Backup -- We Need Backup!

Before I continue with our tale of woe begun earlier today, I must share this lovely caption under an artist's conception of NASA's Ares rockets -- the space vehicles due to replace our aging shuttle fleet:

NASA's Ares launch vehicles are supposed to replace the space shuttles, but won't be ready until 2010 -- five years after the shuttles are retired.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's currently 2007 and the shuttles are flying.

Are you with me so far?

Saying the shuttles are retired immediately, five years from now is...ta-da...2012.

C'mon, Wired, you're a tech publication.  You write for nerds.  Do your math.  Please?

Even better, in the article itself, it says:

The nation's most visible launch vehicle, the space shuttle, will have its wings clipped in 2010, and current plans for a successor rocket to lift cargo and crew into orbit won't come to fruition until at least 2015, when the first Ares rockets make it to the launch pad.

Okay, so, you fail either at math or at reading comprehension. Yay you.

Anyhow, when we last left off, The Superhero had eventually decided that I'm the boss (yay) and that he would do what he was asked (double yay) quietly (triple yay).

So I innocently head off to my recess break, while the whole class goes to the 5th/6th grade yard since Aide D was absent again.  Then I go to pick them up, and chaos has ensued.

Boy J has been slapping girls on the butts and the Superhero -- after sitting on the wall -- went to the bathroom and then refused Aide S's requests to go sit back down.

We had a fire drill, so I basically said, "Fine, I'll deal with this later," and walked the class to the fire drill.

By the time we get there, Girl J has committed some heinous act of treason -- the specifics of which I have either since forgotten or was never told -- and is also in trouble.  This leaves Princess, New Girl, and, of all people, the Bulldozer.

During the fire drill, Boy J plays with the grass and begins throwing it at Aide S, who continues on her campaign of terror.  I am distracted by The Superhero and before I know it, Boy J has lost several of his tickets.  Aide J, bless her, steps in and calmly (hooray for her!) tells J that if he continues to do X, Y will happen.  If he wants good things to happen, he needs to make good choices.  Etc. etc.

So we go back to class, and I sit The Superhero at his own table with visual cues/gestures only, so he knows he's in deep doo-doo.  Boy J tries to rip the kids' cards off when asked to take off his so he's redirected to the Bulldozer's table where he can be easily blocked in.

And then he begins the godawful baby voice singing of which Teacher M spoke (darn her).  This behavior, also, is attention-seeking, and yet, while Aide J ignores him until he stands on the table and then simply says calmly (hooray for her!), "J, get down," Aide S goes off on him too, as I'm moving The Superhero farther away because he's begun to imitate the godawful baby voice singing.

And dancing.

On the table.

Have I mentioned the godawful baby voice?

So, I split the class into small groups and move myself near Boy J, where I redirect him only with taps on the shoulder until he stops the godawful baby voice singing (have I mentioned it's godawful?) about half an hour later.

Meanwhile, Aide K has come and I debate which group I can give her.  I dearly want to keep Aide S away from The Superhero at this point, but it's not like Aide K could handle him either.  So, I pray that a miracle reboot has occurred and give her The Bulldozer and Girl J.

I look back at Boy J to get him started copying his note home and look back at the table, which is really four double desks put together in a long rectangle.  The Bulldozer is drawing pizzas for Aide J (who is really supposed to be taking a lunch at this time, except, yeah, that didn't happen) while Girl J is at the other end of the table as Aide K stares aimlessly at the white board.

Yeah.

(Did I mention that my instructions were to "complete the game page through the crossword puzzle and then work in their black folders"? and not five minutes later did Aide K go to Aide J and say, "I'm really confused about what they should be doing here."  And then, when both I and Aide J had repeated those instructions, she told got her kids doing only the crossword puzzle?  Yeah.)

Okay.

So.

As it stands, the Bulldozer is drawing pizzas, Girl J is hiding under the table, Boy J is writing his note home, E is grouchy 'cause of all the noise (plus what eventually ends up to be stomach trouble), The Superhero and Aide S are at it again, and New Girl and Princess are working together like the little angels they are.

At this point, I send Boy J to work with Aide K, thinking that he at least might be able to work with her.  I tell Aide J that since The Bulldozer is at least not hitting anybody, I will for the moment let him be.

Then I tackle the next problem, which is, at this point, an extremely hyper, overstimulated, thoroughly pleased with himself Superhero.

So, back to the Superhero's point of view.

YAY THE WALL I'M LOOKING AT THE WALL THE WALL IS COOL THIS IS SO FUN EVERYTHING IS FUNNY HA HA HA I LOVE LIFE I LOVE ME I LOVE AIDE S THIS IS SO COOL WHAT WAS I THINKING?  YEE HAW!  HOORAY!  THIS IS FUN!  LAUGHING IS COOL.  I LIKE LAUGHING.  MAKES MY BODY SHAKE.  HOORAY.  FUN FUN FUN THIS IS SO COOL SO COOL YAY YAY YAY ---

Hey, Miss Teacher, what are you doing over here?  You wanna laugh too?  Look, I can squeal at you!  Wait, where are we going?  Why are you pointing at me?  Hey, look at me!  Come on, I've got cute puppy dog eyes!

Aw, not with the work again!  Come on!  Aide S and I were having so much fun!  Just look at how loud she was!  Almost as loud as me!  See, aren't we fun!  Wow, I feel like I'm running at 70 miles per hour.  Yee haw.  Life is funny.  You're funny.  I'm funny!  Hey, look -- Girl J is hiding under the table!  That's funny!  Funny funny funny!

Am I ready to work?  I'm not ready to work!  Work isn't funny!  I'm having too much fun with funny.

But c'mon, look at me, will ya?  I know how I can get you to look at me!  It's even funny.  Look, I'm so good at spitting.  Hooray me.  Isn't it funny that I got your glasses?  Funny funny funny.

Funny?

C'mon, Miss Teacher, why'd you put that folder there?  Then I can't spit at you and you can't look at me, and why should I spit at you if it doesn't make you look at me in the first place.  C'mon, put the folder down.

Aw, man.

C'mon.

Woah, it's lunch time?  I want lunch.  Lunch is fun.  Lunch is funny.  Life is funny.

Isn't it?

What do you mean, which word do I want to type?  I have to work first?  Oh, fine.  See, that wasn't so hard.  Okay, I'm gonna go now, see you later, I want more funny stuff....

...what are you looking at me like that for?

Seriously, Miss Teacher.  What are you looking like that for?

What do you mean I have to sit down at recess?

Oh.  Right.  Yeah, I was kinda loud.  And, yeah, I didn't listen to Miss S.

Am I gonna play or sit?  Duh.  I'm gonna play.

I'm gonna play, right?

Miss Teacher?  I'm gonna play, right?

Uh oh.

I'm gonna sit?

What do you mean, why am I gonna sit?  What did I do to have to...

Oh.

Fine, I'll repeat it.  "I was mean to Miss S.  I was loud."

Okay.  I'll sit.  You are such a party pooper.  Can I have my lunch now?

Okay, I'll walk with my hands folded.

Okay, I'll sit.  I remember.

Was I saying something was funny?

Hey, stop looking at me like that.  It's not funny, okay?  I get it.  It's not funny.

So, after lunch, I let the two angels (a.k.a. New Girl and Princess)...

...You know what?  New Girl is henceforth known as The Angel.

Anyway, the Angel and Princess got to be on the computer having fun while the rest of the class spent a very boring half an hour practicing how to follow simple directions like "walk to the door without touching anything" and "walk past your friends without touching them."

Here's to a half day tomorrow, and we are all going to hope that the sore throat I've had all day is not going to turn into anything worse, because there is no way on God's green Earth that I am calling in sick anytime in the next...really long time.

However.

Like I said to the Superhero's mom when she commented on how well-behaved the class was during our spelling test before our field trip last Friday, the fact that they could do it, even just that once, means that they can do it.

Therefore, they will do it.

