A quick review in case your forgot. I've moved from the primary emotional handicapped classroom with Gnu to be the instructional assistant for the teacher in the middle school and the high school classrooms. TOR, who is the teacher for both classrooms, primarily stays in the middle school and I stay primarily in the high school. TOR has daily lesson plans and teaches in the middle school. The high school scholars academic day is a software package with all their lesson plans laid out for the entire school year I believe. TOR will periodically stick her head through the interior door that connects the two classroom but for the most part I'm in the classroom by myself. One final review item and then the day begins. The high school scholars are split into two parts, four in the morning and four in the afternoon.
Here is how the school day begins, if that is what you want to call it, for the high school scholars. When they walk into the building they have a device, cellphone or tablet, with the ear buds stuck in their ears and are either listening to music, playing a game, or watching video. Once in the building, they walk to our makeshift cafeteria to pick up either their breakfast or lunch with the ear buds still stuck in their ears. The afternoon scholars eat their lunch in our makeshift cafeteria and the morning scholars eat their breakfast in the classroom and all the time they are eating the ear buds are in place. With their meals consumed, and I'll say in again, what they just ate I don't consider a meal suitable for a high school scholar, the academic day begins.
So you don't have to scroll backwards to find the blog posting about meals, I'll give you quick reminder. Here is the typical breakfast for our high school seniors. The entre is a Pop Tart with thirty-two grams of sugar, there is a milk choice but low fat chocolate milk with eighteen grams of sugar is usually the choice, there is a juice choice, and on occasion there is fruit. There is no cafeteria tray line with steam tables to keep the food hot, no options on what you can choose to eat, there is no food tray or plate, the only piece of silverware is plastic. In fact, there is not even a cafeteria worker in the building to set out the food. If an adult doesn't arrive in our makeshift cafeteria to set out the food, the scholars will have to do it themselves.
The academic day beings and pretty much stays consistent throughout the week. The scholars walk into the classroom and will either sit in a beanbag chair or at a table with a desk top computer sitting right in front of them with their devices still plugged into their ears. The more ambitious scholars will actually log into the academic software program but will quickly change their focus back on what is on their device. With no teacher in the classroom I'm the one that has to address the electronic device issue and ask that they log into the software program. The morning scholars will follow my instructions without too much difficulty but the afternoon scholars, not so much.
From my desk I have a good view of the scholars as I'm sitting behind them and I can see the computer screens. Some of them will begin their academic lesson but with their devices still plugged into their ears. The ones that don't log in have to be prodded to get started. As I watch them working on academics, I can slowly see their heads beginning to nod and eventually they are asleep. I'll then get up, make my rounds, wake up the scholars who are sleeping, sit back down and repeat the process a short time later. In a nutshell, you now get a feel for the academic day for the high school scholars.
I don't have to do what I do, I choose to do what I do and it is for this reason. I love to help scholars with their academics. In my current situation that is hard to do because there are no text books, no lesson plans that I can see, just computer screens with font settings so small I can't even read the text on the computer screen to see what a scholar is working on. What I do all day is sit in silence with the exception of when one of the scholars in the secondary emotional handicapped classroom or in Gnu's classroom erupts in anger. What I hear then is the scholar being transported down the hallway screaming and crying as they pass my classroom on the way to the sensory room.
One day I caught a break as Stimes2 pushed his chair away from his desk and said, "I have no idea what to do." I moved over to where he was working and asked him if I could look at his computer screen to see what he was working on. He agreed and this is what I saw. Stimes2 just started a new assignment entitled Sonnet Analysis. As I scrolled down the page I saw sonnets by Francesco Petrarch, Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sydney, and William Shakespeare and I thought to myself, "this is nuts." Stimes2 is behind in credits to graduate and he is barely surviving in school. One Friday he told me he was going to visit his parental unit over the weekend. When I asked him were his parental unit lived he said, "I don't know the name of the city but it is in southern Indiana." Stimes2 can't name the city his parental unit lives in and he is doing sonnet analysis. Slightly agitated I started asking questions as to why Stimes2 is studying sonnet analysis. I got several shrugs of the shoulds when I asked the teachers but finally was told to, "ask the state." Dear State of Indiana, Stimes2 is a second year senior. He is slowly, slowly trying to earn enough credits to graduate. He is eighteen years old and can just drop out but he continues to plug away. So, State of Indiana, why and the hell do you think it is necessary for this scholar to do a lesson on sonnet analysis. This is not a student on track for college. This is a student that needs to be taking vocational classes with the hope that he can learn a trade and live a comfortable life.
