Elizabeth

This afternoon I submitted my letter of resignation, effective June 1.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

We knew as we watched him get off the bus that his day was already on that slippery downhill slope; his body was in constant motion, feet moonwalking, arms gyrating, lips moving as he belted out the words to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Mania had a firm grip on his shirt collar and we were all in for a good shaking that day.

In my developmental classroom Fridays are meant to be that day that we unwind from the rigors of the week. We spend the first hour of the day wrapping up the business of the week -- quick assessments of progress towards meeting IEP goals. This particular morning the students were expected to complete independent work at their workstations while awaiting their turn for spelling and dictation assessments at the computer. He balanced his chair on two legs, occasionally 1, complaining loudly, "Mrs. W, why do I have to do this stupid work?"  When it was his turn to work with me at the computer, he came bouncing over, sat down a moment then jumped up and spat something into a nearby wastebasket. I'd remember that event several hours later. Of the 4 students taking spelling tests that morning, he was the only one to spell each of his words correctly (hurray!) and the only one to type his dictation sentences with all the words run together iamafraidofthedark, iputmytoysaway, mydadsaidno, icancatchtheball, westandforthepledge, ialwaystrytodomybest, didyouaskforacookie, iateallmydinnerlastnight -- his mind was racing as fast as his body. I went to his desk to check the status of his independent work and it was there I discovered THE PENCIL, gnawed into 2 pieces with the pink eraser scattered in crumbs across the floor. Aha, I thought; he was chewing a bit of eraser and spit it out, knowing that he would be in trouble. Destruction of work materials is one of the behaviors which earns him a pass to the PASS room (a very structured, more restrictive environment than my developmental classroom; so, off he went.

It was about 2 hours later, as we sat in the cafeteria eating lunch, that a scary thought crossed my mind -- where was the silvery band that cupped the pink eraser to the end of the yellow pencil? I returned to the classroom and began to sift through the several wastebaskets scattered around the room. No, not in the basket by his desk, but YES, nestled in the wads of discarded tissue in the wastebasket near the computer was a small piece of crushed metal, molar stamped and crumbling. It was the band of metal that held that pink eraser to the yellow pencil. I carried the evidence to the PASS teacher and discussed with him my concerns that perhaps he had cut his mouth or swallowed some of the metal that would later irritate his intestines. The nurse came and examined his mouth and tongue; she collected the remnants of the chewed pencil and metal band and placed them in a small plastic bag and left to call his mother. In the midst of singing, "So, you've had a bad day," he stopped. A look of panic crossed his face and he whispered, "Can I go to the nurse? I have to know, did I break my testicles?"

So what does a gnawed pencil and chewed metal eraser band have to do with mammaries and ovaries you ask? I have three girls in my classroom this year.  One of them has developed a phobia about one of my classroom assistants who is rather well-endowed, if you get my drift. This particular young lady glances at the assistant and then immediately cups her hands under her own small breasts and pushes them up. Just several weeks ago, this assistant was her favorite person in the classroom and now she cannot and will not come near her. This same child will not look at her own face in a mirror, but has begun to search the room for reflective surfaces where she can catch glimpses of her chest. So, with him (he of the "broken testicles) absent from the classroom, it seemed to be the perfect time for "The Girl Talk." We sat around the table and talked about how when we become teenagers our bodies change, we grow hair in private places, we begin to have funny feelings in our private parts and we begin to grow breasts and they might hurt sometimes or feel funny but it's not okay to touch them at school, we start having periods when blood will come from our bodies, but it's okay, it's happened to me and to my assistants and their own mothers and will happen to all of their girlfriends too, that growing up to be a woman is cool. And what do you think was the one thing they really wanted to know about all of this  -- will HE (of the broken testicles) have periods too.

Nine years ago this precious child walked through the doors of my classroom and into my heart. Yesterday I learned that sometime during the night he had walked into the arms of God. Rest in peace, Chris. I love you.

There was a time I began each day by reading Live Journal, and yet today I cannot remember the last time I checked in. I had been blogging about events in my life as a teacher of individuals on the autism spectrum. I'm still that teacher; I still have awesome students and fun-filled days, but I just haven't been able to make myself tell the stories. I was blogging about books I read, but I haven't been reading much. I had been photo blogging on another site, and then I quit taking pictures. My creativity seems to be entangled in some type of mental Sargasso Sea.