At least once before the school year is over.

Incidentally, today spurred me to do something I've planned all along: put up little hints for the aides of things I've learned along the way.  September's is this:

Hopefully Helpful Tip of the Month
September

When redirecting a child who is seeking your attention inappropriately (calling out, using inappropriate language, etc.), redirect the child using . . .

As few words as possible

in

As quiet a voice as possible

with

As little eye contact as possible

Remember: The more attention you give for inappropriate behaviors, the more (and longer) they will happen. Any child who knows your buttons are pushable will push them more because they want you to react.

This is not the easy way, but it is the best way.

It's All M's Fault

Teacher M, that is, not Student M.

Y'see, we were chatting about my fourth graders yesterday, and when I mentioned Boy J's godawful baby voice thing he does sometimes, she blithely said, "At least he hasn't done the dancing/singing with the baby voice."

Guess what Boy J did today?

For half an hour.

The Bulldozer, on the other hand, had a relatively peaceful day.  He tried to throw my glasses a couple of times but I was able to block all hits, and he even sat with the group for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He. Sat. With. The. Group!

Aide D was out again today, but at least she called this time.  I suppose.

Meanwhile, however, Aide S either woke up way on the wrong side of the bed today or she's forgotten everything I've taught her over the last two years.

Let me present this entire interaction from Boy R's (henceforth known as The Superhero, thus christened by Cat) point of view.

Boy, everybody is doing their journals.  Even The Bulldozer is quiet.  Hey, how come nobody's looking at ME?  I'm working too.  Princess and Girl J and Boy J don't really need Miss S's help.  Hey, look at me!

Hey, look at me!  I'm cool and awesome and wonderful.  Why aren't you all looking at me?

Ooooh, I know how I can get them to look at me.  Hee hee, I'm so clever, I'll just --

"Superhero, put your HANDS DOWN."

Wooo-oooowie.  That got Miss S's attention, didn't it?

Hee hee.

Hey, let's try -- hey, that feels good...I think I'll keep my hands --

"Superhero, I DON'T LIKE THAT.  PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR DESK.  YOU NEED TO STOP.  GO TAKE OFF YOUR GREEN CARD."

Huh?  My green what?  What are you -- ?

"Superhero, STAND UP AND GO GET YOUR GREEN CARD."

Okay, okay, I'll stand up, but -- oooh, look, there's my chewy.  What was I doing again?

"Superhero, Miss S told you to get your green card, please."

Man, Miss Teacher is a party pooper.  Oh well.  She looked real serious.

"Now go sit down please."

All right, all right, Miss Teacher.

Oh, the COMPUTER MOUSE.  COOL!  I love the computer!  It's awesome.  It's the most awesomest thing --

"SUPERHERO, SIT DOWN."

Mwuh?   Oh.  Yeah.  My journal.  Coming Miss S.

So, what was I doing again?  Oh, yeah...trying to use these stickers to write Thursday.  Man, I could use some help.  No one's looking at me again.

What does a guy have to do to get some attention around here?

Oh.  I know.

Hey, that squealing thing feels good.  I think I'll do it again.  This is --

"SUPERHERO, YOU NEED TO BE QUIET RIGHT NOW."

Heh.  That got her.

Wait -- she turned away again.  Well, the squealing thing worked before, let's just try it again.

"SUPERHERO, GO GET YOUR YELLOW CARD."

Wait, what?  My yellow card?  Oh well.  This is fun.

Oh.  Man.  Miss Teacher is giving me the look.  I'd better...nah, this is more fun.

Hey, wait, what's Miss Teacher saying to Miss S?  Who's this R they're talking about, and what's with all the spelling?  Oh, she's looking at me.  I wonder if she's telling Miss S to pay more attention to me?

Let's see.  Hee hee.

Oooh, that growly thing is even more fun.  Makes my jaw feel good.  Cool.

"SUPERHERO, I DON'T LIKE THAT.  STOP IT RIGHT NOW."

"Superhero, you're hurting my ears.  Please stop."

Wow.  Miss S and Miss J both looked at me.  This is SO COOL!

Aw, come on, Miss J, don't notice Miss Teacher trying to catch your eye.  She'll make you stop looking at me.

Dang.  It worked.  She looked away and started helping E. again.

Better distract Miss S before she sees Miss Teacher too.

"SUPERHERO, THAT'S IT.  GO TAKE YOUR RED CARD DOWN!"

Oh, you GO, Bulldozer!  You're awesome!  Thanks for distracting Miss Teacher just as she thought she could make Miss S start ignoring me.  You drive me nuts, but I love ya, man.

"LOOK, Superhero, you're on your red card.  That means NO RECESS."

How come Miss S sounds like she's enjoying that idea so much?  And what's this "No recess" of which you speak?

Oh well.  That's later.  Right now, she's looking at JUST ME.  Wheeee!  This is going so well....

....Bulldozer?  Why'd you stop?  Miss Teacher is going to make me do my work.  Bulldozer?  Hey!  Bulldozer!!

Oh well.  I can get Miss Teacher to look at me.  I'm the Superhero!  I can do anything!

(It's worked so far, right?)

Miss Teacher?  Come on, look at me.  Listen?  I'm squealing my head off.  I'm calling myself a dog!  I'm saying "Bulldozer, shut up!"  Miss Teacher?  Hello?

What did you say?  I could barely hear you.  Why are you whispering?  Miss Teacher, TALK TO ME!

You're not looking at me!  Why aren't you looking at me?

"Superhero, are you ready to work?"

Oh, that's what you said.

And you looked at me!

Wait...you'll look at me when I work?  And talk to me?

Okay, I can do that.  I'll just yell too -- hey, wait, gimme my paper back!  I want you to look at me!

Oh.  I have to work and be quiet.  You're such a killjoy.  Fine.  Whatever.  Can you help me find the H?  Cool.  Thanks, Miss Teacher.  I guess this is kinda fun.  At least this way, you're smiling when you look at me.

And then, they go out to recess.....

To be continued later.

'Cause it would have been too easy for that to be the end of it.

Aaah, Distraction

I am very good at the art of self-distraction.

That is, I really don't want to chooseify our vocabulary for this week (I really should have done it over the weekend), so what do I do?

I made a personal schedule for the Bulldozer, taken from the large schedule I have in the classroom, and copied and pasted down to size, so that we're using the exact same pictures he is already familiar with. I just have to figure out what to use as a "finished" container (probably his pencil box).

The whole thing:


For legal purposes: note that the Bulldozer's name and picture have been blacked out to protect the innocent. The yellow boxes are things he has to do (the white -- every day -- and blue -- not-ever-day smaller pictures) and the green ones are his reward for completing his schedule.

Eventually I would prefer to fade out the green part and have him follow his schedule 'cause...well, 'cause at school, you follow the schedule. But I'll take what I can get at this point.

Top left closeup:


Note that his reinforcers include "get a drink" -- because this is apparently his favorite thing in the world to do. Also note that the symbol for "talk" is his Mighty Mo because I am encouraging his use of his device.

(Which he used today to tell me he wanted to go back to Mrs. S's class. Heh.)

Bottom left closeup:


Now back to vocabulary....

The Bulldozer was a Bear

So, Mondays are clearly not going to be the best of days for a while, as we work to teach The Bulldozer that there are in fact rules at school that he must follow.

He was not a happy camper about that prospect after recess today, though he did well both before and after.  Sigh.

Meanwhile, Aide D-AM (our sub for Aide T) was out again today and did not call in to let us know.  Yipppee.  Add to that a weepy Aide J this morning (she is having drama with her oldest daughter) and a sick Aide S and we had a fun morning.

I had more to blabber about but today is catching up to me and if I don't get up and move, I will fall asleep before I get anything accomplished tonight.

Happy Birthday Enterprise

Yes, I am a nerd.