It's Friday afternoon and my two infantile, imbecilic, blibbits had been animated most of the afternoon. TOR is attending a conference regarding a potential new scholar. Czar is also not in the building. That just leaves me in the classroom without support should something go wrong. VerbalD and WideB are getting loud and I'm heading in their direction to get them to quiet down plus VerbalD has been showing something on his cellphone to WideB and I figured it's something inappropriate. As I approached VerbalD, he turned towards me, shoved his cellphone up towards my face, showed me a picture of a topless female, removed the cellphone from my face, and laughed at me. Keep in mind I'm alone in the classroom and TOR has already forewarned me that VerbalD can get real angry, trash the classroom and has the potential to hurt an adult. Knowing what I know, I quietly ask VerbalD to put the cellphone away. I believe he would have done so but the next thing I know the interior classroom door that connects us to the middle school opens and scholars from the middle school walked into the classroom. A behavior coach from the middle school stood in the doorway and said to me, "we have an angry scholar in our classroom and these two scholars need to come into your classroom to stay safe." When I looked at the two scholars I knew immediately that the last thing I needed in my classroom was these two scholars. Gnu once referred to her scholars as "bat shit," and these two scholars from the middle school are worse than that.
With these two additional scholars in the classroom, we went from animated to very animated. VerbalD approached one of the middle school scholars, I believe a twelve year old, and showed him something on his cellphone. The middle school scholar looked at the cellphone and said, "that is P.O.R.N." For reasons unknown to me, I looked up at the clock, saw that we were about eight minutes to early to leave for the buses but decide that I needed to get the scholars out of my classroom. I shouted to get the scholars attention and told them to head for their bus and everyone did so without any incidents.
With a discipline referral form completed and in my hand I walked over to the office. TOR and Czar were still out of the building so I handed the form to the administrative assistant and said to her, "what will be the disciplinary action taken for this type of incident?" The administrative assistant read the referral form, looked at me and said, "probably a suspension." I respond, "if this scholar remains in my classroom then you may have to find a new instructional assistant," and walk out of the building.
I found out that the disciplinary action for blatantly shoving a picture of a topless female in my face and then laughing at me was a three day suspension. On Monday morning I promptly filled out my letter of resignation telling the Czar that I will leave at the end of the day on the last day of VerbalD's three day suspension.
It's Wednesday afternoon at 2:45pm on my last day and I'm sitting in Gnu's classroom. I could tell that she did not have a good day because, like so many other bad days that preceded this bad day, she was not smiling. We talked, mostly small talk, for a couple minutes, and then I got up to leave as it was 3:00pm. I told her I needed to clock out and turned to walk out of her classroom. After only taking a couple steps I stopped and turned back and said to her, "do you mind if I give you a hug before I leave." She looked up at me, stood up, smiled that smile that was so seldom seen in this classroom and said to me, "sure." As she approached me she again apologized for talking me into returning to work. I told her that no apology was needed and said, "we had a great three year run and that is what we needed to remember." I hugged her and then walked out of the classroom, turned my ID badge in at the main office, and walked out to my car. It took me a few seconds before I started the engine of my car as I knew driving with tears in my eyes was not a good thing to do.
It's also taking me a few seconds longer that I thought to finish this blog post because the screen is blurry as I have tears in my eyes as I tell you about my last few minutes in a classroom with Gnu. With my eyes now back in focus I'm going to leave you with a quote from Forrest Gump, "that's all I have to say about that."
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
The Beginning
It's Saturday evening. The sun is about to set on another beautiful day. My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse is in Bay City, Michigan, dining of fresh lake perch and probably consuming a craft beer at the local Moose Lodge. Me, I eating leftovers and sitting in my favorite blogging location, the screened in porch on the back of the house, and getting an early start on the blog.
So, where do I start? I think I'll do the introductions and then go from there.
Tick Tick
Truck
HandF
Stimes2
Quiet
WideB
VerbalD
Silent
Unfortunate
So, who are these scholars you ask. Patience! I'm getting there.
