The Magnet Is Off

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Again, it's raining.  With all of my outside projects on hold I decided to write for a while.  As I mentioned in my last post my school year is over.  T4 and the scholars will be in school until Thursday, June 13th.  I believe awards day for the school will be on Wednesday, June 12th, so I might drive to school to attend the event.  I think I'll text T4 later in the day and bounce off her the idea of me returning for awards day and go from there.

I'm scrolling through the blog notes on my cell phone to see what items remained that I wanted to talk about.   There are a few that I put under a category called school drama so I'll start with those.  One of the F scholars, at the time I wrote this note, was living in a motel.  I don't know for certain if this scholar's parental unit moved before getting evicted or was evicted but living in a motel was where this parental unit moved to rather than the streets.  The F scholar, for obvious reasons, was having trouble arriving to school on time or actually arriving at all.  One day this F scholar pulled out her cell phone as she felt the immediate need to call her parental unit.  The gist of the phone call went something like this.  The scholar absentmindedly took the motel room key with her to school.  Knowing she had the key, she needed to tell her parental unit so she called her from the classroom.  In a motel, no money to pay the rent, one step short of homelessness, but everyone has a cell phone.

This one occurred while sitting at my half round table in the hallway.  There was some commotion in the fifth grade classroom.  From what I can gather, the teacher just assigned the fifth grade scholars a reading assignment.  As she was making the assignment this voice shouted loudly, "Do you expect me to read all of this?"  Anyone care to venture a guess as to what the consequences were for this blatant disruption of the classroom?  For those of you that have been following along for a while I'm sure you know the answer.  For those of you that recently joined me here is the answer, NOTHING.  Why nothing?  Schools are trying to close the pipeline to prison that is the result of discipline being taken in a school.

One more and then I'll discuss my last day at school.  This is a tough one for me as it involves a scholar that I spent quite a bit of time with doing math.  I don't know how this started but this scholar reached the point where she shouted, "You shut up," in the classroom.  This drew T4's attention, T4 put a stop to it, and in the process the scholar stood up, started crying, and walked out of the classroom.  I looked over at T4, indicated to her that I'd retrieve the scholar, and do what I could to de-escalate this situation.

When I stepped outside the classroom the scholar was heading down the hallway.  I asked her to stop but she ignored me.  I then said to her, Tthe farther you walk down that hallway the more trouble you will get into.  Why don't you turn around, sit at the table by our classroom, and tell me what happened?"   That worked and she sat down.  All of this drama started because of an eraser.  Yes, that simple, an eraser.  Then the scholar stated crying and out came the crux of the matter.  The scholar is speaking, I'm paraphrasing.  "My parents are divorced, my Dad don't speak to me, my Mom has a new boy friend and I don't like him."  She is in the fourth grade and today she walked into school dragging all of that baggage behind her.

Monday, June 10, 2019

The plan for my last day, besides doing the last morning work math worksheet, was to spend a couple minutes with the scholars that I worked with the most.  T4 agreed to let me speak to them privately and she even brought in some snacks for them to eat.  When the scholars rotated to specials T4 told the scholars that I wanted to meet with to have seat at the hexagon.  When the classroom was empty I said to these scholars, "Do you know why you are sitting here with me?"  My question was met with silence.  "I'll tell you why," I said.  "Just about every day I sit at this hexagon and I answer all of the math problems on our morning work math sheet.  As soon as I sit down, it's like this huge magnet is turned on and scholars are pulled toward the magnet and sit down by me."  When I said this the scholars had that look on their faces that said, "Mr. Schultz, what are you talking about.

When I continued, this is what I told them.  "When I sit at this hexagon some scholars sit down with me but they are not here to do math, there are here to clown around.  Other scholars also come and sit by me.  These are the scholars who are sitting by me for one reason, to copy my answers to all the math problems.  They are cheating and I don't like that.  Then there is the group of scholars who are sitting here with me right now.  This is my favorite group of scholars.  You didn't sit by me to clown around or copy my answers.  You needed help solving a math problem, walked over to the hexagon, sat down by me, and asked me for help."  Then I told them, "You worked hard at math all year.  Everyone at this hexagon kept trying, everyone sitting here got better at math every day, and because you never gave up you get to sit with me and eat a snack while the rest of the class is in Art classroom."

This is the last thirty minutes on my last day in the classroom.  There wasn't much going on so I asked T4 if there was anything I could do for her before I left.  "If you don't mind, I need copies of some work sheets.  Some are word search work sheets, others are math work sheets.  Go through the two books and pick out some.  I'll need sixty copies of each worksheet."