However, this is cool.  In my younger and more naive years, I would look at a picture of the cast of Star Trek standing next to the Enterprise, which towered over them in all its gleaming white splendor, and always wished they would christen an actual working shuttle "Enterprise."

Instead, Virgin Galactic's first ship is to be given the name.  That is either even cooler or kinda sad, depending on how you feel about the privatization of space flight and exploration.

In other news, Patrick is officially exactly six months away from his 21st birthday.

This is:

1.  Extremely disturbing.  I remember having a conversation once with Amie while sitting on the swing of Patrick's back yard play structure about how I couldn't picture him as a six-year-old.

2.  Potentially lucrative.  Patrick has a knack for pointing out slot machines on the fly.  This started when I would always play a quarter for our grandma, who dearly loved Las Vegas but eventually couldn't go because of her emphysema.

(Although, if she could have gotten past her generation's intense disdain for assistive technology such as scooters, she could have been enjoying her favorite past time until she became too weak to pull the lever -- long after she couldn't walk from the garage to the slot machines.)

3.  Unbe-frelling-lievable.

A Busy Few Days

So, Friday was the annual field trip to Simi Valley Days' "Special Kids Day."  Every year, they offer a morning where kids with disabilities can come and ride (some) of the rides (fewer each year, it seems) with volunteers from the Kiwanis Club and a local middle school.

Most years, it's scorching hot and rather uncomfortable for me, but the kids love it, and I enjoy getting to see former students (J, R, and C this year).

Oddly enough, the morning was the highlight of the day Friday.  R's mom came with us on the trip, and got to see him (and the whole class) being exceptionally well-behaved.  Plus, I got to feel like a competent teacher and actually got E, who was totally overstimulated and really upset, calmed down in time to go.

(As the days go on, J forgets more and more the rule that you don't respond to E's scratches with lots of attention.  "E!  Hurt!  That hurt!  Look, E, that hurt!"  I have tried the modeling route, wherein I demonstrate redirecting her by blocking her hands and denying eye contact until she chills out.  This is doubly true when she's overstimulated -- the last thing she needs is more verbal feedback.  I am now planning on giving each aide a copy of the "child cheat sheet" I put in my sub plans.  Maybe that'll help.)

In any event, as expected, M went through the roof.  M has echolalia and when she's stressed, she echoes things she's heard at home -- usually swearing -- but I guess this time she came out with a few "that's stupid!" and "you're stupid!" to J -- who took it personally and was a bit perturbed that I brushed it off.

(Which I didn't, really, I took M back to our quiet corner and just redirected my poor little heart out, but I got her to the point that she could walk to the bus calmly -- yay me!)

Meanwhile, Aide L (our long-term sub for Aide S last year) worked for Aide B, and shoved her nosy self into everything, including me and M -- "Wow, is M having a really hard time this year?  Boy, I don't remember that happening.  Of course, my son T is really behavioral right now..."  Eesh.

Then, while I only had agenda books to get ready for Monday, J's mom was an hour -- An Hour! -- late picking up J.  So I wrote a note -- she called to J from across the school and disappeared.  All I got out was, "So, what happened?"

"What happened, J?" J's mom asked her.

(Uhhhhh.....)

So, needless to say, I got stuck at school late, but I got some much-needed organizing done for Back to School Night Tuesday.

On Saturday, I went up to Oak Glen to get apples -- in particular, Honeycrisp apples (which are the best apples ever but very hard to find -- though Gelson's carries them sometimes).  While there, I tasted a variety I'd never heard of before -- Mutsu apples.  They are good!  They're green apples, and they taste like a slightly tarter Honeycrisp.  Yummy.

Of course, driving there down the 10 Freeway, I kept having tiny panic attacks watching the plume of smoke from the fire in Big Bear, but the sky was clean and beautiful in Oak Glen.  Plus -- fresh apple cider donuts!

Today wasn't quite as eventful but it was productive.  I went grocery shopping and got a bunch of work for school done.  I copied the News-2-You that was posted last Thursday on Friday, and modified it today -- so I'm set for News-2-You for three weeks.  :-)  My goal is to continue that and have a buffer zone because...

...part of the kids' journal now includes practicing their spelling words, because of the 8, only the three sixth graders do their homework.  So, if they're not practicing at home, they should at school.  But this means that I have to have spelling words chosen ahead of time, in enough time to copy and modify as necessary.

In random other news:

TVShowsonDVD.com posted a news article that the abomination that was Galactica: 1980 is coming to DVD.  However, what brought me up short was the cover art, which featured, naturally, the cast.  Duh, right?  

But get this -- ever since I started watching Farscape, the identity of Crichton's father Jack has puzzled me.  He looked terribly familiar, but a cursory glance at imdb.com yielded nothing.

Apparently I didn't look closely enough, because, there is is on the cover art, clear as day.  He played grown-up Boxey.  Wow.

At least he eventually got to be on good sci-fi, right?

That's almost as weird as seeing Greg's dad (from Dharma and Greg) on a 2nd season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation playing Riker's estranged dad.  Almost.  At least in that case, I like both shows.

Here comes another week.  :-)

A Mystery Solved

So, we've had a bit of a mystery in good ol' Room Mine. (I'm paranoid about googlers, so I'm not even putting the number.) Anyhow, of the three fourth graders, I suspected that the two who would have the most trouble would be Boy A (henceforth referred to as The Bulldozer, because of the way he crashes through life) and Boy J (haven't thought of a nickname for him yet).

Boy J has done remarkably well. After the day The Bulldozer hit him and he hit back -- and got in trouble for hitting back -- the worst he's done is whine in that godawful annoying fake baby voice he has.

(Incidentally, Teacher M: While I sympathized last year, I now send you buckets of virtual chocolate. I had no idea -- I had no idea -- exactly how annoying that could be.)

The Bulldozer, on the other hand, has been having a very difficult time. He has not hit any more children (mostly because I gave him two spots away from kids to sit at when he felt he couldn't control himself; to his credit, he's actually chosen those spots at troublesome times without prompting) although my glasses have gotten tossed several times, and he shoved his Mighty Mo (a very expensive communication device) hard enough to snap the stand in the back.

(Also incidentally, DFT asked me the other day what we were calling his Mighty Mo in class. A bit stymied, I said, "...a Mighty Mo?"

"Oh. Last year, we called it his 'talker.'"

I blinked, and cast about for a polite way of saying, "It's his device, which he'll probably use for years...shouldn't he know the name of it?" Finally, I said (in a stunning display of oratory brilliance), "But it's called a Mighty Mo."

"Yes, but 'talker' is shorter. It's easier for the other kids to say."

"Only by one syllable."

I get the dubious look which I generally take to be a pitying, "how little you know" stare. "Well, okay, we'll call it whatever you do.")

Anyhow, The Bulldozer was very upset with himself when he broke his Mighty Mo. It's an easy repair, and the fact that he was upset with himself at least shows that he wishes he had better control of himself.

The Bulldozer has had, since starting our school in kindergarten, four teachers (counting myself but not counting various summer school teachers). While I give props to JB for starting the work that M finished, culminating in him getting his Mighty Mo, it was only last year that he had a teacher that really made him work.

So I was expecting him to...well, to not be a fan of mine, because M went through a lot with him last year. So...I hadn't really mentioned his behavior to his family yet, other than the occasional "he's had a rough day" because...well, because that's just The Bulldozer -- though to an extent I hadn't expected.

But he smacked DFT's aide A the other day -- my guess is she commented on the broken Mighty Mo stand -- and so DFT asked his dad. Turns out that mom -- who hand feeds him -- and dad have been arguing about how to discipline him. My inclination is that dad wanted to and mom did not.

(Keep in mind, this is third hand information, as I'm repeating what DFT says The Bulldozer's dad told him.)

So, dad just decided to give up and let mom (not) handle it. He's seen more aggressive behavior at home too.

We've been making some progress at school, but this leads me to believe that Mondays especially will be very hard for quite some time, until The Bulldozer learns the ugly truth that while there may be no rules at home, there are at school -- and there certainly are in Room Mine.

