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Category Archives: Trouble
student and teacher meltdowns
From Sarah over on Confessions. I’m having a hard time teaching in the morning. And by that I mean I have a collection of behavior issues in my first grade group that, when thrown in and mixed together, becomes this … Continue reading
Posted in Stress Oh Yes, teaching, Trouble
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Beat up by a nine year old
From Sarah over on Confessions. It took seven years to happen, but it finally did: I was hit by a student. Repeatedly.It was last week and Marta was not paying attention to social studies. I was in there for forty … Continue reading
no laughing matter
From Sarah over on Confessions. It was the end of a particularly bad day for Tammy. She had been defiant, she had been out of her seat more than not, and she stuck out her tongue at her classroom teacher.At … Continue reading
Posted in Classroom Life, teaching, Trouble
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Father knows best
From Sarah over on Confessions. There’s a first grader I work with in the general education setting. Let’s call him “Doug”. He is highly distractable and often impulsive. On Thursday, though, he decided to add shouting and outright defiance to … Continue reading
Posted in Classroom Life, teaching, Trouble
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shame… shame on me
From Sarah over on Confessions. There are two kinds of teachers in this world: those who send their students to the nurse for every little scrape and boo-boo, and those who downplay everything and make the kids tough it out.I’m of … Continue reading
Posted in Classroom Life, Trouble
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he’s baaaaaaaaaaaaack
If you’ve been with me long enough, you’ll remember “Jose”. He was the fourth grader who drove me (and countless other teachers) wild with rage and brought me to my knees in tears last year.You might also remember that after much drama and to-do, we FI… Continue reading
Posted in Gripe, School Policy, Trouble
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Going down in flames
Yesterday, we had a practice fire drill. Two things bothered me about this:
1. It was 29 degrees outside. Why couldn’t they have waited for a warmer day?!!?
2. The fire drill doesn’t go off in the portables.
Yes, you heard that right. The portables that I teach in — the portables with three classrooms full of DEAF KIDS — aren’t connected to the fire drill. Each room even has a bright red bulb above the doorway, and the blinking red light didn’t even go off during the fire drill!
So the only chance we have to save ourselves from a fire is if we glance out the tiny window and happen to notice a mass exodus of kids and teachers onto the field.
Umm… hello, Liability. We haven’t met before, but we may soon become very well acquainted.
I expressed my concern with the powers that be and I was informed that this was a problem for all the portables in our district and that our deaf-ed portables are somewhere on the list to be fixed.
Oh good. Let’s just hope there’s not a real fire before now and the time they get to “somewhere on the list”.
Posted in Gripe, School Policy, Trouble
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Plan B: Quit
Remember when I said that no token system is going to stand against a chemical imbalance in the brain? ‘Member? There is just no defense but to brace yourself against the wrath and fury that is sure to be unleashed when that One Student walks into class with murder in his eyes…
“Jose” is that One Student on my caseload. He’s had trouble regulating his emotions since preschool and is frequently defiant (but maddeningly passive aggressive about it!), avoids any kind of work, is verbally and physically aggressive, and loves to engage adults in power struggles.
As far as I can tell, the staff that have worked with him have been great: documenting what goes on, involving the parent, enforcing consequences to the best of their ability, trying 101 strategies to find one that works, writing Behavior Plans and Functional Behavior Assessments up the wazoo, and calling the behavior specialists when they are out of ideas.
Unfortunately, the behavior specialist assigned to our school is less of a behavior specialist and more of a Professional-Documenter-and-Boss-of-the-World.
I had my first interaction with her last week and she was quite rude. She asked me what had been going on with Jose since the beginning of the year. I tried to tell her, but PDBW kept interrupting me to berate me for behavior documentation done last year that wasn’t on the CORRECT FORM. Last year, you know, when I was in Michigan and not in Texas. And the form!!! If we document on the incorrect form the world will stop turning!!!
After SEVERAL interruptions to my answer, I started to get pretty ticked. First of all, listen to the answer to your question, or don’t ask the question in the first place! Secondly, I shouldn’t have to feel defensive when I’m doing all the right things!
Trying my best to keep the anger out of my face, I succeeded in being respectfully assertive. I started with “LOOK…” then talked very quickly to get out what needed to be said.
I ended my mini-speech talking about appropriate placement: his primary disability is no longer his hearing impairment, it’s his emotional impairment. She responded by saying that she didn’t want to put him in a behavioral unit because he was just going to get worse.
And she may think that she has the authority to single-handedly decide the placement for a student, but she has another thing coming.
My plan? Document (on the CORRECT FORM) the heck out of every misbehavior, then call an IEP meeting where the IEP team will make a decision about Jose’s placement in a behavioral unit based on our data.
If that doesn’t work….
