When too much is enough

Nothing boils my blood faster than being across the meeting table from a woman who sits there with a perpetual frown. The lines are etched in her face. She has perfected the scowl. She flicks papers in an important way and clutches the pen she is holding, as though about to take note of something that irritates her. Her eyes are narrow, suspicious. She seems offended.

I hope I never become her.

She was a teacher. I don't know how she came to be the person that sits across from me now. The person who grimaces at the thought of a new student in her class. The person who whines, argues, complains....

Did she start out this way? Did she become a teacher knowing that she didn't really care about kids at all? Or was all of the passion bled from her in the continual fight to do her job ethically with no money, no supplies and no support to speak of? Did years of testing students who could barely read, on grade-level standards that held no meaning, grind the joy out of her? Did the continual complaints of parents, administrators, legislators and community members blind her to the sight of a child in need?

I can't help it. My blood is still boiling and it's not because I'm mad at whatever it is that has brought her to this. I'm mad at her. She's complaining about having a child in her class! He doesn't fit in, he's a nuisance, a disruption...unwelcome. Before he has even started working with her, he has been written off in such a way that he will never be able to learn from her. She doesn't want him there. He will know, even if she never actually says the words. And what will he learn from that? Where will he go, when this safe haven of education teaches him that being different means being unwelcome?

No, he doesn't really fit in my classroom, either. I'm happy to say that he's much too high-functioning for a program such as mine. He has a label that seems to fit. The Team has decided that he should be with me to learn some of the skills that he lacks. Perhaps they hope that there is something I can help him with. Perhaps they are looking for a place to dump him. It's not a perfect fit, and not by far the best that we can do for him.

But come Monday, he'll meet a smile at my door, or I don't deserve to be standing there.

New year, new adventures

Beth says that I will quickly make the word "adventure" synonymous with something akin to "catastrophe" but I can't help it. Life is an adventure, and the life of a Sped teacher is just too action-packed to be called anything else!

So, the new school year has begun. My assistant (and student teacher,) Mark, took the suddenly-open position of the ERR teacher in our severe/profound room. The teacher there (my replacement when I moved to WA, for those of you who follow my meanderings) took a job at an elementary school, and we all wish her the best. I think Mark will be an excellent replacement, and we already know we work well together. We both look forward to a program that is fluid, with lots of support and interaction between the kiddos.

I sent 8 of my cherubs to the high school last year, so my program is pretty depleted. Please, don't share this with the Powers That Be, but there are only 13 kids on my caseload at the moment!! I am, of course, providing services for some of Mark's kids (and he for some of mine) as well as some kids from the E/BD program, but it is a very light year, so far. (Knocks fervently on the nearest wooden bookshelf!)

I really like my schedule and my classroom, too. The room is probably the most open and functional I have ever had. There aren't too many congested areas, and it's clean. Again, so far. =)

This school year has come with a marked change for me--I am suddenly very organized! Several times, Beth (aka my brain) has reminded me to do something, only to find that I've already done it. I have taken attendance on time, kept up with faxes to independent service companies who pester me with requests for IEP's and eligibilities non-stop, called or emailed parents with updates, questions and schedule changes, helped Mark with some paperwork, and kept my desk fairly clean! I think this must be a symptom of my very calm outlook toward the year. It must be SOMETHING like that, right? Again...so far.

Other highlights--more students, teachers and parents have asked Beth and I if we are twins than have ever done so before. We are amused, and reckon we must be channelling some residual Weasley twin energy since our trip to Orlando.

Also, what about the open aide position (Mark's job) you ask? We did some interviews during the first week on duty, and settled on a woman who has lots of experience with kids, and a very open and positive attitude. She starts on Tuesday, and was so excited when we gave her the job that she almost cried, and swept both Beth and I into great hugs. I am hopeful, but more than that, ecstatic to be done with the sub we endured for the first week! (Some horrors cannot be described.)

So, keywords for the year so far: organized, promising, light, and as always, an adventure!

OINK

Six weeks in, time for a status update.

Total hours logged so far: 380
(This averages out to 14 hours per day.)

Total number of parents irked with me: 2
Total number of said parents threatening to sue the district: 0

Total number of administrators irked with me: 0
Total number of informal observations by said administrators: 3

Students added to my program since the first day of school: 7
Students dropped or moved away: 1

Number of students on my caseload: 16

IEP's out of compliance: 2
(I must add in my own defence that these came due this week and I have a GOOD excuse.)

Total number of sick days used so far: 4 (soon to be 7)

BECAUSE
I have the flu. Probably the new flu, which has two equally horrible names I'd rather not use. It is The Flu. And it's gross. And I shudder to think how much farther behind I will be/feel after a WHOLE WEEK away. However, I don't have any desire to go into my classroom as I normally would to have things ironclad for a sub because I do NOT want any of my kiddos getting this!