This is a tough thing for kids to learn, but it's not the first time I've been down this road (cough! R! cough!). In fact, my entire first week in this classroom was spent convincing a sixth grader (with autism) that he did, in fact, have to do some work before he could be on the computer. "Closed!" he'd yell at me (a.ka. "get the *#*$* out of my face!").

But, you know, once the battle was over, he thrived. On his last day in my classroom, he came in and said, "Excuse me, Miss ____. G is doing two paper works, then computer please?"

In other news, I got a boatload of work done today. Hooray!

(We had the day off for Rosh Hashanah. Having gone to private (Christian) schools until I was at CSUN getting my credential, this was a bit of a surprise to me at first. I realize the ultimate motive is money -- the districts don't want to lose all the ADA money they'd lose from all the absent kids, nor do they want to pay subs for the teachers -- but it's still nice.)

Anniversary Post

(I wanted this separate from the school ramblings.)

In lieu of long commentaries or memorials, I offer this simple quote in memory of the victims and in support of the victims' families:

"The spear in the Other's heart is the spear in your own; You are He." -- Diane Duane

Wow

Well, we had an absolutely awesome morning -- even though Aide T's sub didn't show or call in.

The kids' "This Day in History" section of their journal was, of course, about the September 11th attacks: "On September 11, 2001, airplanes crashed into New York's World Trade Center. It was a sad day."

New Girl asked Aide S. about what had happened -- she was intrigued by the picture I'd included and, I think, the gravity in Aide S's usually-cheerful voice when she helped her read the sentence. I reminded Aide S. that New Girl (she is in sixth grade now) would have been in her first couple of weeks of first grade when it happened.

She was...her response was very interesting. She's a very caring girl -- reminds me of Former Girl A. a lot actually -- and she looked at the picture for a moment, then back at Aide S. "People were in there?" she asked, pointing at the picture of the World Trade Center.

"Yes, there were," Aide S. said.

"They all died?" New Girl said -- Aide S. had not said anything of the sort, but she figured it out herself. She looked at the picture again. "Ooooh," she said.

Meanwhile, we were able to get our work done much earlier than has been the case; in time, in fact, for us to follow the New Computer Rules -- this group is a bunch of bickering old married couples and I'd had enough of the arguing over whose turn it was. So I made numbers 1 through 8 and stuck them up by their names in reverse order; that way, whoever's left over from it being their turn to be "person of the day" (we don't call it that, but that's essentially what it is) will get first dibs at the computer.

Anyhow, I guess Boy R. was a pill in science class, but that's to be expected. It was a dad weekend, and as good as Aide S. is becoming, squirrely post-dad R. is just too much for her.

So we read Charlie and even made it through 5 pages of News-2-You -- even while we were being very particular about the rules. Boy A. even managed to sit next to his classmates without hitting them or anything.

Then, at lunch, I did a dumb thing.

I said what a good day we were having.

Oops.

Within 10 minutes of recess being over, we'd descended into the 7th layer of hell.

Aw well.

Incidentally -- I have been asking...begging...the OTs for a sensory diet for M since more or less her first day of fourth grade. At first, I got the boilerplate "sensory suggestions" paper they give everybody in lieu of a real sensory diet. Then, I got a "well, I'll need some data -- I'll tell you what to look for." Then I got ignored.

Today, as they were leaving, the OT looked at me and said, "By the way, we need to design a sensory diet for M."

On the one hand: woohoo! On the other: DUH!

School Days Since a Child was Lost: 2

A Note to Interested Parties

I realize this is petty, given the anniversary that looms in less than an hour, but you'll have to forgive me.

Ahem.

When I say, "I'm really not feeling very social right now," these are the things that will not alleviate my anti-socialness.

1.  Try to make conversation with me.

2.  Put on your "aw, I'm sorry, tell me all about it" face.

3.  Ask if I want to talk about why I feel antisocial.

4.  Come back in an hour and ask if I'm over feeling anti-social yet.

5.  Ask if everything was really oh-so-bad.

You may have detected a trend: namely, these five responses all require social interaction on my part.  This just ensures that I will feel anti-social longer.  Perhaps it's the spectrumy part of me, but I assure you that the more you make me be social now, the longer it will be before I feel social again.

Thank you and good night.

(Also?  Free online Snood -- aka Bubbles -- is the coolest thing ever.)

How to Save Your Sanity

From here on out, my school days will be measured thusly: Did any children get lost?

So...Boy A hit Girl J at recess (right in front of Aide K, thus forcing Aide D to run over and save her)? Meh. Everyone is present and accounted for.

So Boy R's first real "spit" at me all year went right in my eye? Big whoop. No one is missing.

So we didn't get to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until after lunch? Oh well. Head count resulted in 8 kids.

So Boy J decided to use his most obnoxious little baby voice for an hour and a half? Whoop-dee-doo. No one is walking alone on the freeway!

See? Life is good.

And, mostly tongue-in-cheek, a new daily feature of the blog:

School Days Since a Child was Lost: 1

Have I Mentioned I'm Bad at Titles?

I did something dumb last night.

E. is just learning to use a formal communication system.  She imitates some words, has a few signs, and is beginning to use a VOCA (Voice Output Communication...Aid) -- specifically, a TalkTrac -- to request attention.

However, that addresses only a miniscule portion of her needs, and she sometimes uses other means to get what she wants -- one of those is pinching/scratching.

That's fairly common among kids with severe disabilities; it's something I knew going into it, and it doesn't bother me (in the sense that I understand that there's no intention to harm me or anyone else, not in the sense that it doesn't physically hurt).

In any event, while E. is overall scratching much less this year, early this week, she got in a good dig on my left arm.  It had scabbed over and was healing nicely until I was installing my grandpa's new speakers for his computer.

(I say "installing" -- it was really just plugging them in.)

In any event, my arm was itching, and for some reason -- most likely sheer stupidity -- I forgot that there was a scab there and scratched.

And ripped the scab off.

(Which, incidentally, hurt way more than the initial scratch.)

However, that was not the dumb thing.

The dumb thing was, when I asked for a Band-Aid, I answered honestly when my grandpa asked what happened.  Y'see, despite the fact that this is my fifth year of teaching, no one in my family has any real conception of what my job is.

Despite having Patrick around for 20 years -- almost exactly 20.5 -- now, they (1) don't really understand cognitive disabilities in general and (2) have no real conception that Patrick is way more blessed in communication and coping skills than many other kids.

Even as a kid, Patrick never had to scratch or grab hair to get someone to interact with him -- even if it was just "hey!" or "sissy!" or "mommy!" or "Amie!" he had enough verbal skills to accomplish that without using inappropriate means.

Last Christmas, when E. was still really struggling in school (she did not yet have aide support, although the wonderful Miss T. was with her in the mornings by necessity, and every Friday I was left running the class on my own for an hour due to staffing issues -- something E., who does not share attention well at all, did not handle easily) I consciously hid my scabbed hands under the table at all opportunities.

Had my dad's mom been alive (even when she thought I'd be teaching a bunch of kids with Patrick's abilities or more, she thought I'd chosen a pointless career that was wasting my life) I'd have had to take up wearing gloves.

The funny thing is, my grandpa has nearly electrocuted himself many times -- twice with lethal voltages.  He has scars from that.  So does my cousin.

And yet, I feel like I have to defend myself -- and E. -- and that makes me sad.

The really funny thing is, the two injuries I've gotten at work that hurt the most (besides nearly breaking my ankle...that was just clumsiness) were when S. head-butted me (he was trying to bang his own head and as I was distracting his hands, my head was the nearest hard surface...he would have done the same if it was a wall behind him) and when E. chucked that roll of masking tape at my shoulder and it rebounded onto my head.

Scratches really don't hurt much at all...until I rip the scab off.

I'm not sure if there was any profound point to this, other than, "Duh, SpooWriter, next time say the cat did it!"

