Before I get started I'll update the list of scholars as there have been changes. Whale has departed as he now resides outside our school corporation boundary. Blank, an on again and off again scholar in our classroom, is on again as he is coming part time to our classroom. "With that said," a little inside humor, here is the latest listing of the scholars that Knewer, Low, and I attempt to educate.
Grr! - 4th grade
Tourette - 4th grade
Huey - 3rd grade
Fruit - 1st grade
Cue - 3rd grade
Hiss - 4th grade
Blank - 3rd grade
Like I said in my last post, I'd rather have a Whale than a Blank in the classroom and here is why. I first encountered this scholar in kindergarten. I'm not exactly sure how to label this scholar so I'll just say he was a disruptive force. His disruptions continued through the first grade and on into the second and third grade. During this entire time this scholar spent the majority of his school day outside his assigned classroom as he was so disruptive the teacher couldn't get anything accomplished. Rather that gathering the resources necessary to get this scholar the help he needs the school just passed him around from one non-classroom teacher to another with the mindset that at least he's not in a classroom. Well, he just landed in Knewer's classroom and I am talking about Blank.
Blank's non-distruptive force was short lived in our classroom. I can't recall if it was his second or third day in the classroom when he decided it was more fun to play with a balloon and distract the other students who were on task academically. FBG was in the classroom and he told Blank several times to put the balloon away or it would be take away from him. Totally ignoring what FBG said to him Blank kept playing with the balloon. With hands as quick as lightning, FBG snatched the balloon from Blank. Blank's immediate response, one that he did multiple times between kindergarten and Knewer's classroom was to run out of the classroom. Unfortunately for Blank, someone in the classroom (me) anticipated his move and parked his butt in a chair right in the center of the classroom doorway. With his escape route blocked Blank's next attempt to get his balloon back was to start knocking things over in the classroom. After multiple attempts to get Blank de-escalated FBG gave him his final two options, either to sit at his desk quietly or go into our time out room. After a couple angry screams of defiance Blank was introduced to our time out room.
Beware! Some of you may find this next section a bit disturbing as I know it was for me and the other adults in the room. It was Thursday of last week and FBG arrived in the room to conduct one of his group training sessions. These sessions deal more with behavior than academics and today was going to be community day. Knewer laid out the guidelines for community day as follows: one only person talks at a time, if you have a question for the speaker you put up one finger, if you have a comment about something the speaker said you put up two fingers. With the guidelines set the conversations began.
The first couple discussion points were pretty simple. What is your favorite fruit? What is you favorite restaurant? Then Knewer asked this question, what is your favorite movie? Blank was first up to speak and he quickly rattled off the name of several of his favorite movies. Every movie he named contained violence, lots of violence. As Blank went through his list of favorite movies I was sitting off to the side of the room. From this vantage point I could see the concerned facial expressions on Knewer and FBG. At one point Blank asked Knewer and FBG if either of them watched any of these movies and they both responded that they don't like movies with violence. Blank's response was that he liked those movies because of all of the killing.
Although Knewer was leading the discussion, FBG was the next one to speak up. As soon as FBG asked his first question I knew exactly what he was doing. He was probing for information about Blank and his activities away from school. "Does your parental unit know that you watch these movies?" was the first question. Blanks response was, "maybe." "Is there anyone else in the house that watches these movies with you?" "My brother, well he's not really my brother he just lives with me. He really doesn't like them because they scare him. If he starts touching my things I'll put an even scarier movie just to scare him so he doesn't touch my things."
It was at this point that FBG made eye contact with me and his looks said it all, "what kind of scholar do we have here?" After the other scholars had a chance to talk about their favorite movie Knewer asked the final question, "what is your favorite color?" Blank responded first, "I like red because it looks like blood." He then grabbed a stuffed animal that was on the table. He put his hands in the mouth opening, opened the mouth as wide as he could and said, "if we open this mouth wide enough maybe we'll see some blood." Hopefully you are still with me as we are moving on to something that is not so dark.
