of Jeopardy for the scholars. The categories were selected from a Magic Tree House story that was read to the scholars over the past week and a half. The categories were Moon Surface, Midnight on the Moon (the name of the book we just read), Spring Time, Quadrilaterals (the math topic of the week) and Geography. Gnu divided the scholars into two groups and they thoroughly enjoy playing the game because it's fun. Gnu also enjoys playing Jeopardy. Not because it is fun but because she uses it as her end of the week test to determine what the scholars retained and what they did not. We are about three-fourths of the way through a close game. Team One is huddling to try and determine the correct answer to a question. Team Two is getting impatient. BigHouse yells out, "you're taking too long," to Team One. Grr!, who is on Team One turns to look at Big House and says, "we are talking about our answer so give us some time." MiniJ, who is on Team Two then speaks up. "You guys need to answer the question and stopping jacking off."
Huey is driving everyone in the classroom nuts. He has been off of his medication for over a week now. As a result, he literally can't stay focused on anything for longer that five seconds. He is constantly moving around the classroom. As he his moving around he is also talking to himself. Unfortunately, the other scholars have had enough of Huey's antics and started yelling at him to sit down and be quiet. Gnu shut down that conversation real quick and then turned to Huey. "Why are you not taking your medication?" "We ran out," he responded. "How can your run out, you have a thirty day supply," Gnu fires back. "Well, we ran out and my parental unit went to the pharmacy to get more and the pharmacy said that they also ran out." Pausing for a second. Any one care to venture a guess as to what is going on? Gnu speaking again, "Huey is there anyone else taking your medication?" "Well, no. Ok, sometimes I see my parental unit take my medication."
Dear parental unit. Your scholar has been off of his medication for so long that that his brain is going a hundred miles an hour. Dear parental unit. Your scholar has such a short attention span that he can't focus long enough to recognize that he has to go to the bathroom. Dear parental unit. As a result, your scholar has shit his pants in the classroom for three consecutive days. Dear parental unit. There are days when I think to myself, "if I just had one bullet." Dear parental unit. You are lucky that I don't have one bullet.
Beware! Although some of you may have thought we passed the crude and offensive part, we have not. It's next. Hmm! I wonder if I'll need to explain anything? Maybe I should leave this one out. Nah!
During the thirty-four years in my first career plus an additional five years in my second career, I've sat around a big table in a conference room numerous times. Last week Wednesday, I again found myself sitting around a big table in a conference room. One of the agenda items was the school uniform policy. Given the environment that I work in, what a scholar wears to school is not as important as to how a scholar behaves so I was only half paying attention to the conversation. My half paying attention to the conversation came to an abrupt end when I heard this statement. Paraphrasing, "we really need to refocus on enforcing the uniform policy. The weather is warming up and I'm already tired of looking at scholars wearing tights that are so tight that I can see their camel toe."
Jumping forward one day and I'm heading to morning bus duty. While in route, I see the other male staff member that was in the meeting that took place at the big conference table. When I was standing right next to him, I said quietly, as we were in the corridor outside the cafeteria, "can you believe the word camel toe was used in our meeting yesterday?" He looked at me and said, "not once but twice."
As I said in the heading, I don't make this stuff up and this holds true with the next one. One of us, and this should be easy to figure out as I don't have a teaching license, was chosen as the teacher of the month for my school corporation's west division. Yes, Gnu was selected teacher of the month and I couldn't be happier for her. This young teacher busts her butt every day and is more that deserving to receive this honor.
Listen and listen carefully. There are five more school days and then Gnu and I will be on spring break. As I said last week, there are way too many scholars in our classroom and Gnu and I are in survival mode. Do you think we are looking forward to the two week break? Hell yeah?
PS - camel toe is a slang term and some may find it offensive. If you are familiar with the term and my using it offended you in anyway, please accept my apology.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Eleven
As it has so many time before, the parental unit had other priorities. I can't image what they were but on Wednesday of this past week WLnutt walked himself into our school and eventually into Gnu's classroom and his parental unit showed no interest at all in entering the building with him. WLnutt's arrival has set a new personal high for scholars in our EH classroom as we now have eleven of them. Before going any farther, I'm going to update our class roster.