I am not depressed; I am not ill. I am ...?

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

 While students aren't due back in school until August 22, teachers report back to work today in the Klein Independent School District.

My "regular ed" teacher friends  are concerned about their class sizes; since the state drastically cut funding to schools, average middle and high school classes are expected to be have at least 30 -32 students. Along with increased class size and reduction in budgets, the state also is beginning a new student assessment system, STAAR., which is said to be far more rigorous than the old TAKS tests.  

My "special ed" teacher friends, especially the elementary teachers, are worried too; at the elementary level, paraprofessional staff has been cut and most teachers now have only 1 assistant in the classroom. Itinerate  services staff have been reduced also, so middle school campuses will lose music therapy,  and participation in adaptive P.E. will be limited. 

As for me and my classroom, my support assistants and I are anticipating a pretty good year. Right now our roster has only 6 students, half of them are GIRLS! It should be a fun year. I'll keep you posted!

Last week my son called to say that he and his wife were at the hospital where she had just been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia; the preliminary plan was to induce labor within the next few hours. The baby was near 36 weeks gestational age, so she would have been a tiny bit premature.

My oldest granddaughter, the amazing Miss M.,  had been calling her Uncle P. several times a day requesting hints for solving a particularly troublesome quest in one of the video games that both she and her uncle had been playing. Her mother told her that she should not call  for the next several days because Aunt J. was sick and Uncle P.  was worried about her and the baby who might be born early.
 

The Amazing Miss M had herself been a micro-preemie, born at 26 weeks gestational age, weighing 2 pounds, 2 ounces. She suffered a venticular brain hemmoragh  and throughout her 6 month stay in the neo-natal intensive care unit many other of the complications of prematurity. She developed hydrocephalus and a seizure disorder and has experienced some developmental delays and autism.
 

After hearing about her aunt's condition, she became very quiet and then asked, "The baby's not going to be like me, is she?"

Miss M., NO ONE will ever be quite as awesome as you.




 

 

Back on March 25th I wrote about a community service project that my students with autism and other developmental disabilities were going to undertake -- collecting socks to send to survivors of the earthquakes/tsunami in Japan. I promised an update, which has been long in coming but surely worth the wait.

When I approached the principal of our school with my idea, she issued a challenge to the students and staff -- if we all donated just 1 pair of socks to Socks for Japan, we could provide comfort and support to 1,300 survivors. I thought she was perhaps being a little overly optimistic; we expected 500 pairs of socks, tops. We made posters and collection boxes and placed them in strategic places around the school and waited. At the end of school on the first day of the drive, the students emptied the collection boxes and were excited to receive 225 pairs -- hmm, maybe we would reach Mrs. Bourgeois' goal. On Tuesday there were only 110 pairs; Wednesday brought us to 575 total. My personal goal had been met, but we were still less than halfway to Mrs. Bourgeois' goal and we had only 2 days left in our collection effort. And then we began to hear rumors -- a science teacher was selling donuts at morning pre-school tutoring sessions to raise money for Socks for Japan, an English teacher was offering homework passes for socks and zip-lock plastic bags, a social studies teacher was offering a pizza party lunch for the class that brought in the most pairs of new socks, cash donations were being made to help defray shipping costs, friends of staff members were donating socks. By Friday morning, we had received 1500 pairs of socks.



  

Here we are with just some of the socks that had been collected. And then, on the last day of the collection drive, I received a call back in the classroom telling me that I needed to bring the students to the front office to assist in moving 1,000 pairs of socks that had just been dropped off by the mother of a Kleb student (her daughter's social studies class won the pizza party!). By the end of our week-long collection drive, we had received 2,751 pairs of socks!

