They Come From Hard Places

Sunday, February 17, 2019

You'd think, as I'm about to finish my seventh year at this school, that when bad things happen I'd put it in the category of been there, done that, and move on.  Well, bad things happened at the start of the school week and I thought to myself, so many of the scholars that I've worked with in the SpecEd classroom came from hard places and will they ever escape those hard places.

On Monday morning, after being in the school for only a few minutes, I was told that Tourette was missing.  As I understand it, something happened at his parental unit's home that caused him to run out of the house.  The running out of his parental unit's house is not something that is new to me as this was not the first time that it happened.  What is new to me is the fact that he never returned when it started to get dark.  Rather than returning at dark he went missing for almost thirty hours.  The family couldn't find him.  The school couldn't find him.  He's eleven, whereabouts unknown, it's in the middle of winter, and no one has a clue as to his location.

It's now Tuesday morning.  As I normally due, I cut through the administrative offices on my way to the elevator.  At best I will say good morning to the people in the office area and go about my business but not today as I was heading to a specific office to ask the OH person about Tourette.  OH was in her office and all I said was, "did they find him?"  The response was, "yes."

I've shared a classroom with Tourette for three years and with the "yes" response I relaxed and continued on my way to the classroom.  When I exited the elevator on the second floor I normally turn to the right.  Today, I turned left looking for FBG, our behavior specialist.  FBG was in his office so I asked him about Tourette and his whereabouts.  According to FBG his whereabout remains an unknown and here is where is gets real interesting.  FBG told me that Tourette was driven back to his parental unit's home, dropped off at the curb, and then the car drove off.  Who brought Tourette back to his parental unit's home is an unknown.  So, while Tourette is safe, there are now more questions than answers and the school may never know what happened.

I believe this happened on Tuesday of this past week.  I was in the office area when I came across FBG so I stopped to talk to him.  He told me he was just outside the school chasing down Uh-Uh-Uh who ran out of the building.  This took me by surprise as all indications were that Uh-Uh-Uh was having a real successful school year so I asked him what happened.  FBG responded, her parental unit was arrested and charged with domestic violence, she was upset, and she just took off.  I stood there shaking my head.  I spent three years with Uh-Uh-Uh in the classroom and I've known her for five years and all I can of think is, "why is this happening to this young scholar who has shown so much improvement this school year."  Why?  Just like Tourette, she comes from a hard place.  She is the product of P.P.P (piss poor parenting) and she is stuck in this hard place until she reaches the age when she can live independently.  

By the end of the week things returned to normal, or as close to normal as you can get, for Tourette and Uh-Uh-Uh, as they both finished the week without further incident.  I'm guardedly optimistic that what happened this past week is over and everyone can move on.  Despite my guarded optimism I know that both of these scholars come from hard places and it's just a matter of time before that hard place jumps up and grabs them again.

Here is an update of the hand signal scholars from the T5 classroom that I wrote about last week.  The consequences for these scholars, who created vulgar, bordering on obscene hand signals, that they secretly directed at their teacher, were given an in-school suspension.  An in-school suspension is not even a slap on the wrist.  It's nothing more that a tap on the wrist and further evidence that consequences for inappropriate behavior are a thing of the past.

In the midst of all of the events that occurred early last week I did get started on the show growth in math scores challenge that T4 assigned to me.  To start with I have four of T4's scholars.  Three are T4-F's and one is a T4-M.  Their first challenge is for each of them to complete seventy-two math problems.  Thirty-six are multiplication and thirty-six are division and they have six minutes to answer all of the problems correctly.  Here are the numbers they are working with; zero, one, two, five, nine, and ten.  My immediate task was to get them to multiply by nine as they were all weak with this number.  My confidence level was high with nines as many years ago I was shown, by a close friend of mine in my original career, how to use your hands to multiple by nine.  We started on Monday with hand multiplication and by Wednesday they could multiply by nine.  One of the T4-F's was so excited that she could multiply by nine she went home that evening and showed her parental unit how to multiple by nine.  The next day this T4-F had so much excitement in her facial expression when she told me that she showed her parental unit how to multiply by nine is one of the many reasons why I keep doing what I do.

Note:  if you are not familiar with multiplying by nine using your hands just do a YouTube search.

Comfortable that they can multiply by nine I move on to the next obstacle, division.  Unfortunately, division for these scholars was like trying to learn a foreign language.  The first division problem on the timed test worksheet is four divided by two.  Here are some of the wrong answers that I saw; eight, as they multiplied four times two, six, as they added four plus two, and sometimes I saw a number that made absolutely no sense at all.

I started doing division with T4-M as he was easily completing the first thirty-six multiplication problems.  I caught a bit of a break right away when T4-M told me that division just didn't make any sense to him.  I watched T4 teach a lesson on division so I knew I had some options on how to proceed.  The option that I chose, mainly because it didn't require making a lot of dots and then circling them in groups, was to turn the problem from a division problem to a multiplication problem.

I started with 4/2=? and then asked T4-M this question.  2 x ? = 4?  He hesitated for a few seconds and then said 2.  I then went back to the division problem and asked him what 4/2 equaled and I showed him the two fingers from the multiplication problem.  I then did the next six problems using the same process with T4-M and then the light went on.  It took a couple more tries but T4-M correctly answered all of the first seventy-two problems and he has moved on to the next level.

One a lighter note when it comes to math and showing progress is this story.  It's a bit of a visual so bear with me.  Here are the four combination multiplication and division tests that the scholars need to pass to become a magic multiplier.

Test A - zero, one, two, five, nine, and ten.  The three T4-F's are here.
Test B - zero, one, two, three, four, five, nine, and ten.  T4-M is here and soon will go on to C.
Test C - zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.
Test D - all of the above.

When you pass D you earn a Magic Multiplier Certificate and then get to dance on the hexagon to celebrate your achievement.

I can't remember what day it was but T4-M asked me what numbers were on Test C so I showed it to him.  The T4-F's then asked me what numbers were on Test B so I showed it to them.  One of the T4-F's looked at the addition of the threes and fours on Test B and calmly said, "I'm pretty good with those numbers."  She then asked me to show her what numbers were on Test C.  I took out my pencil, circled six, seven, and eight and then showed her Test C.  So you know, T4-F is sitting right next to me.  We are about two feet apart when I showed her Test C.  In order to see Test C more clearly T4-F moved even closer to me, our heads are about a foot apart, and when she saw the circled six, seven, and eight the first word out of her mouth was "shit."

I started laughing.  Yes, totally inappropriate but I couldn't help it.  Immediately, the other T4's in the group collectively said, "Mr. Schultz, she just said..."  "Stop," I said, "I know what she said.  It was an accident so there is no reason to repeat the word."  I just did the right thing by stopping them from repeating the word but I was still laughing.  With me laughing the next thing you know, all the scholars were laughing.  Finally, when everything settle down we got back to work.

I plead guilty.  The consequences for saying, "shit" practically right in my ear, none.  Is that right, no. You know what, I'm in charge, it's my decision, my consequences for the wrong decision but I also know this.  These four scholars want to learn and they are working hard.  They're willing gave up time from P.E. to learn how to multiply and divide.  They're willing to gave up outdoor recess time to learn how to multiply and divide.  If they are willing to work hard and make some sacrifices to learn then I believe they are entitled to one free "shit."

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  See you next week.