The subject was broached a couple times previously and I remained non committal. On a Monday morning, just prior to the scholars arriving, the subject came up again. Czar talking, "I'd like you to go across the hallway and be the instructional assistant that will support the middle school and high school teacher. I think having an adult male in the room will be good for those scholars." So, with the Czar standing right in front of me, with the instructional assistant that was in the middle school and high school classroom immediately next to her, and Gnu sitting at her table at the front of the room I asked one question. "When would you like this change to start?" "Right now," said the Czar. With little thought I stood up, walked to the back of the classroom, pick up my lunch, exited Gnu's classroom, turned right, walked about fifty-five feet down the hallway, turned left, and walked into the high school classroom.
In the process of doing so, the Czar didn't even bother to come with me. When I entered the classroom TOR greeted me and said, "are you going to be my assistant?" I replied, "yes." TOR continued, "would you like to be the assistant in the middle school classroom or the high school classroom?" Knowing that the scholars in the middle school could easily match the "bat shit" label that Gnu gave her scholars, I said, "the high school."
Here is some background information before I proceed. The middle school classroom and the high school classroom are two separate classrooms that are connected by an interior door. As you already know, the high school classroom has nine scholars. I believe the middle school classroom has five scholars. There is only one teacher for the two separate classrooms, that is TOR. There is only one instructional assistant for the two classrooms, that is me. Again, two separate classrooms, with scholars ranging from the seventh grade through high school seniors, and only one teacher.
So, how is this going to work you ask? I'm not sure it will but we'll see. TOR will be in the middle school classroom as those scholars attend school all day and she will have to develop lesson plans and actually teach. The high school scholars only attend school for half of the day. There are five scholars in the morning and four scholars in the afternoon. No teaching is actually required as all of their academics is done on-line using an academic software program that the school community purchased. With no academic responsibility I initially spent a lot of my time doing very little. After being totally bored for a couple days I started to get involved with high school academics.
As this might seem a bit unusual, I have to make an adjustment to the scholars listed as one actually disappeared before I arrived in the classroom. Gone is Tick Tick as this scholar went BOOM. That is a little inside play on words and we'll see if a certain reader picks up on it. The reason for the sudden departure, Tick Tick, in a outburst of anger threated to cause greatly bodily harm to the siblings of an adult in the real high school and was expelled. Yes, just like I have for the past five years and seven or so weeks, I'm working with scholars that have anger controls issues and this time some of them are bigger than I am.
I'm going to delay the discussion about academics until the next blog posting and instead I'll give you a brief description of the scholars. There are now four scholars in the morning, Truck, HandF, Quiet, Stimes2, and I like them. With the exception of a couple minor incidents, they've been quiet and I've been pretty bored. The four afternoon scholars, WideB, VerbalD, Silent, and Unfortunate, on the other hand have been very active and animated. Bored is not a term that I'd used to describe my afternoon. WideB and VerbalD are immature, imbecilic, blibbits* that banter on all afternoon. Unfortunate, despite being in high school, has the maturity level of some one in elementary school and pretty much idolizes VerbalD.
One quick story about Unfortunate, a definition of the word blibbit and I'm going to call it a day. I was with Unfortunate at the end of the day waiting for his bus to arrive. As we were standing at the door waiting, he asked me if I knew how he could get five hundred dollars. "What do you need five hundred dollars for," I asked him. "My parental unit is in jail and I need the money to bail him out." After Unfortunate departed, I walked over to our main office and mentioned my conversation with Unfortunate to our school door guard. "I hope you didn't give him any money," she said to me. "Nope!" "Good as he is a manipulator and so you know, his parental units seem to rotate going in and out of jail."
In 1968 and 1969, I worked second shift in a factory called Kuhlman Electric Company. One of my co-works, his name was Eugene, frequently came into work half liquored up. As I was talking to him one afternoon he looked over at one of his co-workers and said to me, "Virgil over there is a blibbit." "He's a what," I said. "A blibbit. You mean to tell me you don't know what a blibbit is." "No," I replied. "A blibbit is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag," he informed me and that is a perfect description for WideB and VerbalD.
It's time to call it a day. Before I do, if you know anything about Francesco Petrarca, let me know as you may be able to help me with high school academics. Thanks for following along. See you next week.
So, where do I start? I think I'll do the introductions and then go from there.
Tick Tick
Truck
HandF
Stimes2
Quiet
WideB
VerbalD
Silent
Unfortunate
So, who are these scholars you ask. Patience! I'm getting there.
