Search results matching tags 'classroom management' and 'unhappy'

Friday: blood

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:01:05 GMT

So Titch kicked a little boy with Down’s Syndrome in the face and knocked out his tooth. Apparently there was blood everywhere.

We were on the playground, and I was trying to gather my goslings to line up and get ready to go home, and Titch — the line leader — was missing. Miss Slinger found him and brought him in, and then next thing I know, Titch’s dad is there, calm but upset, telling me what Titch had done.

Titch’s dad works at my school, and was responsible for the little boy whose tooth his own son kicked out. How’s that for complicated? After I sent the kids home on the bus, Titch’s dad and I went to talk to the assistant principal and I had to recommend suspension. Titch’s dad understood, and then I emailed Titch’s mom at work, and she called immediately.

Titch’s parents are getting divorced — painfully — and the stress is clearly finally getting to him. What happened today was the culmination of a difficult, and slightly violent, week for him. (Choking Harold in the bathroom, hitting Harold at gym class, poking Owen and Ferdinand during meeting, kicking Leo, etc.)

The hard thing is that his face looks happy and calm. He shows no signs of remorse or concern. “I was on the climber and he was on the ladder coming up and I didn’t want him up there so I kicked him in the face” as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I started my weekend feeling so tense and upset and sad for Titch and his family.

bus behavior

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:05:39 GMT

So…I get to school this morning after not being able to request a sub, and get a note from the district transportation office saying that on the way home Tuesday, my babies were HORRIBLE.

Apparently they were running around the bus and fighting and ignoring the driver completely. She had to pull over to the side of the road three times, to no avail.

Then I get to my room and there’s an angry grandma. Her grandson was hit and punched by “four Mexican boys” and what am I gonna do about it?! Somehow I managed to talk her down. I reassured her, and told her I, too, was appalled to hear about the behavior on the bus, and that I would take care of it. I also told her all the steps I’d be taking. (I also mentioned that I know who the likely worst culprits are, and some of them are not Hispanic, and some of them are not boys.) She left mollified, thank goodness.

Step one: write a letter to the parents describing the behavior and asking their help in teaching the children the importance of bus safety.

Step two: get the letter translated (THANK you Rita!).

Step three: ask the behavior lady to come to my class to talk about bus safety, and how riding the bus is a privilege, not a right. (She was great. The kids listened really seriously.)

Step four: send home my letter, and walk the kids to the bus, and assign each one a seat. Have them apologize to the driver (she’s new, which could be part of the problem) and go over the rules one more time.

I really hope I hear good things about the bus ride when I talk to the driver tomorrow!

in a tough situation

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:29:03 GMT

Today was a really hard day. The kind of day where you have a confrontation with a coworker and feel shaky and ache-y in your bones the rest of the day. I’m having a glass of wine and writing to try to unwind and stop feeling so awful.

I haven’t blogged about my team much. I have never really written about my assistant teacher, who was new in the fall and has become a wonderful friend. She’s also a wonderful assistant teacher. Let’s call her Miss Slinger, after Mr. Slinger, the wonderful teacher in Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse. Miss Slinger was not the issue today (she’s never an issue!), but I just wanted to mention something positive. Sometimes I’ll ask her to do something in passing, and then before I know it, it’s done. Those days, I call her Super Slinger. I get to work with Miss Slinger every day, and that is a really good thing.

There’s also Amelia Bedelia, our special ed assistant teacher. She’s only in our room on Mondays and Fridays, but those days are always good. She’s great with the kids and really fun to work with. So I get to work with Amelia Bedelia, and I’m lucky there, too.

Then there’s Miss Nelson, the special ed teacher who works on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays with my four special ed students. She’s a very good person, very caring, and extremely conscientious. She’s also overworked, possibly overwhelmed, and fairly tightly-wound. Her style of teaching is quite different from mine, and I think it has been hard for her being in my room, and not being the teacher in charge.

One student in particular is a problem where Miss Nelson is concerned, because he behaves differently for her than he does for Amelia, Miss Slinger, or me. Miss Nelson has low expectations for him (without meaning to, but he’s got a disability, you know), and he exploits that and manipulates her. When she’s not with us, he is part of the class and he does pretty well. When she’s in the room, he’s rolling on floors and tables and running out the door, laughing.

I talked frankly to her this morning about how I’d like to change the way things are going for this child. There was a power struggle with him later in the morning, and she stepped back, so I stepped in, and I took his hand and firmly brought him back to the group. I held his hand and brought him all the way down the stairs.