Happy Sunday, folks, and a belated happy birthday to Cat.

By the Way

The last episode of Feasting on Asphalt 2 was on tonight, and I think it's safe to say that Alton's face upon smelling the lutefisk was at least as good, if not better, than the look on his face just before he took a bite of pickled pig's foot in the show's first season.

Bad Nerd

I suppose I should say something about the passing of Madeline L'Engle, since she was a well-known fantasy writer, but the fact of the matter is, I made one aborted attempt many years ago to read A Wrinkle in Time and couldn't.  But still, rest in peace.

I am also a bad nerd because I never did manage to wrangle my mother's wireless adapter into submission; I gave up and bought a new one for her today.

Or, rather, I bought one today.  My wireless router is still off more than it's on -- it turns itself off, I swear, if you look at it wrong.  So I suspect I will use my $100 for being an early iPhone adopter towards an Airport Extreme base station.  However, the Airport Extremes have only 3 ports for wired connections, where my current wireless router has four.  Therefore, my desktop will need the wireless adapter then.

Believe it or not, I'm not considering the Airport Extreme because I'm an Apple fan but more because I would one day (when I have a TV that is compatible) like to have an Apple TV -- as I've said before, my iPod can't hold all of my library, and it would be nice to watch anything I wanted without having to sync my iPod and plug it in to use the video out with my TV.

In other news, I got an email from Aide T today that she won't be coming back for four more weeks!  Boo!

Meanwhile, I actually am writing again -- though it's cheesy and schmoopy.  It's coming slowly, but at least the words aren't all jumbled up in a useless pile in my head anymore.

I have no idea if this is what writer's block is like for other writers, but let me do my best to describe it here.

There is a Harry Potter fanfic author that I discovered once when searching the 'net for stories featuring characters with disabilities (someday, I will get around to writing what my vision of that ideal would be -- someone for whom their disability is just part of life and neither a major Plot Point nor their main source of Drama)....

That was a long parenthetical.  Let me start again.

There is a Harry Potter fanfic author (actually, she now writes Harry Potter/CSI:NY crossovers, and, no, they are not as weird as that sounds) who describes her stories as "mind movies."

I like that analogy -- that's exactly what I get: fully-formed visuals that I see in my head.  When I was younger, I would sometimes lay in bed and narrate what I was seeing to myself in a whisper; ironically, I think all that practice with description is why my dialogue is chronically weaker than the rest of my writing.

In any event, most of my stories start out as "mind movies."  Some of the more schmoopy, schmaltzy ones either live on my hard drive knowing that they'll never be posted for anyone but myself to see.  Some of the others are only "mind movies."

When I have writer's block, my (now internal) narration of what I'm seeing dries up.  I still often see the mind movie itself -- I can still see the scenes which I plan to write -- but the dialogue, the description...anything "verbal" that I would need to commit the scene to "paper" evaporates.

That's what happened this summer.  I had a few "mind movies" going on in my head, including what felt like an interesting morality piece that began as a missing scene from a Stargate SG-1 episode.  But there were no words to describe it.

I know that's not too coherent, but it's a difficult thing to describe if you haven't experienced it.

Suffice it to say that when I started writing a simple scene -- actually, it was adding description to what existed simply as a script-type list of dialogue -- it was a huge relief.

By the way, apologies for the extensive use of snigger quotes.

And it disturbs me more than I can say that I remember that term.  I'd hoped my memories of that class would have long ago evaporated.

(Scarily enough, the only non-PDF result for "humanities tutorial clunet.edu" was the syllabus from the year I took the class.  The beach, it is calling to me....)

3-1=2

Several hours later, it's still tempting to descend into a CAPSLOCK OF RAGE but I'm going to try and describe today's Drama with as little drama as possible.

Note "try."

I've mentioned before that I split my class up at recess this year, mostly to keep R and Boy A apart from each other, but also to let the kids play with the friends they made last year.

After the drama of last Friday (what is it with Fridays?) I thought things were more under control.  Aide K. was going with the 3 fourth graders to the fourth grade playground and Aides D. and J. were going with the 5th and 6th graders.

So, today, I go out to eat with the rest of the upper grade teachers -- except JT, who seems to hate KC for no reason I can understand -- and go pick the kids up when we get back.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking they're all on their own again.

Nope.

All four 5th and 6th graders are there.  Boy A comes trundling across the yard, trailed by Aide K.

Alone.

This is cause for some concern.

This is cause for wha-aaaat?!?! when Aide K says off-handedly, "By the way, I don't know where. . . [Boy J.] is."

My heart stopped.

Our campus is not fully enclosed, and we are a block away from a 4 lane freeway.

What makes me see red is the "oh, by the way...."

By the way?

By the way?

BY THE FRELLING WAY?!?!?!

I have no idea what my face showed at that moment, but I did my darndest to turn to Aide D and say calmly, "Can you please go look with Aide K?"

Princess, meanwhile, looks at me and says, "[Girl J]?

Quite right.

Girl J, however, has made several trips to the restroom so far today.

So, before they go, I say, "So where's Girl J?" assuming she is in the restroom.

Aide K looks confused.  "Oh...I don't know," she says.

I...I....

There are no words.

There are no words to explain to me how you go to the playground with three children, come back with one, off-handedly acknowledge one is missing, all without noticing the OTHER one is missing too??!?!!

There are no words to describe someone who can't do that math. You had three kids.  Now you have one.  How many are missing?

Hence me applying the lable "boggling" to this post.

So I lead the others back to class and come upon Boy J, but Girl J is still missing.

Meanwhile, it's time for R and Princess to go to science class.  Having no other option -- Aide K and squirrely giggly R who has already endured half an hour of DARE and a half-hour long assembly with perfect behavior? -- I send Aide D.

However, I knowingly break the whole "don't badmouth one aide to another" thing because I can't help it.  I pull Aide D aside (Aide K is still looking for J) and tell her that I need her to take Princess and R to science class. 

Then I tell her, "I'm really frustrated right now.  I may have to send Aide K to 'help' you -- but I want you to know it's not because I think you need help.  I know  you'll do fine."

So Aide D takes the kids to science, and I call Girl J's former teacher M asking if J is in there.  I'm fairly certain my voice revealed my extreme...shall we way, sense of GRRRRRRR!

She offers to send some people to look.  Aide B (formerly of Cat's room) finds Aide K chatting with Girl J in the restroom.

Even more disturbing, Aide K comes back all smiles and cheerfulness.  No "I'm sorry I lost two children," or even a "wow, that was scary."

This disturbs me more that I can say, and it's this response that prompted me to email the principal about it.  It's one thing to lose a kid -- most of us who work with kids with moderate to severe disabilities have misplaced kids (briefly, one hopes)...it's terrifying but it does happen.

It's another not to think it's a big deal.

However, Aide J takes the prize for best reaction.  As I am trying to pace off my agitation and getting ready for our Second Step lesson (a great opportunity to model self-calming techniques, eh?), she goes to the fridge and takes out two of R's frozen gummies, I presume so I won't grind my teeth to dust.

The funny thing is...it worked.

The second prize reaction award goes to our science teacher B.

I ran into B after school and she asked how I was.  It was clearly a small-talk "how are you," so I did the sensible thing and asked if she wanted the politically correct answer or the real one.

She wanted the real one.

So I tell her the story, and she is appropriately stunned.  I begin to laminate our Anti-Cheating Devices, and remind her that Princess, who is in her science class, is a sixth grader, even though she's so tiny.

"Funny," I say, "I just realized that Boy J and Girl J are both smaller than she is."

B laughs.  "Well, that's it!" she says.  "They were too small for Aide K to see!"

I did not talk to Aide K about this disaster today.  If I had, she'd have had to call the union on me...there was just no way I could do it calmly and objectively.  That'll have to wait until Monday.

Maybe I'll get lucky and the principal will want to do it for me.  :-)

A Warning

There is a rant coming tonight.