The subject was broached a couple times previously and I remained non committal. On a Monday morning, just prior to the scholars arriving, the subject came up again. Czar talking, "I'd like you to go across the hallway and be the instructional assistant that will support the middle school and high school teacher. I think having an adult male in the room will be good for those scholars." So, with the Czar standing right in front of me, with the instructional assistant that was in the middle school and high school classroom immediately next to her, and Gnu sitting at her table at the front of the room I asked one question. "When would you like this change to start?" "Right now," said the Czar. With little thought I stood up, walked to the back of the classroom, pick up my lunch, exited Gnu's classroom, turned right, walked about fifty-five feet down the hallway, turned left, and walked into the high school classroom.
In the process of doing so, the Czar didn't even bother to come with me. When I entered the classroom TOR greeted me and said, "are you going to be my assistant?" I replied, "yes." TOR continued, "would you like to be the assistant in the middle school classroom or the high school classroom?" Knowing that the scholars in the middle school could easily match the "bat shit" label that Gnu gave her scholars, I said, "the high school."
Here is some background information before I proceed. The middle school classroom and the high school classroom are two separate classrooms that are connected by an interior door. As you already know, the high school classroom has nine scholars. I believe the middle school classroom has five scholars. There is only one teacher for the two separate classrooms, that is TOR. There is only one instructional assistant for the two classrooms, that is me. Again, two separate classrooms, with scholars ranging from the seventh grade through high school seniors, and only one teacher.
So, how is this going to work you ask? I'm not sure it will but we'll see. TOR will be in the middle school classroom as those scholars attend school all day and she will have to develop lesson plans and actually teach. The high school scholars only attend school for half of the day. There are five scholars in the morning and four scholars in the afternoon. No teaching is actually required as all of their academics is done on-line using an academic software program that the school community purchased. With no academic responsibility I initially spent a lot of my time doing very little. After being totally bored for a couple days I started to get involved with high school academics.
As this might seem a bit unusual, I have to make an adjustment to the scholars listed as one actually disappeared before I arrived in the classroom. Gone is Tick Tick as this scholar went BOOM. That is a little inside play on words and we'll see if a certain reader picks up on it. The reason for the sudden departure, Tick Tick, in a outburst of anger threated to cause greatly bodily harm to the siblings of an adult in the real high school and was expelled. Yes, just like I have for the past five years and seven or so weeks, I'm working with scholars that have anger controls issues and this time some of them are bigger than I am.
I'm going to delay the discussion about academics until the next blog posting and instead I'll give you a brief description of the scholars. There are now four scholars in the morning, Truck, HandF, Quiet, Stimes2, and I like them. With the exception of a couple minor incidents, they've been quiet and I've been pretty bored. The four afternoon scholars, WideB, VerbalD, Silent, and Unfortunate, on the other hand have been very active and animated. Bored is not a term that I'd used to describe my afternoon. WideB and VerbalD are immature, imbecilic, blibbits* that banter on all afternoon. Unfortunate, despite being in high school, has the maturity level of some one in elementary school and pretty much idolizes VerbalD.
One quick story about Unfortunate, a definition of the word blibbit and I'm going to call it a day. I was with Unfortunate at the end of the day waiting for his bus to arrive. As we were standing at the door waiting, he asked me if I knew how he could get five hundred dollars. "What do you need five hundred dollars for," I asked him. "My parental unit is in jail and I need the money to bail him out." After Unfortunate departed, I walked over to our main office and mentioned my conversation with Unfortunate to our school door guard. "I hope you didn't give him any money," she said to me. "Nope!" "Good as he is a manipulator and so you know, his parental units seem to rotate going in and out of jail."
In 1968 and 1969, I worked second shift in a factory called Kuhlman Electric Company. One of my co-works, his name was Eugene, frequently came into work half liquored up. As I was talking to him one afternoon he looked over at one of his co-workers and said to me, "Virgil over there is a blibbit." "He's a what," I said. "A blibbit. You mean to tell me you don't know what a blibbit is." "No," I replied. "A blibbit is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag," he informed me and that is a perfect description for WideB and VerbalD.
It's time to call it a day. Before I do, if you know anything about Francesco Petrarca, let me know as you may be able to help me with high school academics. Thanks for following along. See you next week.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
The End
In what may be a first, I'm writing this blog on a Saturday afternoon. Why? I'm not really sure. It's a beautiful day, no wild fires, no earthquakes, no hurricane number one, no hurricane number two, no building hurricanes that will be labeled number three and number four, so I just decided to write.