Here’s the email she sent me today, with names changed:

Hello Kiri,
It is with great regret that I tell you that I felt the need to share with R______, K_____and the Prince, the incident this morning with X_____ on the stairs coming back from Art. I was disturbed by the use of an arm pull down the stairs that was used to promote his compliance.
Please understand that I have great respect for your skill as a teacher, but I believe that a child with a disability needs to be handled differently than a typically developing child. I hope that by working together to combine our own teaching styles and support the best interests of special education children, we can talk through this situation, put it behind us and move forward.

Sincerely,

Miss Nelson

Here’s the email that I drafted in response:

Miss Nelson,

It’s okay, I understand your concern. And I am sorry to have upset you. However, I think that you may be blowing this incident out of proportion. I never yanked on X____’s arm, and I never pulled hard. I didn’t hurt X_____, and the end result was that he came back to the line and rejoined the class. (I’m very happy to speak to K____, who is expert in these matters, about how to handle this sort of situation in the future.) Having rejoined the line, X____ participated for most of the morning and had a good, happy day. It was wonderful that he chose the art center, and that he made some progress on learning how to use scissors. Had he been allowed to continue to refuse to participate, as has happened many times before, we would have lost him for the rest of the morning, as has happened many times before.

I hope you understand that I am not advocating for treating X____ exactly like any other student, all the time. I am, however, advocating for having high expectations for him so that he has the opportunity to succeed. He is, after all, in our class to be mainstreamed. Rather than say from the start, “he can’t do this, it’s too much for him,” and not even try to have him do things with us, I’d like to start with the expectation that he will be a part of all that we do, and then make adjustments as necessary.
I am looking forward to our meeting with R____ and K____ on Thursday, and want to let you know that the Prince will be there as well. I hope that the two end results will be that X____ starts to be fully integrated and really successful in the classroom, and also that the two of us will improve our teamwork and partnership, with a strong sense of shared purpose and trust on both ends.

Kiri

I probably won’t send it. I’ll send her a brief, edited version.

The good news is that I called the Prince at home, where he was trying to make burritos, and he gave me his full support.

Now I just have to make it through this big meeting on Thursday.

student in free fall

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:57:16 GMT

I visited a second grade classroom, and a boy I remember from my visits to first grade last year was there. I was shocked by his deterioration.

Last year he had an attitude, and sometimes didn’t pay attention, but he was clearly smart and he eventually did his work. No big deal. Yesterday was different — he had somehow lost control of himself and his body. He couldn’t sit still, so I sat behind him and touched his back gently, and whispered his name. With most kids that would work but it seemed to rile him up more. Soon he was leaning on the kid next to him or flopping on the floor, instead of sitting up in the circle. I eventually moved away as it seemed I might be making things worse.

The poor teacher was trying to give directions for the math activity but I never once saw this boy look at her or give any indication that he heard a word she said. He made his hands into guns and “shot” the kids around him. He was in his own world.

Then an older woman I realized was his grandma stepped up, and she tried and tried to get him to pay attention. She was whispering to him lovingly and even guided his head so he’d be facing the teacher, and she didn’t have any luck either. It was almost like listening or focusing was beyond his abilities.

Later, she sat next to him to do the activity, and instead of listening, he built guns out of manipulatives. It was like someone had shot him up with ADHD poison, and he was completely lost in his own hyperactive world. I mean, it looked like he couldn’t even look at grandma and have a conversation with her.

It made me so sad for the rest of the day.

Wahhhh!

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:14:22 GMT

Alas, it was another difficult morning.

Most of the hour I had before school started I was at a tech meeting in the computer lab, where we learned how to do a behavior screener on each child. I got all mine done — which was good — but only with lots of technical glitches, which was not so good. Everyone on the staff is frustrated, because the tech people at the district level instituted a lot of changes which have made using our computers an exercise in frustration, or even rage. I doubt that the district techies made the changes in order to make our lives harder, but that is the end result, and they have been ignoring our media specialist, who keeps going to them with all the problems we’re having.

One teacher stood up and made an impassioned plea to all of us to document our struggles in letter form, and turn them in for the media specialist to take to her meeting at the district level later this week. Hooray! So even though I had a ton to do back in my room, I sat down and wrote furiously.

I was finishing up my letter when an assistant teacher came in with his son, whose first day was today. I greeted them warmly, but I was thinking, “Ack! I’ve only got ten minutes before I have to open the door!” I asked them if they wouldn’t mind waiting in the hall, and then ran around the room setting out journals and pencils and crayons.