I was in the copy room making the necessary copies when I heard some noise out in the hallway.  I thought it was one of the scholars from the special education life skills classroom so I ignore it.  Then I heard someone so angry they were growling so looked out into the hallway and saw T4-M and he was mad.  It's decision time.  Keep copying or get involved.  I kept copying but was watching the hallway closely to see if someone was going to retrieve T4-M.  I didn't see anyone so I got involved.  I found T4-M standing in a stairwell.  His fists were clenched, there were tears in his eyes, and he was so angry he was literally sweating.  When I asked him what happened he responded but because of all the crying I had no idea what he said.  So I put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to walk with me to the copy room where he could sit down and get himself under control and he walked along with me.  Within a minute or so, T4 walked into the copy room and had her little chat with him.  Now I know what happened.  This fine young scholar decided to write, "You are ugly," on another scholar's year ending poster board and he got caught.

I'm now back in the classroom sitting at the hexagon with T4.  Remember, I don't make this stuff up.  As were are talking one of her M's got her attention and asked her this question.  "Is it true that a doctor can change a boy into a girl."  I'm silent, looking at T4, and waiting for her response as I want no part of this conversation.  Finally, T4 said to the M, "God made you a boy, why would you want to change that?"  A short while later a T4-F made an attempt to get me to return to the classroom for one more day.  I told her I couldn't as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was out of school.  Because I was in school, I continued, I couldn't go on a bicycle ride with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and her friend Ray.  T4-F promptly responded, "Mr. Schultz is your wife cheating on you?"

It's now 12:20pm, recess was in ten minutes so now was the time to make my announcement.  I was going to stand but T4 insisted that I sit at her throne to give the scholars the news.  I started by telling them that it was day number one hundred and sixty-five and I asked them if they knew what that meant.  As I was waiting for a response I heard T4 say, "it's always a story" and I turned, smiled at her, and waited for a scholar to answer my question.  One of the T4-F's raised her hand and said, "Mr. Schultz, is it the one hundred and sixty-fifth day of the school year?"  I told her she was close but it's the one hundred and sixty-fifth day that I've been in this classroom and it is also my last day with you.  There was a collective grown from the scholars and then the magnet started to kick in.  First one scholar approached me and gave me a hug.  Then lots of scholars approached me to give me a hug.  This group hug was so big I thought the throne that I was sitting on was going to collapse under the weight of all those bodies.

When the scholars were walking to recess I stood up and walked out of the classroom door.  As I was walking down the first floor hallway I heard crying.  When I reached the library door I saw a T-PK standing over a scholar that was curled up in a ball right by the library door crying.  I stopped to see if T-PK needed any help, looked at the scholar on the floor, saw who it was, and said to T-PK, "I know the scholar let me speak to him."  It was an OtherT-4 M.  When I asked him what was wrong he responded but I had no idea what he said with all of the crying.  I then told him that he needed to move away from the library door because if someone opened the door he'd get hit by the door.  I convinced up to get up off the floor and asked him where he would like to go.  Other T4-M said, "Somewhere where no one will bother me."  I walked him into the main office, gave him two options on where to sit, he chose one and sat down.  With him seated I continued on to the front door of the school.  When I stepped outside the door I knew the magnet was off until next year.

This is to the teacher.  On the first day that I stepped into your classroom you told me that only six of the sixty fourth grade scholars were on grade level for math.  You then told me that it was going to be a very challenging year.  I'm not sure if you told me this just to warn me or to try and scare me off but there is one thing that you didn't know about me on day one.  I'm old, gray haired, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, have a dark side, and I don't scare easily.  We spent one hundred and sixty-five days together and I'm glad I'm typing this and not standing in front of you as I'm already getting emotional.

Thank you for allowing me to enter into your classroom life.  Thank you for allowing me to have the freedom tell my stories, read to the scholars, and bug you just for the sake of bugging you.  This is my fifth year writing this blog and you are the only teacher that knew I was writing it.  Thank you for allowing me to share the real life experiences that took place in your classroom.  Finally, thank you for having the confidence in me to help the scholars that were the farthest behind in math show improvement.  You said it correctly at the beginning of the year, "It was going to be a challenge."  Hopefully, I lived up to your expectations and I had a positive impact on these young scholars.

School year number seven has come to a close.  School year number eight will begin around August 1st.  I'm now on vacation.  Thanks for following along.  See you in August.          







