Saturday, August 25, 2018
So here I sit on a Saturday morning writing this blog and just like last Saturday it is raining. That means no morning bicycle ride, no yard work gets completed, and I can't even start cleaning the house, to have something to do, as I did that yesterday prior to the hoity toity book club meeting that my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was hosting.
Earlier in the week I was having a text chat with this crazy mountain bike rider who reads this blog. During the conversation, CMBR asked me if the air conditioning was back on at school. My response was, "nice try, I'm going to keep you in suspense."
On Monday morning around 8:15am I sent a text message. The message was brief, "long pants or short pants?" A couple minutes later I got a response from T4, "short pants." There you go CMBR, your question is answered.
There are thirty-one scholars and two adults sitting in a classroom that is too hot and too humid. That's not exactly how I wanted to start the week but we'll adjust the way we did last week, lights turned off, window shades down when the sun shifts to our side of the building, and turn on the fans. On the upside, when I walked into the classroom I did not hear, "Schultz, we have a new student so we need a desk and chair." What I did hear was, "Schultz, I need several items laminated." The laminating machine is in the library so off I go.
The power switch on the laminating machine was in the off position when I arrived so I turned it on and now have a ten minute waiting period as the machine warms up. With ten minutes to kill I start searching for a book to read to the scholars in T4's classroom. As I'm searching, a side door of the library opens and in comes the young scholars from the two Prekindergarten classrooms followed by their teachers and instructional assistants. I know one of the PreK instructional assistants, MaT, so I asked her what was going on. "There is mold growing in the carpeting in both PreK classrooms and we have to vacate the rooms." It's hot. It's humid. It has been like this for eight days and the humidity in the school is so high it is causing mold to form in carpets.
I'm sitting in OtherT4's classroom preparing to read. Unlike the hexagon in T4's classroom, that I occupy almost daily, when I'm in OtherT4's classroom I'm given the honor to sit on the queen's throne that occupies the front center of the classroom. My book selection today is Peppe the Lamplighter by Elisa Bartone. The story revolves around an Italian family residing in tenement housing in New York City prior to electric street lights being invented. I had just finished read the book and was answering questions from the scholars about the book when I hear, "Mr. Schultz, T4-F is sick." I look to my left, see T4-F vomiting all over the top of the desk she is occupying. The vomiting continued and now is dripping off of the desk and onto the floor. A T4-M from T4's classroom brings me a wastebasket and I redirect T4-F's head so it is over the wastebasket. As I'm waiting for the vomiting to subside I noticed that not only has T4-F vomited on top of the desk, on her arms, on the floor, but also vomited inside the desk she occupies, and it is not her desk. When the vomiting stops I have T4-F stand up and head towards the sink that is in the classroom to get cleaned up. When T4-F stands I see this. Vomit is all of the front of her school uniform. Vomit is in her long hair that was touching the top of the desk when the initial vomiting started. The volunteer is addressing the issue. The teachers are observing from a safe distance because they admit they don't do well with vomit. I'm good with that. Two weeks into the school year, two vomiting occurrences. I'm not liking this trend.
With the start of week two T4 shifts from community time to academics. One of the first academic lessons was multiplication. Using a video from YouTube called Multiplication Mash Up the lesson starts. This video sings the multiplication tables starting with zero and ending with twelve with popular music playing in the background to go with the singing. Knewer and Low, from the Special Education classroom I occupied last year, used this video a lot. As I'm watching the video in T4's classroom this thought enter my mind. Maybe I can get Tourette and Grr!, former scholars now in the fifth grade, to come into T4's classroom and sing the multiplication songs. I bounced the idea off of T4 and she agreed to give it a try. My next stop is the fifth grade classroom to ask Tourette and Grr! if they would like to come to my new classroom and sing the Multiplication Mash Up song. Surprisingly, they both agreed to do it.
The next day it's Multiplication Mash Up time and standing in front of the scholars in T4's classroom, with a microphone in hand, is Tourette and Grr! singing and dancing. Seeing Tourette up front singing and dancing is not surprising because he would be an excellent scholar ambassador for the school when he is not angry and spewing forth a string of obscenities. Seeing Grr! standing in front of the classroom with a microphone in his hand and singing and dancing is HUGE. I know I've said this before but I have to say it again. I first met Grr! in the first grade. This is a scholar that has serious anxiety issues, that if allowed to build, would cause him to go into a major anger eruption. From the second through the fourth grade teachers like Gnu and Knewer worked to get Grr! to control his anxiety issues. Behavior therapist and behavior specialists (FBG) also worked with Grr! to control his anxiety issues. On this day, this young scholar, who came into this world with all of this baggage, is standing in front of a classroom that has thirty-one scholars, he knows none of them, complete strangers, and he is singing and dancing. People, this is HUGE step for this young scholar.
This is my seventh year in this school. I've been writing this blog for four and a half years and those of you that have been around for a long time are familiar with all of the crazy things I've seen. Often, since the start of this blog, people ask me why I keep working in this environment. I don't have to do what I do. I choose to do what it do. And watching Grr! today is why I continue to do what I do.
It's now Friday of week two. Ten consecutive schools days with no air conditioning. It's hot, it's humid, and there are too many scholars in T4's classroom. From a scholar behavior standpoint it's been a rough day for T4. Too often academics was disrupted due to scholars who can't keep their mouths shut. Each time T4's stops the academics to address the noise you can hear her tone of voice change. It's around 12:20pm, twenty-five minutes before lunch when T4 gets my attention and says,
"can you read to the scholars." I agreed, T4 walks over to the book shelf, selects Salt In His Shoes by Deloris Jordan and Roslyn Jordan. The story is about Michael Jordan (hopefully I don't have to tell you who that is) and his pursuit of a dream. The authors are his mother and sister.
This is either my third or fourth time reading this book and, as I have in the past, I'll stop and challenge the scholars with questions, ask them the meaning of a particular word, or to make a prediction on the ending. I was either two or three pages short of the ending the story when I sensed that I was loosing the attention of the scholars. There was too much talking so I started to look around the room. I started on my left, moved to my right, and saw the source of the distraction so I abruptly stopped reading. Looking at the guilty parties (three T4-F's) I asked them to leave the classroom as they were distracting the entire classroom. They were so focused on their distracting activity that they didn't even hear me. So I raise my voice, "get out of the classroom." This got their attention so I said it again with same volume, "get out of the classroom." The response, "we didn't do anything." "Don't sit there telling me you didn't do anything. You were arm wrestling and distracting me and everyone else in the classroom. If you think it is more important to arm wrestle than listen to the story I'm reading then get out of the classroom." I got the look that so many teachers get in this school. The facial expression and the rolling of the eyes that says who do you think you are that you can tell me what to do. There was no movement from the scholars so I stood and using a way to loud voice, "get out of the classroom or I'll walk over and take you out of the classroom." They got up, walked out, and immediately ran into T4 and OtherT4 who were standing just outside the classroom door.
There are two adults in the classroom. One is a teacher and the other is a volunteer. It didn't take me long to realize, as a volunteer, that I just stepped over the line. I lost control of my emotions, kicked three scholars out of the classroom when, in reality, I have no business doing that.
Was that a stupid mistake on my part or a human error? I know what my thoughts are. What are yours?
Two weeks are in the books. It's going to be a challenge like no other this year and on day ten I've already made a stupid mistake. When I was leaving for the day T4 thanked me, as she does at the end of every day, for being in her classroom. She also told me to have a nice weekend and see you on Monday. She must have thought human error and I'm grateful for that.
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