 

It may even be a CAPSLOCK OF RAGE.

 

Or a ?!?!??!?!?!? of incredulity.

 

Haven't decided which.

Four Down, Four to Go

M had a rampaging, royal, on-a-scale-of-one-to-ten a fifteen meltdown today.

It's been coming since the first day of school. M has serious sensory issues, affecting everything from her ability to use the restroom (she doesn't like something about urinating, for instance, and works herself up into a frenzy when she has to "go") to her ability to focus and get her work done.

She has been slowly escalating each and every day, as more demands are placed upon a sensory system that is in no way able to handle anything more than just a desperate bid to stay calm. The tools we had in class were just not sufficient for her.

Hopefully, the tools the OTs brought for her -- her pressure vest, a weighted blanket (bigger and heavier than the weighted lap pad we were using last year), and actual instructions about what to use in combination with what (imagine that) -- will help.

Of course, she, too, suggested brushing. This is an OT-created technique wherein you use a special brush on a child's arms and legs, and then give joint compressions. It's supposed to be very good.

However.

As I have told every OT that has suggested this, our program specialist SBS -- who spent a lot of time in M's old classroom a couple years ago -- said specifically never to brush M because she, and I quote, "climbs the ceiling."

Not the usual idiom "climbs the wall."

She climbs the ceiling.

Now, I am aware that kids' sensory needs and issues change over time. M was not at all keen on the pressure vest at the beginning of last year (nor was E.) -- however, that was because it had been being used punitively, as a punishment, and both girls equated it with that. Once it became a routine -- she wears it first thing every day, after recess, and after lunch -- and that stigma was removed, she was fine with it.

So, my request has always been, "If you want me to brush M, fine. But you have to do it the first time since you're the OT and might actually have ways of calming her down if it does indeed send her into Spider Girl Mode."

We shall see.

Girl J. had a bit of a run-in with Aide J. this morning, and given Girl J.'s speech, I'm not 100% sure she really said what Aide J. says she said...but she was already in trouble for not lining up with the class, so meh.

Besides, Aide J. somehow managed to deal with M. in full meltdown mode and E. (who does not share people well) without a scratch.

(Literally.)

So she gets the benefit of the doubt today.

And possibly chocolate.

Meanwhile, as I try to supervise the class (though when the OTs came I switched activities to one that was small-group oriented) because Aide K. is not the brightest candle in the inn and somehow didn't notice M. climbing on the bookcase two feet to her left (as in, standing on top of it and squealing), R. is slowly melting because Aide K. is not paying any attention to him even though he needs the help she's giving Boy J. way more than Boy J. does.

Fun fun.

The good news is, I asked the office which staff (Aide D. or Aide K.) was permanent and which was doing the long-term sub, and although the permanent one is K., our office manager said she might try and transfer her because the other teacher she works with has also reported that she's "weak."

The fact of the matter is, I could have lived with "weak" last year. "Weak" could have taken J., R., or A., to science class, or worked with any of the three of them plus E. (Scissor Girl) in class. "Weak" just can't fly in the class I have this year.

However...drum roll please...Boy A stayed on "green" all day! He was very proud of himself.

In other news, the new Apple product announcements today ("new" Shuffle -- just new colors -- new Nano, iPod Classic, and iPod Touch -- an iPhone without the phone and double the storage space) would cause me serious dilemmas if I wasn't more or less certain I will have to buy the Kinesis keyboard I spoke of earlier.

While I was very perturbed that the Shuffle was available in a pretty shade of blue a few months after I bought my original silver 2nd generation (not the stick shaped white one, though I had one of those too), the new Shuffles today are just more new colors. Big whoop.

As for the Nano -- I can't imagine watching a lot of video on such a small screen, but for music videos it might be nice. I've never been really enamored of the Nano, though, because I have a huge iTunes library.

Now, the iPod Classic -- true to its name, it looks just like my 5th generation 60 gig video iPod -- is tempting, but only for the increased storage. As I said, between lots of videos and lots of self-made audiobooks (I use a program called iSpeakIt to convert text of stories I've liked -- several of which are very, very long -- to speech), my library is already more or less at the 160 GB size of the larger Classic. Although it's annoying managing my library now -- picking and choosing videos and such -- I see no reason to buy an iPod that will be full the moment I first sync it...it'll be back to annoyingly having to select videos manually, the way it is now.

And, the iPod Touch. Oh, is it gorgeous. An iPhone without the phone. But the thing is...I have an iPhone. An 8 GB one (which is, as of today, $200 less than what I paid for it mere months ago -- boo). The Touch is availble in 8 GB and 16 GB. Do I really want to spent a few hundred dollars more for a few more hours of video? Not really. I sync (and charge) my iPhone every night, so I am constantly changing which videos are on it.

The thing is -- I want the best of both worlds. I want the Touch's awesome UI and beautiful screen with the Classic's large capacity. My guess is, that'll be a few generations down the road yet. Now, I push my 5th gen pretty hard, and if it should die before the two lines merge into (hopefully) a Touch with Classic sized capacity, I would probably buy a Classic for space. I have my shuffle and my iPhone for more specific things.

See, what I love about iPods -- what I've always loved, having the attention span of a gnat when it comes to music -- is having all of my music on hand at once. So if the spirit moves me to listen to "You Belong to Me" from Shrek and then the main title from Stargate and then "Yeroushalahim Shel Zahav" from Schindler's List, it's all there. I won't have had to anticipate that random connection of musical inspriation and have the appropriate files on the appropriate device. It's just there.

Ditto videos, really. Who's to say that halfway through "Arthur's Mantle" (SG-1) I won't decide I want to watch a History Channel Presents?

So, here's to a long life and prosperity for my iPod.

Also, if anyone has read this far, am I the only one who expects Allison Janney (formerly of The West Wing) to say Kaiser wants us to live long and prosper and is constantly startled when she says we should thrive instead?

Creative Titles Require Brain Power I Don't Have

So, the car isn't going to be expensive; it's just a bracket that holds the alternator -- what the heck is it with me an alternators, though? -- and a fan belt was rubbing up against it, thus causing the horrible noise.

The problem is -- Dan had to order it from Nissan...so I'm stuck driving my mom's non-air-conditioned van until Thursday or Friday.  Bleh.

At least my mom can hitch a ride with my grandpa to work, so I don't have to worry about the traffic light being out again.

It was Boy J's turn to test the rules today.  Now that all four fourth graders have done so, hopefully our lives can settle down a bit.

However -- being able to wail, at full volume, "I want my mom!" for an hour and a half is just unnatural.  What's worse is that I've been told he once did so for over 2 hours.

Also, we sort of solved the Boy A hitting someone like clockwork every day after recess; turns out he did that in M's class too because he didn't like going from something fun (recess) to something not fun (work).  So, we have classic escape behavior.  As a temporary solution, he now has a special seat to sit at for five minutes after recess; meanwhile, I will have to come up with a replacement behavior -- maybe a request to run an errand, or something like that -- to prevent it from happening.

(Incidentally, the scary deep teacher voice doesn't work so well if your voice cracks on the "more" in "No more hitting."  Oh well.)

It's nice to know why, though...I have to say.

In other news, the Raid appears to have done its job...haven't seen a single ant since I got home (we're prone to them here, but they're usually in the bathroom or the family room).  I crashed again when I got home -- I wanted to just take a power nap but that wasn't just in the cards.  Probably not sleeping because I felt phantom ants all night was the culprit for that as much as our drama today was.

Finally, we did our first activity with our shiny grade-level textbooks for social studies today.  It was a scavenger hunt (I stole the idea shamelessly from our science teacher) where they had to look for certain pictures in the books.  The kids liked it, and it was nice to do something functional (e.g. find pictures, write/copy/ID numbers, write/copy/type words, follow directions, etc.) with actual grade level curriculum.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

The good:

1.  The tow truck driver thinks it's just a belt.  He also thought enough of the engine's soundness that he tried to drive my little (malfunctioning) four-cylinder car up a very steep grade onto the flat bed tow truck.