                   

         

     


 

The Flat Rock

Friday, June 7, 2019

I've gone from, "Oh my God, what was I thinking," to spending three days and two nights at the Flat Rock.  As I sit here trying to figure out how to proceed, this thought came into my mind.  T4, I have a suggestion for the camp t-shirts for next year.  The top line on the t-shirt should read, Doing Time On the Rock.  Underneath this it should read, Camp Flat Rock 2020.

If I have the scholar count correct, forty-five made the trip.  According to T4, this is the smallest group she ever took to camp.  There were two no shows on the day we departed for camp.  There were somewhere between five and seven that didn't make the trip due to behavior issues in the classroom.  There were nine adults on the trip, I was one of those nine.  The scholars were transported to Camp Flat Rock in two school busses.  I drove my car.  When I was packed I decided that I'd put my two small bags of stuff in the back seat as I figured I would be transporting stuff to camp in the back of my SUV.  I guessed correctly.  The back of my SUV was full.  It's amazing what certain adults pack for a three day, two night camp trip.  Just before I hit the button to close the back hatch of my SUV this thought came into my mind.  "Looking at what I just crammed into the back of my SUV you'd think I was traveling with my friend SHC of Vino to Florida."  Sorry, that is a little inside humor and I thought it was quite funny.

I took me a long time trying to decide how to do this but I think I have it.  I'm going to break it down into sections; cabin groups, trail group activities, and table groups for meals.  I'll start with cabin groups.  T4 assigned me to the Shawnee cabin and it had seven bunk beds, two showers, two toilets and a two sink hand washing area.  Outside there was a large picnic table set up with a checker board, two rocking chairs and one love seat style chair..  I was joined by T5-6 and eleven scholars.  We had a few behavior issues from the same scholars that have behavior problems in the classroom but for the most part things went well.  Although it went well, that is not to say that we didn't have any interesting things happen.

Cabin events in no particular order.

• This from a scholar who has a history of trying to hurt himself.  "Mr. Schultz, I sometimes have real scary nightmares when I sleep, is it all right if I staff up all night?"  "Yes."  "Can I leave the lights on?"  "No."  "Can I use my flashlight?"  "Yes, just be quiet."
•  "Mr. Schultz, I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep."  "Why is that?"  "This is the first time I've ever went to bed without my parents near me."
• This from a scholar who is pretty wired even when he is on his medication.  "Mr. Schultz, I can't find my medicine, someone must have stolen it."  "No one stole you medicine."  "Yes they did, I can't find it."  "Did you look everywhere?"  "Yes!"  "Get off your bed, remove one item at a time and see if you can find your medication."  Two items were picked up, "I found it Mr. Schultz."
• "Someone stole my camera."  "No one stole your camera."  "Yes they did, I can't find it."  Did you look under all of that junk on your mattress?"  "Yes!"  "Look again."  "I found it Mr. Schultz."
• The last overnight evening.  It's around 10:30pm, lights are out.  It's pretty quiet then I hear it.  The rattle of a plastic bag, the kind that may have chips, pretzels, or similar snacks in it.  I chose to say nothing as I didn't want to wake everyone up and battle to get them back to sleep but I figured someone helped himself to the snacks without asking.  The crunching on the snack lasted about fifteen minutes and then it was silent.

Scholars were broken down into table groups for all of our meals.  I was assigned to Table #6 and RetiredMD joined me to monitor the activities of eight scholars. The scholars were served two meals, lunch and dinner, on day one.  Three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on day two.  Two meals, breakfast and lunch on day three.  The best part of the meals, as far as the scholars were concerned, they could eat as much as they wanted to eat.

• The nicest surprise, at least to me, was the number of scholars that went to the salad bar to grab something to eat.  They picked out exactly what they wanted, found the salad dressing of choice, sat down, ate all of their salad, and then started on the entre.
• The chunk of a scholar at our table, a T4-M, pretty much ate like a bird and that surprised me given his size.  I should say, he ate like a bird until desert arrived, and then he ate like Cookie Monster.
• This is a T4-F during lunch and dinner.  No matter what was served; hamburgers, French fries, corn dogs, chicken tenders, or tacos this young scholar made a sandwich and did it exactly the same way each time.  Two pieces of white bread, one piece of bread with peanut butter and one piece of bread with jelly. Then she carefully removed all of the crust from the bread so that her sandwich was almost perfectly round. 
• The meal was chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese, and peas.  As I watched this person eat I looked twice to be sure I saw what I saw.  This person took all of the peas and dumped them on top of the macaroni and cheese so I was looking at a big blob of orange and green all mixed together.  This combination had me thinking about trying it but the more I thought about it I've never had a food item that was blend of orange and green so I think I'm going to pass.  Oh, I forget to mention one thing.  The person that created this concoction was the other adult at my table.