Knapper - 4th grade
MiniJ - 4th grade
BigHouse - 4th grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 4th grade
WLnutt - 4th grade
S&T - 3rd grade
Grr! - 3rd grade
Tourette - 3rd grade
Whale - 3rd grade
Blank - 2nd grade
Huey - 2nd grade
The list of scholars is getting ridiculously long and with WLnutt's arrival I sensed that Gnu has shut it down a little. "Schultz, there are too many kids in this classroom. How am I supposed to do this?" I didn't have much of a response. All I could say was, "let's just keep doing what we've been doing." In hindsight, what I said was pretty lame but, like Gnu, I'm just as frustrated and at a loss for words.
WLnutt's IEP arrived before he did so Gnu had some idea of what to expect when it came to this scholar's behavior. As expected, he has anger issues and a defiant disorder issue, plus a wonderful ability to use language better suited for a drunken sailor. What Gnu was uncertain about was WLnutt's academic ability so on his first day in her classroom she began to quietly test him off to the side and away from the other scholars. First up was a reading test using the Fry First 100 Sight Words list. For those of you that are not aware, these are the sight words used in kindergarten and first grade classes. The first one hundred Fry words are the one hundred most frequently occurring words in the English language. When Gnu finished the test I asked her how WLnutt did, "not well," was her response. "He can barely read but he is real good at disguising the fact that he can barely read."
Later that day, WLnutt arrived at my station for math. He joined Knapper and MiniJ as we were doing a lesson on lines and angles. Placed immediately in front of me was my copy of the worksheet with the problems already solved. As we worked through the problems Knapper and MiniJ struggled a little bit so I was working closely with them. When I turned to help WLnutt, he had already completed the first three math problems. As I looked at his paper it became obvious what he did so I asked him to explain to me the steps he took to answer the first problem. As anticipated, he couldn't. All he did was look at my worksheet and copy my answers. I have a sure fire remedy for cheaters as I've done it twice before, once with MiniJ and once with BigHouse and it worked to perfection. One day next week I'm going to have my completed worksheet in front of me but I'm going to do all the problems wrong. The first problem may be a multiplication problem but I'll do long division and so forth. When the little cheater is finished with the assignment, I'll have the scholar take the worksheet up to Gnu for a review. The scholar, thinking he is so slick, will get busted up real quick as Gnu knows exactly what I will do with cheaters. Sometimes I feel guilty doing what I just described but you know what, every scholar I trapped has not tried copying my answers a second time.
In my last blog post I mentioned that Gnu missed a day of school as she was not feeling well. The text message announcing her absence reached me at home at around 7:00am. Shortly, following the first text message, was a string of text messages laying out the entire day's agenda. Our behavior therapist, MJ, and our behavior specialist, FBG, were copied on all of these text messages so I knew help would be available if needed. When I arrived at school, our administrative czar saw me walk in and immediately announced that Gnu would not be in today. I informed our administrative czar that I was aware of Gnu's absence and asked if a substitute would be filling in for her. The administrative czar's response was, "you're kidding."
One by one the scholars arrived for the day and one by one they asked me the same question, "Mr. Schultz, why are you sitting at Miss Gnu's desk?" Shortly after all the scholars arrived, MJ walked into the classroom and asked me what she could do to help. I told her you will be me when we do our work stations and she promptly sat down at me desk at the back of the room. The first work station is reading and today's subject about the pony express and the transition to the telegraph. To add a little fun to the subject matter I wrote, in Morse Code, a message on the whiteboard prior to the scholars arrival. With the coded message on the whiteboard I wrote in huge letters, SECRET CODE and drew an arrow to the series of dots and dashes. As anticipated, the scholars were clueless about the Morse Code. As we were working through the assignment, FBG walked into the classroom, waved at me and sat down at Gnu's second desk off to the side of the classroom. I was just about to discuss the Morse Code with the scholars when I heard this noise in the classroom. I initially thought it was my cellphone and an Amber Alert message was sounding. When I reached for my cellphone to silence it I caught of glimpse of FBG off to the side of the room and he was looking at me and laughing. Finally, it clicked. FBG was using his cellphone and our classroom overhead speakers to send out an S.O.S. message in Morse Code.
When we finished the reading assignment, I pointed to the secret code on the whiteboard and told the scholars that they needed to solve the code. Before they got started I gave them two hints on how to solve the code. First, I took a red marker and circled the first group of dots and dashes and told them this was one letter in the alphabet. Then I took a blue marker and circled a series of dots and dashed and told them that this was a word. Finally, I told them to get started. I collectively received a "I don't know what to do." So, I repeated my instructions to them, "solve the code." "Mr. Schultz, those marks on the whiteboard don't make any sense." "Oh! Did I forget to tell you that I wrote the Morse Code on the back of the reading assignment we just completed?" Almost instantaneously eight pieces of paper were turned over and they immediately got to work.
