It's the first Friday of the school year and that means it's spelling test day. Cube is sitting right in front of me with his spelling words, his work sheet to write the words on, and a pencil. I take his spelling words list and read the first word. "Cube, spell the word hat?" There was no response. I pronounced the word a second time putting emphasis and how each letter sounds. Again, nothing. "Cube, how do you spell the word hat?" "I don't have a clue," he said to me. I leaned back in my brand new upholstered chair with wheels and thought about my next step. It's a visual so hopefully I can get this right so you can follow along. I reached behind me and grabbed my note pad from a bookcase. The paper is 8 1/2" x 11", yellow, with lines. There are ten spelling words on Cube's spelling sheet so I started to number the page. I write, skipping a line after each number, the numbers one through three and stopped. I took the note pad and turned it around so Cube can write on it. I then hand him back his list of spelling words.
Sensing that Cube will not be able to spell any of the words, I pointed to the first word, pronounced it, and told him to write the word on the note pad next to the number one. Cube picked up his pencil, a good first step, but started to draw a dinosaur on the note pad instead of writing the spelling word. The dinosaur was as big as the paper. When he finished the drawing I again told him to write the word hat on his paper next to the number one. "I'm not done drawing yet," is what I heard. For approximately ten minutes I sat and watch Cube draw an extended dinosaur family. When it appeared that he was done drawing I made a third attempt get him to write the word hat next to the number one. He looked at his list of words, I pointed to the word hat, and he wrote the word in the extreme upper left corner of the paper in very small letters. "Great," I said to him. "Now spell the word as." One by one, Cube copied the next nine spelling words onto the note pad. When he finished his spelling test he had managed to write all ten of his spelling words in an area smaller than two squares inches in the upper left corner of the paper.
After completing his first spelling test I congratulated Cube for finishing the assignment. I then took the spelling test over to Gnu's desk and handed it to her saying, "here is Cube's spelling test." She looked at me and said, "where are the spelling words?" I pointed to the upper left hand corner of the paper and said, "right there." I then told her that Cube couldn't spell any of the words so I just had him copy the words onto the paper.
We are now eight days into the school year and I have been asked several times about the differences between the last two school years. I'll tell you two of them. There are more but I'll save them for another time.
Last school year, when I walked into the school at the start of the day, I had to sign in so people knew I was present. This was simple. Find my name of the sign in sheet and place an X next to my name. This school year, although not fully implemented due to technical difficulties, I have to use a time clock. I have to clock in to start the day, clock out for lunch, clock back in after lunch, and clock out at the end of the day. It's kind of a pain in the ass, especially the lunch part, but I'll do what I have to do.
As I was reading the instructions on how to properly clock in and out I came across the following wording, "it is strictly prohibited...." Whoa! Those are some pretty strong words so I read on. Paraphrasing, "it is strictly prohibited to do any of the following. Should you violate the rules you are subject to disciplinary action." Here is rule number one. "You are strictly prohibited from continuing to work at the end of your regular working hours." Rule number two. "You are strictly prohibited from taking work home to complete after regular working hours." Rule number three. "You are strictly prohibited from checking, reading, or reviewing work related emails after regular work hours.
I am not a custodian, food service worker, maintenance worker, or groundskeeper. I have an undergraduate degree, work with scholars that come from hard places, that have numerous obstacles to overcome, and I WILL do everything I can possibly do to make them successful scholars. If I should break on of your rules, so be it. Should you decided to terminate my employment, so be it. That will be your loss not mine. Please note that these rules also apply to some of my colleagues with master's degrees.
Last school year, when I looked out the school window, I could see an abandoned house that was right across the street from the school. Neighborhood kids threw rocks through all the windows so they were boarded up. Both the front and back doors of the house were kicked in so they were boarded up. One enterprising soul noticed that the house had aluminum siding and promptly tore all the aluminum siding off the side of the house to sell as scrap.
This school year, if I stand outside the front door of the school, put a Titleist ProV1 on a tee, pull out my Ping G-10 driver with a titanium shaft and nine degree loft, aim slightly southwest, grip it and rip it, I could hit a house with a price value of $750k that is meticulously landscaped, has a pool, and is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, in a not quite gated community.
So, what is the difference between the two schools? Last year my scholars were called special education scholars with anger issues and if all hell broke loose and the media picked up on it the school would be on the front page of the newspaper. This year my scholars are said to come from hard places but have the same anger issues and if all hell broke loose the school would never be in the newspapers because, well, this school is located near well to do neighborhoods with semi-gated and gated communities and stuff like that doesn't happen in these neighborhoods.
The bottom line on last year's scholars versus this year's scholars, with one exception, is this. Gnu and I work with scholars that came into this world, for reasons that have nothing to do with income, with a lot of baggage. Here is the one difference I noticed after the first eight days of schools. When a scholar from this year erupts there is no string of obscenities, not even a single one. Last year's anger eruption was routinely followed by a string of obscenities that would rival anything that could come out of the mouth of some drunk.
One more comment and I'll call it a day. As I've mentioned in the past, Gnu and I don't deal well with scholars with Oppositional Defiant Disorders (ODD). Unfortunately, early evidence points to the fact that we may have four scholars with ODD. This could be a long school year and may provide proof that the grass may not be greener on the other side of the hill.
With that said, right, I need to add a PS - next week I'll update you with news about the scholars from last year. Some news is good, some not so good.
No comments:
Post a Comment