So, for six weeks in it's not perfect, but it's not bad!
And now, I'm going to go lay down.

Finnegan begin again....

"There was a man named Michael Finnegan,
He grew whiskers on his chin again,
He shaved 'em off, but they grew in again,
Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again."

Everything seems to go in circles. Cycles. A year ends, another begins. Finish to Start and back around. This is the theme of my mind's wanderings of late. Boomerang. I am back to where I started, and it feels very right to be here. I am welcomed with smiles and arms open (yes, and rolled eyes, but why not?)

My new school is my old school. I have a new room, with new furniture and old furniture. I have a new aide and an old one. I have familiar students, and unfamiliar ones. People to say "Nice to meet you" to, and others to whom I can say, "It's nice to see you again."

I have new ideas, also. Mixed with the freedom to exercise my old ideas, I don't want to let go of the new thinking. I want to push myself a bit harder, expect more and do more. Demand excellence of myself, that I might in turn coax it from others.

I'm excited about the new school year. This is a cycle, also. Teachers generally begin the new year excited and in a state of high anticipation. By October or so, the shine wears off a little, and we lose impetus around December, when we glide greatfully into Winter Break. Winters are often low and somewhat disillusioned, but with lengthening days, more direct sunlight and warm thermals come new ideas and plans, hope and challenge. We know what this year has brought, and we are already looking toward next, without quite relinquishing our hold on this one. By June, we release, and hold out our hands for the next year. New, yet old. Boomerang!

I am also oddly calm about this year. I generally get all worked up, wanting things to be perfect and smooth from day one, working myself into a frenzy just to be frustrated by imperfection. I already know the flight will wobble, I will be tested and tried and may even crash and burn. No matter what happens, however, I know I'll be back again next year and anticipating the flight.

Because it's flight! Wobbly or smooth, high or low, it is miraculous motion! It is learning, teaching, laughing, crying, worrying and hoping. It is loving a handful of kids who were made perfectly imperfect, and hoping to teach them a little of the joy of flight until they take off themselves.

Circles, cycles...round and around....
And so it begins again....

Feeling the love

You know, so many people get instantly angry, hurt, offended and worried when something like this happens. I'm probably NOT normal (but then who thought I was?) but my first thought was "HA! Looks like someone was busy last night!" I don't know why, but I find it perversely amusing how some people choose to waste their time.

On the other hand, it really upset the operation of my classroom that morning. The grumpy district painters were out trying to cover it up with beige paint, in the rain, which of course had no effect whatsoever on the dark blue and brown lettering. By the end of the day, we could still read the writing, and suddenly had to walk carefully around the puddles of beige all over the grass, and try not to brush against the beige-smeared walls.

My kids, luckily, didn't recognize most of the gang references (nor did I in point of fact, though the adults pointed them out to me,) but they have no problem recognizing the very clear four-letter words, and they spent the majority of the morning asking who had done it, why someone had done it, and if the people responsible were going to get into trouble. None of them said they felt personally targeted, but it must have been an odd sensation to walk past the angry writing all day.

I, too, wonder who it was. I wonder why they chose our school (it wasn't done just on the portable--it was all over the outer walls of the gym and cafeteria.) I wonder if it was just anger in search of a blank canvass, or if the message was intended for our school in particular. Did the taggers want to send messages to public schools or teachers? If so, what on Earth could we have done to these poor people to have engendered such rage? (I have theories, of course. *coughWASLcough*)

In the end, I hope it was just kids with too much time on their hands and enough spare change for some spray paint. I hope it wasn't a kid who "fell through the cracks." Because I've got a lot of those in my room every day, and I see the frustration there sometimes. I just hope I never notice blue fingertips.

SPECIAL Education

A few days ago, while working on a math problem, one of my kiddos looked up at me and said, "Who invented numbers?" I told him I didn't know. He then asked, "How did they know how to make them look right? You know, a one looks like just one of something, and a two kind of looks like it's two things. How did they do that?" I wanted to hug him!

This week, while reading an article about IFO's (Identified Flying Objects) my students ran across the term "lenticular clouds" and chose it as a vocabulary word. While completing a Frayer model wherein they had to explain what the object was NOT, they wrote "It's not a UFO." I wanted to cheer!

Two days ago, I wrote an IEP for a student who is qualified (to my intense horror) as "Mentally Retarded." I then got to tell her mother that I was advancing her to the higher-level reading class because she was making such great growth. I wanted to burst with pride.

