Friday, May 25, 2018
I started reading an education blog called Chalkbeat Indiana a couple years ago. It arrives in my email inbox just about every day of the week, excluding weekends. This education blog basically searches all of the media outlets for education news and in just about every one of their blog posts I find something interesting to read. A few days ago Chalkbeat Indiana posted an article about a principal in a school in Colorado. I shared the quote from this principal with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and then I got to watch the fire works explode. Here is the quote, "I will take lower tests scores any day of the week. I don't need to have the best scores if families and kids feel welcomed and included." I knew that the article and the word "feel" hit a nerve when I saw the first roman candle fire its ball of flame up into the air. Paraphrasing my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse. "Once again we are talking about feelings. I hear about feelings from parents and students way to often and when it comes right down to it, I don't care how they feel. There are days when I don't feel like going to school but I do. There are days when I don't feel like teaching but I do. So when I hear about feelings here is what I have to say, I only have one objective and it is to do everything that I can do to get a student prepared to enter high school. So, if I hurt your feelings I don't care. Just stop whining, sit down, and get to work."
I going to revisit our school lockdown procedure again. Yes, I know I just talked about it but the circumstances have changed. Here is a quick review. Lockdown, pull down all of the window shades, turn out the lights, move all of the scholars in the classroom to a position when they can't be seen through the window in the classroom door, lock the classroom door, and if this is a real situation pray that one of our ODD scholars doesn't go off about having to sit on the floor. Medium lockdown, all of the scholars are to remain in their respective classrooms. No one is allowed in the hallways. Soft lockdown, every scholar, to include adults, are to remain inside the school. You can't leave the building.
So, why am I repeating all of this lock down information? You are about to find out. Oh, I just remember something. On six separate occasions, as I walked up to the front entrance of my school, I found the main door to the school propped open with a door stop. That's right. The main door to the school is propped wide open which renders our school door security system worthless. What you are about to read are statistics from Chalkbeat Indiana. They are about school gun incidents. In 2016/2017 there were fifty-six school gun incidents across the state of Indiana. In the same time frame there were twenty-eight school gun incidents in the county where my school is located. Also, in this time frame, there were fourteen school gun incidents, and only two expulsions, in my school corporation. You read that correctly, only two of fourteen scholars expelled for bring a gun to school.
Now you are about to see some serious fireworks. Whenever I'm sitting in the classroom, where I have a view from the back of the room, I am totally defenseless. Sure, I can pull down the window shades, turn out the lights, and lock the door but who am I fooling. I sure as hell don't think an active shooter is going to walk down the hallways of my school, see all window shades down, lights out, doors locked, and think, "there must be no school today, so I guess I'll just go shoot up something else." No, that is not what is going to happen. Here is what may happen. The shooter is going to use his/her weapon of choice and blow the door knob clean off the door and make an entrance into a classroom.
Now it gets even crazier. I came up with my own way of defending my classroom. I've mentioned to other adults in my school about my plan several times and I'm sure they think I'm nuts. Well, I'm not nuts. I'm a Vietnam Veteran and I know this. When you are in a hostile environment and you arrive at a new location the first thing you do is put up your defensive perimeter. Well, I know my defensive perimeter, it is the classroom door and I need to defend that door and one day I figure out how I can do that. When you exit the classroom door, immediately to the left, about six or so feet away is a fire extinguisher cabinet. Inside that cabinet is a CO2 fire extinguisher. That is my defensive weapon of choice.
I think it was this past Tuesday when I was walking down the hallway with Knewer on our way back to the classroom. As I approached the classroom I looked at the fire extinguisher cabinet to check on my defensive weapon of choice. The fire extinguisher cabinet was empty. When I mentioned that the fire extinguisher was missing to Knewer she said, "Fruit was in one of his defiant modes, opened the fire extinguisher cabinet, grabbed the fire extinguisher and squeezed the trigger." Now I'm defenseless again as I'm anticipating that the school year will be over before that fire extinguisher is returned to the fire extinguisher cabinet.
Today, just prior to writing this blog there was a news flash on my cell phone. "There is an active shooter in a middle school in the county that is immediately north of where my school corporation is located. Two people have been shot. The shooter has been apprehended. This shooting is too damn close for comfort and I can't defend myself. Adding to this frustration, the consequences for squeezing the trigger on a fire extinguisher and forcing the school to it taken out of commission is nothing.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Saturday, May 26, 2018
As you recall, my first release was regarding head lice. Today, I do release number two so you know the frustrations that I had to deal with regularly this school year. This young scholar arrived in the classroom mid-year. This scholar doesn't have, to the best of my knowledge, an emotional handicap label and that means that he does not belong in our classroom. Unfortunately, this young scholar was relocated to Knewer's classroom so his actual teacher of record could teacher without constantly telling this scholar to stop talking and stay in your seat. For the sake of time, as again, this is getting rather lengthy, I'm only going to site this one example.