Every morning during our first academic rotation the scholars have to look up the word of the day in a dictionary. They have to spell the word correctly three times, write down the definition of the word, put the word in a sentence, and then draw a picture of the word. On this particular day the word was "south." Tourette was in the last group to rotate to my desk to look up the word "south." When he completed his entire worksheet he said to me, "Mr. Schultz, do you want to know how I remember all the directions?" "Sure," I said. For those of you that are directionally challenged now would be a good time to pay attention. Tourette started by pointing north but said "never." I abruptly stopped him, turned him counter clockwise a little and said to him, "that way is north." Tourette started over pointing north and saying "never." He then turned clockwise and said, "ever," turned again, "smoke," turned again and said, "......." "Sorry Mr. Schultz I can't say that word in school." I'll give you a second to fill in the blank. Ready? Times up. "Weed!" Remember, I don't make this stuff up.
Speaking of directions. Mine changed again with my reading intervention group. My involvement with my third grade reading group had a very quick beginning. Unfortunately, my third grade reading group had an equally quick ending. I'm no longer involved with the read group. Why? Knewer asked me to give up the reading group to stay in the classroom. Before she could even explain her reasoning I already knew what she was going to say. With the introduction of Blank to the classroom the dynamics changed. Tourette and Blank are not compatible at all. Add in Fruit and his oppositional defiance disorder and the potential for very anger eruptions from one or all three of these scholars can occur quickly and its already happened twice. Am I disappointed that I lost the reading group, yes. Am I happy that the volatility level in the classroom can increase quickly, no. It's the "no" part that I'm struggling with as it's an environment that I'm not sure I want to continue volunteering in.
That's it for today. There is some demolition going on right now in my kitchen as old kitchen cabinets are being removed so new kitchen cabinets can be installed. The project is supposed to last three weeks. When I mentioned this on my Facebook page two naysayers, SpecEd30+ and a 9Patch quilter, were quick to point out that the project may take up to six weeks. I labeled them both as pessimists so I guess, as time goes by, we'll so who is right. See you again. Hopefully sooner that later.
Hiss - 4th grade
Blank - 3rd grade
Like I said in my last post, I'd rather have a Whale than a Blank in the classroom and here is why. I first encountered this scholar in kindergarten. I'm not exactly sure how to label this scholar so I'll just say he was a disruptive force. His disruptions continued through the first grade and on into the second and third grade. During this entire time this scholar spent the majority of his school day outside his assigned classroom as he was so disruptive the teacher couldn't get anything accomplished. Rather that gathering the resources necessary to get this scholar the help he needs the school just passed him around from one non-classroom teacher to another with the mindset that at least he's not in a classroom. Well, he just landed in Knewer's classroom and I am talking about Blank.
Blank's non-distruptive force was short lived in our classroom. I can't recall if it was his second or third day in the classroom when he decided it was more fun to play with a balloon and distract the other students who were on task academically. FBG was in the classroom and he told Blank several times to put the balloon away or it would be take away from him. Totally ignoring what FBG said to him Blank kept playing with the balloon. With hands as quick as lightning, FBG snatched the balloon from Blank. Blank's immediate response, one that he did multiple times between kindergarten and Knewer's classroom was to run out of the classroom. Unfortunately for Blank, someone in the classroom (me) anticipated his move and parked his butt in a chair right in the center of the classroom doorway. With his escape route blocked Blank's next attempt to get his balloon back was to start knocking things over in the classroom. After multiple attempts to get Blank de-escalated FBG gave him his final two options, either to sit at his desk quietly or go into our time out room. After a couple angry screams of defiance Blank was introduced to our time out room.