Last week, I called a parent to give her a good report about her son's behaviour in my class. She laughed a little, then in a very thick voice said, "I used to hold my breath when I saw it was the school calling, thinking 'what did he do this time?' Thank you so much." I wanted to cry.

Yesterday, a student of mine received a certificate for getting a "Pride" card. (This is a way to reward random acts of kindness and positive behaviour in our school.) While holding the orange certificate over her head for all to see, she proudly announced, "It's my first one!!" I had to smile.

A few weeks ago, a very shy, socially immature young man came into class. Unprepared as usual, he fished around in my "Borrow Me" box until he found a pencil. The pencil he lifted out was violently pink, with sparkly hearts all over it. He looked at the pencil for a moment, then looked at me and said "Well, if that isn't the manliest pencil I ever saw!" With that he heaved a resigned sigh and went to his desk. I laughed so hard I almost couldn't breathe. (He brought his own pencil the next day.)

Today, the bell rang at the end of a period, and one of my students looked up and said "It's time to go already?" I told him it was okay, he would be back tomorrow. I will be, too.

This is why.

Improvement

I must apologize to my avid readers for my long absence from the blog spot, but the holidays came along and comandeered all of my "spare" time. The three snow days we enjoyed in there were a beautifully timed blessing, and the two weeks of Winter Break could not have been more welcome.

But, school is back in session and the stories just keep getting better!

The post-holiday rainstorms that flooded much of the southern part of King County also took their toll on my portable. The water seeped in under the off-kilter door, all the way to my desk, where it spoiled just a few of the books I had stacked on the floor there. *sigh* At last, the work order that our custodian put in weeks before the break was filled and a gentleman with a large white truck and huge pliers came out to fix the door. It took him all of five minutes. We haven't had enough rain to really put the seal to the test, but I'm hoping that our flooding problem will be solved at last (although I do still worry about the dry-rot that MUST be going on under there!)

The improvements to the overall structure of my portable are not the only changes being made around my school, I can assure you! On the contrary, the structural improvments are merely an aside to the total overhaul going on with one formerly-talented and prized Special Education teacher! Can you guess who I mean?

Apparently, a Master's degree in Special Education, five years of experience in Idaho, numerous professional development classes and rave reviews from everyone I've ever worked with, or for, carry little or no weight in this district. And so, hence cometh the Plan of Improvement. A four-page document of the things I am NOT doing was given to me just prior to the holiday break. (Merry Christmas!) Naturally, very little has accompanied it as to HOW these things I am currently not doing should be done in a classroom such as mine. And of course, the Plan was not couched in the terms typically used by those in the educational field (i.e. "You're doing great in these areas, but we need to work on these things....") but rather, it was a laundry list of "you really should know all this" and "we are concerned that these things are not apparent in your classroom" or, my personal favourite "your expectations seem to be extremely low, and you create activities designed to keep your students performing at a very low level." And, curiously, nothing in the plan indicated that I was teaching a special needs class.

Now, I don't want to seem...conceited or superior here, but last time I checked, special education teachers were in some level of demand. In fact, we in the profession could easily find work in just about any district in any state in the country. So it does seem...confusing that this particular district does so little to retain the few teachers it's managed to attract. I have an inkling that it may not be a district-wide mentality, but it is certainly in evidence at my school, which is even more of a contradiction, as they went the entirety of last school year with a special education position open! A situation which they seem determined to repeat.

So, my Plan. "Improvement" seems to mean, in large part, "prepare students for state tests so high above their instructional level that you can guarantee serious classroom management issues for an entire month as the students attempt to take them." Improvement also means, near as I can tell, the flagrant diregard of all of the issues that put students in the category of "special needs" in the first place. I am, it seems, not supposed to use the IEP to design instruction. Nor am I supposed to use special education evaluation information to determine the students' areas of need. (I'm supposed to use those tests--remember, the ones they can't even read? Yes, those are the tools by which I am to determine what students are and are not capable of.) I am supposed to...streamline...goals and objectives. (Translated: make them all the same.) So, the GEP--it can't really be called an "I"EP if it's not Individualized, can it?--is merely a pile of paperwork that I must by all means keep current and compliant just so it can sit in the back of a file cabinet being current, compliant and completely useless.

I'm not sure I care to improve this much.

Attempting to embrace moments in life like this as learning opportunities, however, I have been trying to learn how to plan like a general education professional. My activities are not individualized at all, but rather, differentiated. I am not doing anything that might be accessible to kinesthetic, visual or artistic learners because, and I have to quote this, "You aren't an art teacher!" I am not teaching life skills, I am teaching reading, writing and math.

I am not teaching students, I'm teaching standards.

They keep using this word "improvement." I do not think it means what they think it means.