Knewer came up with this wonderful writing assignment for all of our scholars and it had to do with monsters. Briefly, the writing assignment was to come up with a monster, give it a name, and then list off the characteristics of your monster. When the introductory part of the writing assignment was finished Knewer told the scholars that they had to write a persuasive letter to convince someone to buy their monster. You could tell by the reaction of the scholars that they liked this writing assignment. Knewer then started breaking up the scholars. Some went to Low's desk, some went to her desk, and the last scholar to be assigned to an adult was Blank and he was assigned to me.
I've worked on several writing assignments with Blank so I was not surprised when one of the first things his monster would do was kill something and then eat various parts of the body of its victim. I can't decided if this scholar is seriously disturbed or just being a smart ass trying shock me. Although this scholar may just being a smart ass, he is not going to shock me. All I do is say to him, "that is an excellent idea, put your thoughts in a complete sentence, and then write it down on your worksheet." After about twenty minutes the timer goes off and the scholars rotate and Blank is now with Knewer and the eruption is only a few minutes away.
At Knewer's table the scholars work on a folder to keep their writing assignment neat and orderly. This is a cut and paste station and Blank sits down and gets started. With scissors in one hand and a work sheet in the other hand, Blank started cutting. Talking loudly, "I cut it crooked, it is ruined, can I have another piece of paper?" Knewer looks at the paper and says to Blank, "it is not ruined, it looks fine." "No, it's ruined," and the paper is crumbled up and tossed across the room. "Can I have another piece of paper?" "No, you'll have to just go on to the next part." Blank is now up, "I hate this F...ing school, I hate this F...ing classroom and he starts heading toward the classroom door but Low is up and blocks the door. With the door blocked Blank gets on his hands and knees and crawls under the sink that is in the classroom and moves our green recycling container in front of himself to use as a barricade. Low moves the recycling container and orders him out from under the sink. Blank gets up and starts again. "I'm not doing any more F...ing work and heads back toward Knewer's side of the classroom, opens a storage cabinet door, sits down inside the cabinet and closes himself inside the cabinet.
As I said earlier, this is just one incident with this scholar and I could list several more but I believe you get the idea of the kind of crap a teacher, instructional assistant, and a volunteer have to deal with way to often when you have four ODD scholars in your classroom. Are you ready for the kicker, there were no consequences for these actions.
There you go. Release number two is in the books. There are two more releases
to go, plus I've been weighing my options for next year, and I'm close to making my decision. Hints are available as to what I'll be doing next year. If you want a hint, you'll have to send me a dollar. That's it for this week. Thanks for following along.
Knewer came up with this wonderful writing assignment for all of our scholars and it had to do with monsters. Briefly, the writing assignment was to come up with a monster, give it a name, and then list off the characteristics of your monster. When the introductory part of the writing assignment was finished Knewer told the scholars that they had to write a persuasive letter to convince someone to buy their monster. You could tell by the reaction of the scholars that they liked this writing assignment. Knewer then started breaking up the scholars. Some went to Low's desk, some went to her desk, and the last scholar to be assigned to an adult was Blank and he was assigned to me.
I've worked on several writing assignments with Blank so I was not surprised when one of the first things his monster would do was kill something and then eat various parts of the body of its victim. I can't decided if this scholar is seriously disturbed or just being a smart ass trying shock me. Although this scholar may just being a smart ass, he is not going to shock me. All I do is say to him, "that is an excellent idea, put your thoughts in a complete sentence, and then write it down on your worksheet." After about twenty minutes the timer goes off and the scholars rotate and Blank is now with Knewer and the eruption is only a few minutes away.
At Knewer's table the scholars work on a folder to keep their writing assignment neat and orderly. This is a cut and paste station and Blank sits down and gets started. With scissors in one hand and a work sheet in the other hand, Blank started cutting. Talking loudly, "I cut it crooked, it is ruined, can I have another piece of paper?" Knewer looks at the paper and says to Blank, "it is not ruined, it looks fine." "No, it's ruined," and the paper is crumbled up and tossed across the room. "Can I have another piece of paper?" "No, you'll have to just go on to the next part." Blank is now up, "I hate this F...ing school, I hate this F...ing classroom and he starts heading toward the classroom door but Low is up and blocks the door. With the door blocked Blank gets on his hands and knees and crawls under the sink that is in the classroom and moves our green recycling container in front of himself to use as a barricade. Low moves the recycling container and orders him out from under the sink. Blank gets up and starts again. "I'm not doing any more F...ing work and heads back toward Knewer's side of the classroom, opens a storage cabinet door, sits down inside the cabinet and closes himself inside the cabinet.
As I said earlier, this is just one incident with this scholar and I could list several more but I believe you get the idea of the kind of crap a teacher, instructional assistant, and a volunteer have to deal with way to often when you have four ODD scholars in your classroom. Are you ready for the kicker, there were no consequences for these actions.
There you go. Release number two is in the books. There are two more releases
to go, plus I've been weighing my options for next year, and I'm close to making my decision. Hints are available as to what I'll be doing next year. If you want a hint, you'll have to send me a dollar. That's it for this week. Thanks for following along.
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