2.  The Internet, after several off-and-on moments culminating in several "off" hours, is back.  Or, at least, it has been for about 3 hours now.

3.  I own ant spray.

Why is that a good?

Well, that's because...

...the bad...was...

...ants on my bed!

Oh -- also of the good -- the episodes of Sue Thomas (which I absolutely did not download -- and have not been downloading 3 at a time for weeks now -- from m i n i n o v a . o r g) have gotten back to ones I haven't seen.  At this point in the depths of re-run hell, this is definitely a good.

(Erm...why have I adopted Buffy speech?  I haven't watched an episode in ages....)

Reasons I Think I Lost Some Karma Along the Way

The following things have happened in the last 24 or so hours:

1. A malfunctioning gas pump drenched my right leg, foot, shoe, and
sock in gas.

2. The smell made Patrick -- who had just taken Pepto for stomach
issues -- loudly puke said Pepto.

3. On my dashboard.

4. On my seatbelt.

5. On my ARM!!

6. ON MY FRELLING ARM!!!!

7. My Internet is down. I've power cycled the cable box, the modem,
and my router. Repeatedly. Hence typing this on my iPhone, so
pardon any typos.

8. My car just started making a horrible noise. It'll have to go see
Dan. I have little money with which to accomplish this.

9. It is a holiday. Nowhere to rent a car. Thus, I will have to
drive the non-air-conditioned van to work tomorrow.

10. Bye bye summer school paycheck. See #8.

11. The Disneyland APs will have to wait a month. See #8. Patrick
will be ticked.

12. Did I mention getting puked Pepto on my arm? Or that my Internet
access is down? Or the car trouble I can't afford?

I thought so. Sorry for the whine...just had to get that off my chest.

The Saga that Never Ends

After three hours, which included a call to A's doctor because apparently 12-year-olds are now being encouraged to get a booster of one of their vaccinations that included a live virus, the end result of the IEP was a dramatic...

...nothing.

A's mom wants A to be there.  She has several good points, not the least of which is that most of A's friends from elementary school -- as well as his sister and sisters' friends -- are at VV now.  The teachers, on the other hand, are freaked because they have never had a sixth grader attend their SDC program -- which is where he would be placed initially because SBS believes (and I agree) that for the time being, he will need more support than an itinerant inclusion support teacher could provide.  The SDC program at VV is inclusion-oriented anyway (most of the kids are out more than 50% of their day, with some up to 80%).

The sticker is that the VV teachers, ultimately, don't want A there.  They are down 4 staff members and are convinced that the other staff members would be bitter that A would have his own private aide support (even though it's medically necessary for him at the moment to have contact with fewer people).

SBS is worried that when A's mom goes to visit next Friday -- to see, as the teacher put it, the program As It Really Is -- the teacher, N, will present her class in the worst possible light.  She's concerned that the kids will be held back from their inclusion classes and allowed to work up into meltdown mode so that A's mom will freak out at the confusion and drama and say "never mind."

Apparently, she did it before, when the district was searching for a placement for C, a kid from GG (the kid that resulted in the card we made for MN, Cat).  So SBS isn't entirely borrowing trouble that doesn't exist.

The other problem, of course, is that A is very, very attuned to when people don't want him around.  90% of his troubles in 2nd and 3rd grade were because he had teachers that didn't want him there.  I tried to warn N, and her new partner-teacher, about that, but I don't think they really took me seriously.

Of course, I also told them not to listen to anything ME said about A (the ME who used to work in my class and who could talk the bark off a tree) because she'd only ever seen him at his absolute, utter worst, and didn't understand the reasons behind his behavior, even then.  I also told them not to, under any circumstances ever, to have ME support A in class.

Ever.

Ever, ever, ever.

You know the sad part of all this?  Despite the havoc he can wreak when upset, A is a very cool little boy of whom I am very fond.  He's survived intra-uterine chemotherapy, a disease that killed 2 of his siblings, every infection known to man, and three -- three -- bone marrow transplants...the last of which being from a non-ideal donor.

It's a shame that his mom's reputation in the school district so colors people's opinion of him that someone would deliberately present their very good program in a bad light just to delay his coming to the school by a measly year.

In other news, I have an 8-year-old teenage girl in my class.  Yay me.

Permit me to elaborate.

J is a young lady with Down syndrome.  J is generally easy-going and agreeable, but can be mischievous and sometimes gets it in her head to...not be either.

Yesterday, after we finished News-2-You, we were to have our duly appointed Friday Catch Up Day.  That is, you look through your journal, your agenda book, and any other work we've done during the week, and finish anything that's not done.

J decided it would be more fun to climb around on our beanbags.

I redirected her.  I told her the consequences of listening to me (good ones) and of not (bad ones).  She eventually lost her green card and had to go sit by my desk and calm down.  She stuck her tongue out at me and kicked the wall.

Bye-bye yellow card.

She continued to kick the wall.  I employed my 3-2-1 warnings visual aid and she eventually got to the card that meant losing recess.

At which point she plants her feet on the ground, folds her arms defiantly over her chest, narrows her eyes and announces, "I call my mom!  I get recess!"

Ahem.

The saga continued over recess, but after recess when I engaged my own stubbornness and required that she did, in fact, write a letter to her mom explaining her actions (rather, she copied from a model which I then translated) and complete the work she'd missed before, she was appropriately contrite.

In fact, after she apologized to Miss J., she ran back to me with a huge relieved smile on her face and tried to hug me.

In other classroom drama, A hit Boy J twice yesterday; after losing his green card for retaliating Thursday, J showed remarkable restraint and simply howled for help.  He was prodigiously praised for that, and even earned an extra ticket for our principal's recess chart.  Given Boy J's personality, that was a huge display of self-restraint and self-control.

E. is still babbling away, repeating most everything she hears.  She even named the crayons she was using to color -- color! without throwing across the room! -- without prompting.  During News-2-You, she kept saying lunch, so I said, "E., you want lunch?  You must be hungry."

"Hungry," she repeated.  (I am not going to try to replicate her non-perfect pronunciation here.)

Later, unprompted, she said, "Lunch.  Hungry."   Complete with signs.

Whee!

Of course, she shut up like a clam when DFT came in...but I would expect nothing less.

All of this drama resulted in me sleeping like a rock for 12 hours, hence the lateness of the post.

Oh!  One other mind-blowing development.

During lunch, 2 of my aides thought it necessary to accompany the 2 remaining fourth graders to recess, leaving 4 fifth and sixth graders -- which included M and R! -- on their own for recess.  (Miss J had E with her while she supervised J.)

Not only did no one run up to me yelling "R licked me!  R licked me!" -- all four of them were quietly lined up on their appropriate spot when I went to pick the class up after recess.

All four of them.

I was so shocked that I completely forgot to mention to the aides involved that it probably hadn't been the wisest distribution of resources.

I was...flabbergasted (in a very good way) doesn't even cover it.

And the Verdict Is...

...There is no verdict.

E. was here today. Though she was obviously very happy to be at school -- she was gently hugging everybody and saying "kissies, kissies" (her speech has exploded, not that I can expect her to speak in front of D. or on command) -- she was also very obviously not in "school mode."

But...at this point last year, she barely interacted with anybody but me and thought she was supposed to be away from all the other kids, to the point that she would remove herself to a corner. :-( So that's progress.

Boy A. and J. got into a knock-down drag out fight today. For no reason that any of us could see, A. just hauled off and hit J., who hit back, causing A. to howl like a wounded moose.

A. promptly lost his "green card" for the day and sat in a corner wailing for 10 minutes (which made M. cry real tears, but which E. handled with unusual equanimity). Of course, I think I also made Miss J. mad; she was hugging J. and trying to console him, when I came back to him and made him take his green card off for hitting back.

