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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