It's been two weeks since the last blog post and a lot has happened. So much has happened that I have several Post It notes sitting directly in front of me plus several notes on my cellphone note app. As I looked at all these notes I arranged them in a sequence and then I realized something. All these notes are from two weeks ago, the week prior to Labor Day weekend.
A new scholar arrived. I've assigned him a name so lets start with an updated listing of the scholars that occupy desks directly in front of Gnu.
Grab - third grade
DQ - third grade
KVA - second grade
Thumb - second grade
Cube - first grade
Nograb - first grade
Nograb is our new scholar. Although Gnu knew he was coming it took a little longer that expected as Nograb's parental unit wrestled with the idea of sending him to our school. Eventually, following a case conference, the parental unit decided that our school was the best place for this young scholar. Gnu informed me that Nograb was going to arrive and also told me that his behavior has been so poor at his previous school that he will only be in our classroom for two hours a day. Knowing the degree of difficultly working with our five present scholars having Nograb only in our classroom for two hours a day put me a little at ease.
It was a Monday morning when Nograb arrived. Gnu was at the front of the room. Merlot, our behavior coach was in the room. I was sitting where I have a nice view from the side of the room and the scholars were all doing their morning when Nograb walked into the classroom. My first reaction when I saw him was that he was big for his grade level. As Nograb walked in, three adults followed him into the classroom. Seeing them, Gnu got up and walked to the back of the room to introduce herself to Nograb. She then escorted Nograb to his seat, which was right in the center of the classroom, with two of the three adults following close by. With the third adult remaining in the back of the classroom near the door I got up, walked over and introduced myself. "Hello, I'm Mrs. Gnu's assistant" and shook hands with the adult. The adult shook my hand and said, "I'm the parental unit."
With the parental unit departing, the day got back on track. Gnu returned to the front table. I returned to my seat at the side of the classroom and Merlot sat directly opposite of me on the other side of the classroom. Interestingly, the two other unknown adults remained in the classroom and took up a standing position about three or four feet directly behind Nograb. When the timing was right I approached one of the adults to introduce myself and found out I as speaking to a behavior coach assistant and that the other adult I didn't know was a behavior coach. When Nograb's two hours in the classroom were up and he departed with his escorts I asked Gnu about the other two adults. She informed me that these two adults will be with Nograb everyday that he is in our classroom and they will address any behavioral eruptions he has. Two adults and one scholar and I'm thinking to myself what exactly is sitting in the center of our classroom.
It was midmorning on Tuesday when I discovered why there were two adults and one scholar. I'm not exactly sure what happened but Nograb got up from his desk and started walking around the room and refusing to return to his desk. As he walked I could see his body language change. His face was tense and so was his body as he continued to walk around the room. When he headed toward the classroom door one of his assigned escorts block his way and told him he needed to stay in the classroom. Knowing what was about to happen I switched from my observation mode to my getting involved mode and walked towards our classroom door. As I stood behind Nograb he made his first attempt at forcing his way past his escort. The escort blocked his path and then made eye contact with me and said, "we need to get him out of this classroom right now and take him to the sensory room (this is a fancy name for our time out room)." After a short walk down the hallway Nograb was in our sensory room. As we walked Nograb into the sensory room I asked the escort (behavior coach) how long I should stay in the room. She responded, "until another adult arrives. I don't want to be in the room with him alone."
Although I'm sure I mentioned this in a previous blog, I'll mention it again. When Nograb was at his previous school his behavior was so poor his academic day was only one hour and during that one hour he was secluded from all of his classmates.
So there you have it. One new scholar with two personal escorts who remain near him all day added to our five previous scholars with four of them having an oppositional defiant disorder. Brothers and sisters, this is a tough, tough, tough situation. Please keep Gnu in your prayers as she faces the undaunting task or educating these six young scholars.
An ODD story. This is only one of the many I could choose from. DQ is doing her morning work. The task is pretty simple for someone in the third grade, just put five groups of four words into alphabetical order. That is a total of twenty words just in case you didn't bother to do the math. Are there any estimates on how long it took DQ to complete the assignment? It took ninety minutes over a two day period. With each attempt to keep her focused on the task, she redirected the conversation to another topic. At one point, in the midst of this defiant behavior, I wrote out the alphabet on a 5" x 7" card to handed it to her. DQ's defiant behavior over the ninety minutes finally ended when she got frustrated with my attempts to get her to complete the assignment and she said to me in an angry voice, "alphabetical order is too complicated."