We had planned this project so that  packaging would be done during the two days that 8th graders at our school would be taking state-mandated tests, a time during which we attempt to keep things quiet and tantrum-free in our classroom. And, really, we had planned this packing project thinking we would only need to package 500 pairs of socks. 2,751 pairs of socks, each pair individually packaged with a picture and note, packed into shipping boxes. What had we been thinking? This was no 2-day packing project. Forget keeping the kids tantrum-free for 2 days; this part of our project was going to take my small class at least a month to complete. The Career Connections teacher, Kate Beizer (thank you, Kate) came to our rescue; and on the two testing days, neuro-typical kids came to our classroom to help package socks. It was an eye-opening experience for Mrs. Beizer's students who returned to their class with a new respect for "those" kids. (I would include a picture but I don't have parental permission to use their pictures; I do have permission to use pictures of my students). 

Two thousand seven hundred fifty one zip lock bags each containing 1 pair of socks and a picture and note were packed into 8 shipping boxes, each weighing between 35 and 45 pounds. At the end of the first week, 5 of the shipping boxes were stowed in the bed of my cherry red pick-up truck and were driven to the local post office where I discovered just how heavy those boxes actually were. Fortunately I also discovered chivalry is not dead -- male patrons of the post office were eager to help carry boxes in and stack them at the counter (unfortunately they were no longer in line by the time I had completed all the customs paperwork and I had to lift those boxes up onto the counter by myself -- I am a lot stronger than I thought I was). $975 later those 5 boxes were stamped and on their way to Japan.  The next week, we had two more boxes packed and ready ($350 to ship these 2 boxes). We completed packing early in the third week. This box was smaller and we decided to walk it to the post office so the students would be involved in the posting process also. So, we secured it to a rolling cart, hoofed it to the post office where we paid another $150 for postage,  then to the ice cream shop up the street where we all enjoyed root beer floats as a reward for our hard work.

Last week we received an email from Jason Kelly (www.jasonkelly.com) telling us he had received our socks and giving us a link to his blog update where we saw this: 
(the woman is holding a bag of our socks in her right hand) and this:

jasonkelly.com/helpjapan/
1.Spring has come to Spring, Texas.  
The weather forecast is for temperatures 5 to 10 degrees above normal and not much rain. We have already turned on the AC and the sprinkler system.

2. Jim and I spent last week on a road trip to California. I am still puzzling over this:

3. March is a bittersweet month for me. My older daughter and her husband both celebrate birthdays in March (the 10th and the 17th). Their first daughter (our first granddaughter) was born March 13 and died nine days later. She would have been 20 this year. My heart still hurts when I think of her.

4. ARDs are finished for the year, TAKS-Alt testing is finished for the year. We have only 9 more weeks of school. Am I counting? YES

5. After viewing pictures of the destruction following the Japan earthquake/tsunami, my students decided to sponsor  a Socks for Japan ( jasonkelly.com/helpjapan/) at our school.  We are hoping to collect over 1000 pairs of new socks to send to Japan.  
l'll keep you posted.

Earlier today I watched a replay of Jon Stewart's  response to the Fox News diatribe against teachers. To be truly fair, I must admit that I did not see the Fox News item, only the clips that Jon Stewart chose to include in his monologue; those clips (available here tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/jon-stewart-nails-fox-news-hypocrisy-on-teachers-vs-wall-street-pay-levels.php)
sickened me.  

This idea that teachers are overpaid and should sacrifice some of their salary for the sake of our country's economy, because, after all,  they only work 9 months of the year, infuriates me. As a teacher, I bring home work every evening, I work Saturdays and Sundays, I attend professional development workshops throughout my 3-month summer vacation. In the past month I have spent over $200 on printer ink alone as I developed materials to be used in my special needs classroom; the brain likes color, but my school does not provide color printing because it  is too expensive. Never mind the fact that students enrolled in the regular education curriculum are provided with a home set and a classroom set of three-color textbooks and workbooks that accompany the textbooks. Never mind the fact that I spend over $100 a month purchasing  grocery items to be used in life skills cooking activities. Never mind that professional development hours are required to maintain state certification standards but registration fees are rarely reimbursed.

Show me the Wall Street banker who would walk into my special needs classroom everyday with a smile on his face, knowing that he most likely will be hit, kicked, bit, spit on, his hair pulled out by the roots; and best of all, earn less than $50,000 a year for all that fun.

Teachers have no value in today's American culture, and so I debate, to be a teacher, or not to be a teacher. That is my question.