She gave me a wounded look at that -- but J. is an "if you give an inch, he'll take a mile" kinda kid, and if he so much as suspects that I feel sympathy for him (I did), or that I feel that A. deserved what he got (he did), he'll take that as carte blanche to beat the bejeezus out of the guy on a daily basis.

New Girl and Princess have bonded; New Girl realized that Princess speaks Spanish (New Girl's English is not good, and I suspect that that has caused at least some of her academic problems...which people are supposed to account for when assessing for special ed, but whatever) and chatted happily with her several times a day. New Girl was also fascinated with E. and brought her her Charlie folder without even being asked.

She reminds me of Grepsie, a girl in Patrick's class when he was little.

Splitting the kids up for recess worked wonderfully; I can see the fifth-sixth playground from the staff room, and saw E. (a sixth grader with Down syndrome who's fully included) figuratively dragging R. around by the ear while he reveled in the attention. (I sense a crush developing, actually, based on how they interacted waiting for the bus yesterday.)

M. desperately, desperately, desperately needs her pressure vest; I hope the OTs come by soon. After dealing with E's mini-meltdown (Miss J. has forgotten not to give her lots of "E, that hurt, don't do that") I had to take her into the office to wait for the bus, just to get her away from all the stimulation.

Tomorrow is Home School A's IEP to officially make him a middle schooler...but it's not quite as set as I thought -- A's been fully included throughout his educational career, though since he's been at my school, he's had time in an SDC as a fall-back. I guess the idea this time is to put him on the SDC's caseload and gradually increase his time in general ed. Of all times to try to get that by his mom, this seems like a good time, because the teachers at VV are very inclusion-oriented anyway...but who knows?

I'll feel better, I think, when we settle fully into our routine; we've been making classroom stuff (a book about our class) all week, and still have to make our Anti-Cheating Devices before our practice spelling test tomorrow.

I'm still feeling guardedly positive -- I've been reminding myself that after last year, there was little choice but to sense drama this year, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near what it was when I had C. and A. and S. and R. and A. and C. and the rest of them all going insane at the same time, with C. in a corner howling and the other C and A running for the parking lot....

Day 1

As I told everyone who asked today (once I find a suitable answer to something, I tend to script...sorry), while this year's class does not quite evoke the relieved-and-blissful-sigh of last year, it also does not evoke the Oh My Frelling God What I Have I Done to Deserve This?!?!?! of the two years prior.

However...we will definitely have to work on proper "reading together" behavior. I am temporarily making News-2-You a small group activity to practice listening to each other read. The whole purpose of my whole group activities is to get them ready for middle school -- if they go to S., they will be expected to follow a rotating schedule within the SDC program just like all the other kids, and to attend to a lesson for 45 minutes. If they go to VV, they will be included in classes 45 minutes at a time.

Either way, they need to be able to sit quietly and attend for stretches of time. We will have to work on that.

Anyhow, E. was not in school today...she may be the tipping point, much as I love her, from "meh" to "aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!"

Either new Girl's IEP was a complete joke, or she suffers from new person anxiety to rival A's last year...she could barely read 10 words. Wow.

The adults were mostly okay -- I have to come up with an R. cheat sheet so people stop inadvertently reinforcing his...ahem...puberty-like behavior.

Of course, it was the first day, and there's a honeymoon and all that, so we'll see. As is my custom after the first day of school, I came home and crashed hard, then woke up and had some dinner. I'm now modifying News-2-You for next week...I'll have to do agenda books and journals tomorrow, because I have an IEP at 3:00 on Friday (yup, an IEP on the third day of school) to officially transfer A. to middle school.

So...in summation: the jury's still out. We shall see.

More Teaching Randomness

1. Home Teaching A will be going to middle school after all. I think this is a good choice for him because he's already a year older than his classmates (he must have been held back a year, or delayed beginning school due to his illness) and he would have been with kids 2 years younger than him if he stayed at our school.

2. This means E. will lose her chair. Good thing I bought the flourescent pink shirt.

3. The classroom is immaculate. This will last exactly 5 minutes, until the Hurricane Children blow through.

4. Homework is stapled and ready to go for next week -- but it may need modifications, depending on what A can really do (we all know IEPs lie sometimes).

5. R's mom ran into someone who badmouthed my classroom, and defended me. Yay. :-)

Erm. This should be obvious, but I mean the R. who is still here, not the R. who went to middle school -- 'cause, her defend me? Yeah, right.

6. R's mom is cool with him using some sort of assistive/augmentative communication. Speech-D will no doubt hem, haw, stall, and act like I'm crazy 'cause he can talk. Personally, I'd rather he use a device than spit on me out of frustration, but heck, maybe I'm just nuts.

7. My wrists hurt. I know I said that yesterday, but please allow me one whine.

8. I forgot to buy something for lunch tomorrow.

9. I need more word sized labels. By the time I get to Walmart, I will accidentally buy number-sized labels, just like the last 2 times I attempted that task.

10. Half of my word wall is still missing, but I found my cursive alphabet.

11. I got the kids' computers set up, and even convinced the touch screen to work with headphones for the first time.

12. I don't want to come up with answers to News-2-You's think page questions, hence the pointless blog post.

Note to self: (I can't email from this computer) E-mail M and tell her about the 25-user News-2-You license the middle school teacher at S. wrangled from the district. For that matter, email N at the other middle school too.

Teaching Randomness

In no particular order...

1. Sixth-grade girl A who I had last year will henceforth be referred to as "Princess." She is convinced she is one, and is treated like one at home. I considered several varieties of animals that attach themselves too you, in honor of the day she latched onto Cat and had to big wiggled off, but they all sounded gross.

2. Fourth-grade boy A will remain A unless I get another boy named A, or if the other A comes back from home teaching. At that point, I'll reconsider.

3. New-girl A's nickname is pending my actually meeting her, but for right now, she's NewA.

4. I went through a truly staggering amount of laminate the last couple of weeks. Plus, the two rolls of crunchy Velcro + one roll of soft Velcro I thought I ordered somehow became 3 rolls of crunchy Velcro.

5. E. may lose her chair, if Home Teaching A. goes to middle school like his mom wants. So, I bought a bright pink shirt and put it on the chair. While the chair is good for E's posture (she has really low tone...very common in kids with Down syndrome) I think it also helped her orient herself in space and find "her" chair. Hopefully she'll associate flourescent pink with "her" chair so that I can put it on a regular classroom chair if needed.

6. My staffing situation isn't as scary as I thought...only two new names on there, and one is a sub for T, who had surgery. S. is back from her surgery...so we'll see how rusty she is. There's one 15 minute portion of the day when I have three adults in my class! Besides me! (That's almost overkill and almost a bad thing, except that it makes it a perfect time for J. to take her lunch.)

7. My classroom is nearly done -- down to one table of clutter. Once I finish symbolifying our first poem, I've got the first week taken care of. Not as far ahead as I wanted to be, but oh well.

8. We had a (boring) PE training today that had even the general education teachers worried about injuries if we played the activities as described. Suffice it to say, E + touch football = badness...so it'll have to be modified. Oh well.

9. The text of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is done -- all 30 chapters! Yay! (That takes us right to Christm...err...winter break.) I haven't done questions or anything yet, because I can't quite predict what level of questions, etc., the class will actually need.

10. I started switchifying Charlie today (mostly for E, but M was beginning to read the words last year, and I hope that'll continue), and finished the About the Author and Pre-Writing sections. I also switchified our vocabulary practice for the next 2 weeks.

11. My wrists hurt. A lot. I've resisted it 'cause it's expensive, but it may be time to trade in my trusty Mircosoft Natural split keyboard -- which I've had since 1994...well, I've owned 2 of them over that time period, but they were identical -- for the (gulp) more expensive Kinesis keyboard.

12. Patrick is traumatized because he's convinced the book is called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because that was the name of the movie.

Also? Wank ensues in my family again...we think. No one really knows for sure.