A "stupid mistake" or a "human error" middle school story. The announcement came across the walkie talkie that sits on Gnu's front desk, "we have a package in the hallway." The package didn't belong to Gnu so we both remained on task. In a matter of a couple minutes, the walkie talkie spoke again, "the package has eloped." Again, we chose to do nothing as other adults were responsible for the package (scholar) as well the package elopement (scholar running out of the school.) Several minutes after the elopement I needed to take a break to use the restroom. My restroom of choice is in the main office. In order to get to the restroom I have to walk past the Czar's office. As I passed the office I looked in and the Czar was just sitting at her desk facing her computer. As I was passing the Czar's office on my way back to the classroom I looked in again and the Czar was still sitting with a blank look on her face so I tapped on the door. "Are you all right?" Paraphrasing now. "I just got punched by the eloper." "What?" I entered the office and as I did so Czar picked up her mouse, clicked, and video surveillance is running on her computer screen. The camera shows the eloper outside the school. Next to appear on the screen is the Czar in pursuit of the eloper as she makes an attempt to stop the eloper. The eloper stops, turns, and as quick as lightning sends a right handed punch at the Czar that catches her on the cheek bone on the left side of her face. The contact was solid enough to knock her backward.
I stayed in the Czar's office for a few more minutes and talked to her. "Don't try and stop an angry scholar. Especially one that is that big. Maintain visual contact, use the walkie talkie to communicate and contact campus police. Don't try grab an angry scholar." I knew what was going on in Czar's head as I've been in that position. Her first instinct was to stop the scholar before he got it by a car. In this case, the scholar was big and angry and when approached he did what others who are angry did, turn and attack. So, "stupid mistake" or "human error." Clearly a human error made by someone with approximately five weeks of experience dealing with scholars that have serious anger eruptions. I'm pretty certain this human error will not happen a second time.
Here is a summation of the first five weeks of the school year. Grab struggles transitioning from one subject to the next without breaking pencils, tearing up paper and eventually dropping to his knees and starts crying. DQ, when pressed to do some academics, will bare her fangs and hiss at you like a feral cat and then drops on the floor and cries. Cube, obsessed with dinosaurs, will go into a escalate if you redirect him from constantly drawing dinosaurs and will stand and scream in this high shrilled voice and then start crying. Thumb, without any warning, will lose focus for reasons unknown to anyone, start storming around the room knocking stuff on the floor, attempting to hit the other scholars, and then start crying. I received a text message from Gnu recently that pretty much summed up our school year. This is a direct quote, "my kids are bat shit."
I know, pretty long winded today. Hang in there for a little while longer. When the Big E and I read to her daughter and my granddaughter we end the story by saying, "the end," and then close the book. I'm not sure why the Big E started doing this but I guess it brings some finality to the story and indicates that it's time to move on to other things. I'm pretty certain, after five weeks of the school year, that you know what the environment is like for Gnu and I. So, like Big E bringing finality to a story she read to my granddaughter, I'm going to bring finality to this phase of the blog. THE END!
With the parental unit departing, the day got back on track. Gnu returned to the front table. I returned to my seat at the side of the classroom and Merlot sat directly opposite of me on the other side of the classroom. Interestingly, the two other unknown adults remained in the classroom and took up a standing position about three or four feet directly behind Nograb. When the timing was right I approached one of the adults to introduce myself and found out I as speaking to a behavior coach assistant and that the other adult I didn't know was a behavior coach. When Nograb's two hours in the classroom were up and he departed with his escorts I asked Gnu about the other two adults. She informed me that these two adults will be with Nograb everyday that he is in our classroom and they will address any behavioral eruptions he has. Two adults and one scholar and I'm thinking to myself what exactly is sitting in the center of our classroom.
It was midmorning on Tuesday when I discovered why there were two adults and one scholar. I'm not exactly sure what happened but Nograb got up from his desk and started walking around the room and refusing to return to his desk. As he walked I could see his body language change. His face was tense and so was his body as he continued to walk around the room. When he headed toward the classroom door one of his assigned escorts block his way and told him he needed to stay in the classroom. Knowing what was about to happen I switched from my observation mode to my getting involved mode and walked towards our classroom door. As I stood behind Nograb he made his first attempt at forcing his way past his escort. The escort blocked his path and then made eye contact with me and said, "we need to get him out of this classroom right now and take him to the sensory room (this is a fancy name for our time out room)." After a short walk down the hallway Nograb was in our sensory room. As we walked Nograb into the sensory room I asked the escort (behavior coach) how long I should stay in the room. She responded, "until another adult arrives. I don't want to be in the room with him alone."