Arrival time went fine, although the new boy was confused and needed my help to figure out our routines, and one boy was back after a week’s absence and didn’t know about the journals. (He was out recovering from having his appendix removed. His sister brought him to me, showed me the bandage on his abdomen, and said, “nobody can punch him in the stomach,” and I said, “of course not,” but inside I was thinking, “how am I going to keep this kid safe?!”)

About five kids were wearing red for our celebration of Red Day, which was kind of disappointing. I think a lot of the parents are not reading my newsletter. Perhaps they don’t even open the folder!

We got to gym class no problem, and I had my appendicitis boy sit out so he wouldn’t get hurt, then went to find a translator to explain to him that he was NOT in trouble, we were just trying to keep him safe.

Most of my prep time I spent in the kindergarten room next door, in my role as a teacher mentor, because the K teacher had asked me to come observe the behavior in her room and help her figure out how to manage it better. I took diligent notes but while I was there her class was very well behaved and she did a terrific job leading them through calendar time and through a story.

When I picked up the class from gym Nan told me that it had gone really well and that everyone had been good. That did not last, unfortunately.

Back in the room I tried to get them excited about red day, and showed them all sorts of red things I own because red is my favorite color, but David said, “why are you being all silly?” and none of the class seemed all that engaged. Then when Nan was going to set up centers for me, David grabbed my stuff, ripped some papers, and then headed out the door at top speed, punching Max in the face on the way. So Nan was gone, and I was on my own, trying to explain the different color-themed centers, set them up, and help the children choose and put their clothespins in the right places on the pocket chart.

Max went to house corner, where he, Trixie, and another boy and girl all started fighting and tussling over baby dolls and dinner plates, and all ended up having to leave. Then Max chose blocks, but wouldn’t actually go there, and kept asking the little boy, “where do you want to go? Do you want to go to blocks with me?” The boy clearly didn’t want to be with Max anymore, but I couldn’t get Max to get started on the blocks so the boy could decide where to go next. Next thing I knew, Max and the boy and Trixie were all fighting over clothespins, and Max was pushing them and knocked down the centers pocket chart.

I put him in time out but he started screaming “I want to go to blocks!” and tried to hit, kick, and scratch me. He succeeded in drawing blood on my forearm.

The new boy kept switching centers without moving his clothespin, so I tried to help him, but he didn’t get it. He went over to the puzzle shelf and knocked over five puzzles, whether on purpose or by accident, I couldn’t tell. I spent a long time on the floor trying to put the puzzles back together, during which time Nan returned with a calm David (who started working on our red collage in art), and went out with a still-screaming Max. While she was in the hall he ripped down a poster, scratched her arm and drew blood, and kicked her in the shin so hard he broke the skin.

I could tell we wouldn’t have time for recess, so I started clean-up time, which made Max out in the hall scream louder than ever. Finally, everyone sat down, and Max returned calm (Nan is still a miracle worker), and I read Red Is Best, a great story about a little girl who feels the same way I do about the color red. But only part way through David suddenly punched the boy next to him and ran out of the room….

…And no, there wasn’t any time during the morning when I felt that things were going well.

day 6, treading water

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:19:34 GMT

Here’s the text of the email I sent my husband today, after I sent my kiddos home:

When is this going to get easier? I feel like I’m just barely treading
water. I thought I was supposed to be a good teacher, and I don’t feel
like it!

David threw things across the room today, threw a block at me, kicked
me, kicked our volunteer, pinched a little boy in line, knocked over a
bunch of stuff belonging to the office, ran to the 3rd floor, punched
Miss Nelson numerous times, and used some really choice language.

But in between, he was playing, working, laughing, participating, saying
please, listening, and being happy.

Miss Nelson said she thinks he’s overwhelmed by his feelings, and can’t name
any of them — happy or sad — and doesn’t know how to cope, so this is
what he does.

I’m at home now, and I’m drained of energy. I need to switch to Mom mode — I’m meeting with one child’s teacher, then bringing my kids home, giving them snack, getting the older one to violin, doing laundry, making dinner, going back to their school for parent night…..My teacher self is exhausting my mother self.

I can’t wait until October. Surely by then I’ll be in my groove?

ahh, summer

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:48:12 GMT

Things are looking up. Finally. After my not-so-great last day of school, I had a not-so-great last day for teachers. My children came to work with me, and I thought they might be helpful, but instead they were bored and underfoot. I tried to keep them busy and slogged away at taking things down, cleaning, organizing, [...]