It took them a while to figure it out. They'd look at the Morse Code and then up at the whiteboard, then back down at the Morse Code and then back up at the whiteboard. Finally, I heard it, "Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, I know one of the letters. I picked up the red marker and told the scholar to put the letter above the Morse Code and in doing so I opened up the flood gates as the remaining seven scholars that were seated created a human wave right to the front of the room as other letters were discovered. It was fun watching the scholars as they were so excited about solving the secret code. Eventually the code was solved, "Miss Gnu is sick and will not be here today."
With the assignment completed, I looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly lunch time. Because the scholars were so excited about the Morse Code task it took me a couple minutes to get them settled down. As I was moving around the room getting the scholars to sit down MJ got my attention and told me that she would eat her lunch with the scholars so I could have my lunch break. When I stood next to her to thank her she said this to me, "you really did a nice job with that assignment." I told her "thanks," and then told the scholars to line up for lunch. As the scholars were lining up, FBG walked over to me, "I'll pick the scholars up after lunch and take them outside for recess so you can have a little break."
I know I've said this numerous times, "I work with a truly wonderful and talented teacher," but I don't think I've ever said this before. "I also work with two wonderful adults, MJ and FBG, who both stepped up in a big way to help me make it through the school day." I'm often asked why I keep doing what I do. I just gave you three reasons (names) why I've hung around this classroom for almost five years.
If my calculations are correct, there are fifty-seven days remaining in the school year and our classroom just added the eleventh scholar. That means two adults have been tasked with teaching eleven scholars in three different grade levels and at least five different academic levels. On Friday, after all the scholars had left for the day, Gnu and I sat down in the empty classroom. We talked about our classroom situation for a couple minutes and we came to the same conclusion. We are moving into survival mode for the remainder of the school year.
Quitting time. Thanks for following along. See you next week.
PS - I realize that saying WLnutt is difficult so I suggest you just call him Nutt. Is there is reason I used the unofficial prefix of WL? Yes! Am I going to tell you what it stands for? No!
Knapper - 4th grade
MiniJ - 4th grade
BigHouse - 4th grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 4th grade
WLnutt - 4th grade
S&T - 3rd grade
Grr! - 3rd grade
Tourette - 3rd grade
Whale - 3rd grade
Blank - 2nd grade
Huey - 2nd grade
The list of scholars is getting ridiculously long and with WLnutt's arrival I sensed that Gnu has shut it down a little. "Schultz, there are too many kids in this classroom. How am I supposed to do this?" I didn't have much of a response. All I could say was, "let's just keep doing what we've been doing." In hindsight, what I said was pretty lame but, like Gnu, I'm just as frustrated and at a loss for words.
WLnutt's IEP arrived before he did so Gnu had some idea of what to expect when it came to this scholar's behavior. As expected, he has anger issues and a defiant disorder issue, plus a wonderful ability to use language better suited for a drunken sailor. What Gnu was uncertain about was WLnutt's academic ability so on his first day in her classroom she began to quietly test him off to the side and away from the other scholars. First up was a reading test using the Fry First 100 Sight Words list. For those of you that are not aware, these are the sight words used in kindergarten and first grade classes. The first one hundred Fry words are the one hundred most frequently occurring words in the English language. When Gnu finished the test I asked her how WLnutt did, "not well," was her response. "He can barely read but he is real good at disguising the fact that he can barely read."
Later that day, WLnutt arrived at my station for math. He joined Knapper and MiniJ as we were doing a lesson on lines and angles. Placed immediately in front of me was my copy of the worksheet with the problems already solved. As we worked through the problems Knapper and MiniJ struggled a little bit so I was working closely with them. When I turned to help WLnutt, he had already completed the first three math problems. As I looked at his paper it became obvious what he did so I asked him to explain to me the steps he took to answer the first problem. As anticipated, he couldn't. All he did was look at my worksheet and copy my answers. I have a sure fire remedy for cheaters as I've done it twice before, once with MiniJ and once with BigHouse and it worked to perfection. One day next week I'm going to have my completed worksheet in front of me but I'm going to do all the problems wrong. The first problem may be a multiplication problem but I'll do long division and so forth. When the little cheater is finished with the assignment, I'll have the scholar take the worksheet up to Gnu for a review. The scholar, thinking he is so slick, will get busted up real quick as Gnu knows exactly what I will do with cheaters. Sometimes I feel guilty doing what I just described but you know what, every scholar I trapped has not tried copying my answers a second time.