Although I'm sure I mentioned this in a previous blog, I'll mention it again. When Nograb was at his previous school his behavior was so poor his academic day was only one hour and during that one hour he was secluded from all of his classmates.
So there you have it. One new scholar with two personal escorts who remain near him all day added to our five previous scholars with four of them having an oppositional defiant disorder. Brothers and sisters, this is a tough, tough, tough situation. Please keep Gnu in your prayers as she faces the undaunting task or educating these six young scholars.
An ODD story. This is only one of the many I could choose from. DQ is doing her morning work. The task is pretty simple for someone in the third grade, just put five groups of four words into alphabetical order. That is a total of twenty words just in case you didn't bother to do the math. Are there any estimates on how long it took DQ to complete the assignment? It took ninety minutes over a two day period. With each attempt to keep her focused on the task, she redirected the conversation to another topic. At one point, in the midst of this defiant behavior, I wrote out the alphabet on a 5" x 7" card to handed it to her. DQ's defiant behavior over the ninety minutes finally ended when she got frustrated with my attempts to get her to complete the assignment and she said to me in an angry voice, "alphabetical order is too complicated."
A "stupid mistake" or a "human error" middle school story. The announcement came across the walkie talkie that sits on Gnu's front desk, "we have a package in the hallway." The package didn't belong to Gnu so we both remained on task. In a matter of a couple minutes, the walkie talkie spoke again, "the package has eloped." Again, we chose to do nothing as other adults were responsible for the package (scholar) as well the package elopement (scholar running out of the school.) Several minutes after the elopement I needed to take a break to use the restroom. My restroom of choice is in the main office. In order to get to the restroom I have to walk past the Czar's office. As I passed the office I looked in and the Czar was just sitting at her desk facing her computer. As I was passing the Czar's office on my way back to the classroom I looked in again and the Czar was still sitting with a blank look on her face so I tapped on the door. "Are you all right?" Paraphrasing now. "I just got punched by the eloper." "What?" I entered the office and as I did so Czar picked up her mouse, clicked, and video surveillance is running on her computer screen. The camera shows the eloper outside the school. Next to appear on the screen is the Czar in pursuit of the eloper as she makes an attempt to stop the eloper. The eloper stops, turns, and as quick as lightning sends a right handed punch at the Czar that catches her on the cheek bone on the left side of her face. The contact was solid enough to knock her backward.
I stayed in the Czar's office for a few more minutes and talked to her. "Don't try and stop an angry scholar. Especially one that is that big. Maintain visual contact, use the walkie talkie to communicate and contact campus police. Don't try grab an angry scholar." I knew what was going on in Czar's head as I've been in that position. Her first instinct was to stop the scholar before he got it by a car. In this case, the scholar was big and angry and when approached he did what others who are angry did, turn and attack. So, "stupid mistake" or "human error." Clearly a human error made by someone with approximately five weeks of experience dealing with scholars that have serious anger eruptions. I'm pretty certain this human error will not happen a second time.
Here is a summation of the first five weeks of the school year. Grab struggles transitioning from one subject to the next without breaking pencils, tearing up paper and eventually dropping to his knees and starts crying. DQ, when pressed to do some academics, will bare her fangs and hiss at you like a feral cat and then drops on the floor and cries. Cube, obsessed with dinosaurs, will go into a escalate if you redirect him from constantly drawing dinosaurs and will stand and scream in this high shrilled voice and then start crying. Thumb, without any warning, will lose focus for reasons unknown to anyone, start storming around the room knocking stuff on the floor, attempting to hit the other scholars, and then start crying. I received a text message from Gnu recently that pretty much summed up our school year. This is a direct quote, "my kids are bat shit."
I know, pretty long winded today. Hang in there for a little while longer. When the Big E and I read to her daughter and my granddaughter we end the story by saying, "the end," and then close the book. I'm not sure why the Big E started doing this but I guess it brings some finality to the story and indicates that it's time to move on to other things. I'm pretty certain, after five weeks of the school year, that you know what the environment is like for Gnu and I. So, like Big E bringing finality to a story she read to my granddaughter, I'm going to bring finality to this phase of the blog. THE END!
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