Beware! Some of you may find this next section a bit disturbing as I know it was for me and the other adults in the room. It was Thursday of last week and FBG arrived in the room to conduct one of his group training sessions. These sessions deal more with behavior than academics and today was going to be community day. Knewer laid out the guidelines for community day as follows: one only person talks at a time, if you have a question for the speaker you put up one finger, if you have a comment about something the speaker said you put up two fingers. With the guidelines set the conversations began.
The first couple discussion points were pretty simple. What is your favorite fruit? What is you favorite restaurant? Then Knewer asked this question, what is your favorite movie? Blank was first up to speak and he quickly rattled off the name of several of his favorite movies. Every movie he named contained violence, lots of violence. As Blank went through his list of favorite movies I was sitting off to the side of the room. From this vantage point I could see the concerned facial expressions on Knewer and FBG. At one point Blank asked Knewer and FBG if either of them watched any of these movies and they both responded that they don't like movies with violence. Blank's response was that he liked those movies because of all of the killing.
Although Knewer was leading the discussion, FBG was the next one to speak up. As soon as FBG asked his first question I knew exactly what he was doing. He was probing for information about Blank and his activities away from school. "Does your parental unit know that you watch these movies?" was the first question. Blanks response was, "maybe." "Is there anyone else in the house that watches these movies with you?" "My brother, well he's not really my brother he just lives with me. He really doesn't like them because they scare him. If he starts touching my things I'll put an even scarier movie just to scare him so he doesn't touch my things."
It was at this point that FBG made eye contact with me and his looks said it all, "what kind of scholar do we have here?" After the other scholars had a chance to talk about their favorite movie Knewer asked the final question, "what is your favorite color?" Blank responded first, "I like red because it looks like blood." He then grabbed a stuffed animal that was on the table. He put his hands in the mouth opening, opened the mouth as wide as he could and said, "if we open this mouth wide enough maybe we'll see some blood." Hopefully you are still with me as we are moving on to something that is not so dark.
Every morning during our first academic rotation the scholars have to look up the word of the day in a dictionary. They have to spell the word correctly three times, write down the definition of the word, put the word in a sentence, and then draw a picture of the word. On this particular day the word was "south." Tourette was in the last group to rotate to my desk to look up the word "south." When he completed his entire worksheet he said to me, "Mr. Schultz, do you want to know how I remember all the directions?" "Sure," I said. For those of you that are directionally challenged now would be a good time to pay attention. Tourette started by pointing north but said "never." I abruptly stopped him, turned him counter clockwise a little and said to him, "that way is north." Tourette started over pointing north and saying "never." He then turned clockwise and said, "ever," turned again, "smoke," turned again and said, "......." "Sorry Mr. Schultz I can't say that word in school." I'll give you a second to fill in the blank. Ready? Times up. "Weed!" Remember, I don't make this stuff up.
Speaking of directions. Mine changed again with my reading intervention group. My involvement with my third grade reading group had a very quick beginning. Unfortunately, my third grade reading group had an equally quick ending. I'm no longer involved with the read group. Why? Knewer asked me to give up the reading group to stay in the classroom. Before she could even explain her reasoning I already knew what she was going to say. With the introduction of Blank to the classroom the dynamics changed. Tourette and Blank are not compatible at all. Add in Fruit and his oppositional defiance disorder and the potential for very anger eruptions from one or all three of these scholars can occur quickly and its already happened twice. Am I disappointed that I lost the reading group, yes. Am I happy that the volatility level in the classroom can increase quickly, no. It's the "no" part that I'm struggling with as it's an environment that I'm not sure I want to continue volunteering in.
That's it for today. There is some demolition going on right now in my kitchen as old kitchen cabinets are being removed so new kitchen cabinets can be installed. The project is supposed to last three weeks. When I mentioned this on my Facebook page two naysayers, SpecEd30+ and a 9Patch quilter, were quick to point out that the project may take up to six weeks. I labeled them both as pessimists so I guess, as time goes by, we'll so who is right. See you again. Hopefully sooner that later.
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