In my last blog post I mentioned that Gnu missed a day of school as she was not feeling well. The text message announcing her absence reached me at home at around 7:00am. Shortly, following the first text message, was a string of text messages laying out the entire day's agenda. Our behavior therapist, MJ, and our behavior specialist, FBG, were copied on all of these text messages so I knew help would be available if needed. When I arrived at school, our administrative czar saw me walk in and immediately announced that Gnu would not be in today. I informed our administrative czar that I was aware of Gnu's absence and asked if a substitute would be filling in for her. The administrative czar's response was, "you're kidding."
One by one the scholars arrived for the day and one by one they asked me the same question, "Mr. Schultz, why are you sitting at Miss Gnu's desk?" Shortly after all the scholars arrived, MJ walked into the classroom and asked me what she could do to help. I told her you will be me when we do our work stations and she promptly sat down at me desk at the back of the room. The first work station is reading and today's subject about the pony express and the transition to the telegraph. To add a little fun to the subject matter I wrote, in Morse Code, a message on the whiteboard prior to the scholars arrival. With the coded message on the whiteboard I wrote in huge letters, SECRET CODE and drew an arrow to the series of dots and dashes. As anticipated, the scholars were clueless about the Morse Code. As we were working through the assignment, FBG walked into the classroom, waved at me and sat down at Gnu's second desk off to the side of the classroom. I was just about to discuss the Morse Code with the scholars when I heard this noise in the classroom. I initially thought it was my cellphone and an Amber Alert message was sounding. When I reached for my cellphone to silence it I caught of glimpse of FBG off to the side of the room and he was looking at me and laughing. Finally, it clicked. FBG was using his cellphone and our classroom overhead speakers to send out an S.O.S. message in Morse Code.
When we finished the reading assignment, I pointed to the secret code on the whiteboard and told the scholars that they needed to solve the code. Before they got started I gave them two hints on how to solve the code. First, I took a red marker and circled the first group of dots and dashes and told them this was one letter in the alphabet. Then I took a blue marker and circled a series of dots and dashed and told them that this was a word. Finally, I told them to get started. I collectively received a "I don't know what to do." So, I repeated my instructions to them, "solve the code." "Mr. Schultz, those marks on the whiteboard don't make any sense." "Oh! Did I forget to tell you that I wrote the Morse Code on the back of the reading assignment we just completed?" Almost instantaneously eight pieces of paper were turned over and they immediately got to work.
It took them a while to figure it out. They'd look at the Morse Code and then up at the whiteboard, then back down at the Morse Code and then back up at the whiteboard. Finally, I heard it, "Mr. Schultz, Mr. Schultz, I know one of the letters. I picked up the red marker and told the scholar to put the letter above the Morse Code and in doing so I opened up the flood gates as the remaining seven scholars that were seated created a human wave right to the front of the room as other letters were discovered. It was fun watching the scholars as they were so excited about solving the secret code. Eventually the code was solved, "Miss Gnu is sick and will not be here today."
With the assignment completed, I looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly lunch time. Because the scholars were so excited about the Morse Code task it took me a couple minutes to get them settled down. As I was moving around the room getting the scholars to sit down MJ got my attention and told me that she would eat her lunch with the scholars so I could have my lunch break. When I stood next to her to thank her she said this to me, "you really did a nice job with that assignment." I told her "thanks," and then told the scholars to line up for lunch. As the scholars were lining up, FBG walked over to me, "I'll pick the scholars up after lunch and take them outside for recess so you can have a little break."
I know I've said this numerous times, "I work with a truly wonderful and talented teacher," but I don't think I've ever said this before. "I also work with two wonderful adults, MJ and FBG, who both stepped up in a big way to help me make it through the school day." I'm often asked why I keep doing what I do. I just gave you three reasons (names) why I've hung around this classroom for almost five years.
If my calculations are correct, there are fifty-seven days remaining in the school year and our classroom just added the eleventh scholar. That means two adults have been tasked with teaching eleven scholars in three different grade levels and at least five different academic levels. On Friday, after all the scholars had left for the day, Gnu and I sat down in the empty classroom. We talked about our classroom situation for a couple minutes and we came to the same conclusion. We are moving into survival mode for the remainder of the school year.
Quitting time. Thanks for following along. See you next week.
PS - I realize that saying WLnutt is difficult so I suggest you just call him Nutt. Is there is reason I used the unofficial prefix of WL? Yes! Am I going to tell you what it stands for? No!
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