T4 and I were in the same trail group for all of the group activities.  We were the Skunks.  There were multiple activities so I'm going to narrow in down to a few.

We started at the Alpine Tower.

• This is a confidence building, overcoming your fears climb, that ascended fifty feet up into the air.  For those brave enough to actually made it to the top they got to ring the bell that was up there to claim their bragging rights for all to hear.  I was told three made it to the top, all F's.
• Initially not every scholar in our group was interested in climbing the tower.  As time went by, one by one they donned the harness, placed a brain bucket (helmet) on their head, got checked out by the camp counselor to see that they were properly equipped, had the safety cable attached to their harness and up the went.  I believe every scholar in our group overcame their fear of heights and climbed up to the first level of the tower and then were lowered to the ground by the camp counselor.
• We did have a few bumps in the road.  While two scholars were very good at going up the tower, once they reached the first platform and looked down they got scared.  One of the camp counselors had to climb the tower to convince one of the scholars to start the descent, it took him almost twenty minutes to do this.

 From the Alpine Tower we went to the swimming pool.

• Upon arrival every scholar had to take a swimming test and then were given a wrist band that indicated their swimming level.  There were three colored wrist bands; blue, you could swim, yellow, you could sort of swim, and red, you can't swim.
• One of the life guards then asked the scholars who could swim.  Up went five hands if I recall it correctly.  Their task was to swim across the width of the pool towards the deep end, swim under a lane guide to the deep end, and then thread water for a minute.  I saw one scholar do a couple of freestyle strokes, the rest were dog paddling, and one scholar, who claimed he could swim, had to be rescued by the life guards.  
• I believe three of our scholars were given a blue wrist band indicating that they could swim.  Being a non-swimmer who just watched this swim test I was nervous.  While I can't swim I do know how to do one thing as I watched my daughter swim competitively for around ten years.  I know how to determine a true swimmer and if it was up to me no blue wrist bands would have been awarded to this group.

On to the Pond for canoeing, fishing, rope swing, and water slide.  This, in my opinion, was the favorite area for the scholars and several of the adults.

• With a little prodding from T4, something she is real good at otherwise I wouldn't be at camp, every one of our scholars got into a canoe.  I was joined in a canoe by the same scholar I had when we did this last September so we needed little time to get organized and off we went. 
• The entertainment value watching the scholars fish was priceless.  They didn't have a good day fishing.  I believe they caught one fish.  Getting a bit disgruntled, the scholars started asking for worms to fish with rather than a piece of bread.  The camp counselor finally gave in to the request for worms and went off and got some.  The worms arrived in a blue and white cooler.  When the counselor sat it on the ground he warned the scholars that the worms were old and would be thrown out shortly.  They meant nothing to the scholars as they just wanted a worm.  When the lid was removed from the cooler the stench was just plain nasty so someone had to reach into the cooler, grab a worm, and hand it to the scholars.  This is the camp memory that will stay with me for quite some time.  T4, donning a plastic glove, with an article of clothing covering her nose, and despite the nasty smell, reached into the cooler, swirled her hand around in this nearly black, slimy looking muck, and pulled out a worm.  Absolutely gross and sadly I didn't think to record this event on my cell phone.   

One of my worries when I started writing this blog was being able to catch the true feel of the camp.  I not sure if I did that so I'm going to leave you with this.  One person, T4, had a vision, "to provide funding so underprivileged children can be afforded the opportunity to excel outside of their boundaries through an outdoor educational camping experience."  For three days I watched forty five scholars running, laughing, overcoming their fears, holding turtles, touching or holding a snake, catching bugs, stuffing their faces, swimming until they were exhausted, and having a whole lot of fun.

This past Thursday T4 said this to me, "Schultz, do you know how many times I heard a scholar call my name at camp?  It had to be in the thousands."  When she said this to me I just laughed.  As I sit here thinking about what T4 said to me this popped into my head.  "T4, you heard your named called thousands of times.  For every time you heard your named called I bet there was just as many smiles on the faces of your scholars.  If you don't think so, just take a look at the faces on the pictures of all the scholars that were taken over the three days at Camp Flat Rock."

"T4, T4, T4, are you listening to me?  T4.  HEY T4!  You may have heard that thousands of times but I know forty-five scholars who left Camp Flat Rock with memories that will last a life time.  Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

That's it for today.  The school year is about to end.  There will be one more blog post and then I'll call it quits until the next school year.