Teaching: Weekend #12

My students like to sing, and their favorite music teacher Mr. Don has taught them "This Old Man." Only one of them has figured out how to rhyme, and they like to sing on the swings in front of the rest of the school, who I should mention are private school rich kid preps who knew calculus when they were roughly 3.
Recess last week:

"This old man, his name was.... ELMO...
he played nick nack on my........ hip!
with a nick nack patty wack, give a dog a bone,
this old man came rolling home."

Good singing guys, do you remember when we talked about a rhyme? Can you think of a name that rhymes with something on your body?

"This old man, his name was............ PENIS.............
he played nick nack on my......... fingerrrrrrrrr
with a nick nack patty wack, give a dog a bone,
this old man came rolling home."

I like that you're trying! Let's start with a name first, and then we'll think of something that rhymes with it.

"This old man, his name was....... CHUCK....
he played nick nack on my...... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
with a nick nack, patty wack... give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home."


...Who wants to Steven the Pirate instead?

Teaching: Day 81

Monday before Thanksgiving, our very special class is invited to the NT (neurotypical...normal for you laymen) classes' Thanksgiving play. Because their teachers are especially intelligent, they seat my class in the very front row. One teacher and six children later, we line ourselves up with the entire school behind us, and thus begins the the play.
NT Actor on stage, singing rather quietly: "I don't want turkey for Thanksgiving! I want pizza!"
Kenan from my class, shouting, rather loudly and waving his hands by his eyes in this dizzying way: "WHY? WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO EAT TURKEY FOR DINNER? MISS PSEUDONYM LYNN WHY WON'T HE EAT TURKEY FOR DINNER? IS HE GOING TO GET A TIMEOUT TOO?"
NT Actor #2: "Honey, I already made the turkey for dinner, can't you just try some?"
Kenan: "ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE HIM EAT THE TURKEY? YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO? MISS PSEUDONYM LYNN CAN 'T YOU STOP THEM?"
Me: "Kenan, I know you like to talk to new friends but now is time for mouths quiet and ears listening. We'll talk when the play is all done."
Kenan: "MISS PSEUDONYM LYNN WHY DO I HAVE TO BE QUIET? WHY DO THEY GET TO TALK? I'M JUST TALKING TO MY FRIENDS. WHY WON'T YOU LET ME TALK TO MY FRIENDS? HEY! HEY YOU! WHAT'S YOUR NAME? WHY WON'T YOU EAT TURKEY? IS YOUR NAME JOHN? IS YOUR NAME MATT? MISS PSEUDONYM LYNN IS HIS NAME BRETT? OR IS IT SAM? IS HIS NAME JOHN? IS YOUR NAME JOHN? WHY WON'T YOU EAT TURKEY?"

Teaching: Weekend #11

Found in student's backpack yesterday morning from Dirtbag's wife (along with extra pair of socks locked in ziplock bag--no explanation).

"To Whom It May Concern:

I (AN Pomblett [name changed for privacy purposes]) am obviously not keeping up, not even close. Not from lack of concern or trying. I know you're ~ clueless. The people that do what I do + continue living + still plugging away are few and far between. Not complaining about myself + burdens, rather, I'm smart even to know that Frederick will be the real loser. He's only 8 with a whole life ahead of him. I am hating all over the place for him.
ANPOMBLETT

P.S. Frederick eats pizza again. However, if he's happy with spaghetti + meatballs, I think its alittle heathier. ANPOMBLETT


Note for today: Send home a list of psychiatrists. While I realize I may look like Freud, sound like Freud, and sure, the name "Lynn" may even resemble "Freud," I am actually, not in fact, Freud, and AMPOMBLETT, therefore, needs to find another counselor.

Teaching: Day 74

"Miss Pseudonym Lynn, when you go to the bathroom do you fill up the toilet a lot and make it smell?"
"You know what buddy? That's ok to talk about with your teacher, but if you ask other people it might make them uncomfortable or embarrassed. People don't like to talk about those sorts of things."
"Ok, Miss Psuedonym Lynn. But do you use up a lot of toilet paper and sometimes clog the toilet and sometimes it's messy?"

Teaching: Day 71

Last Friday my coworkers and I went to a state-wide training session for special educators and learned about billing our school for extra gas money, writing up lunch as a deductible, and how to walk in late to a training session with 183 other special educators. Somewhere along those enlightening lessons, I sat in on a session discussing just how to teach special needs children about sex.
I know what you're thinking. This will be a trip. I, however, was thinking about what to order for lunch, the man next to me who had a key chain around his neck with hand moisturizer attached to it (yes, he opened it halfway through the morning and rubbed it over his hands. It smelled of cucumber.), and how my children were just young enough (or nonverbal enough) that I would never have to worry about the where-do-babies-come-from questions.
Obviously, you know if I'm writing about it, I was wrong.
Today was our first day back in the classroom, and the sex ed discussion was nowhere near my subconscious mind.
It was raining out, I was wishing I was still in bed, and it was social skills time in the classroom. One of my little ones was sorting out pictures into happy, sad, or angry faces. He had just answered my question of "How do you know he's happy?" with "Because he has a happy!" and I was debating whether to take this discussion any further when he suddenly turned his little head. Directly into my barely there cleavage. While cupping his tiny fingers directly around each of my not-much-bigger boobs (and giving me the most action I've had in... you really don't need to know...) he said, "Which ones are these for? What do they do? Where do they go?!"
Now, I could have ventured into a detailed, mature, and appropriate sex ed talk. Or I could have pretended I didn't see it, feel it, or hear it, and ignore a chance to positively affect a bright young man's future. Which is what I did.
And that, my friends, is why I am such a great teacher.

Note for today: Find man preferably my age to fondle me for next time.

Teaching: weekend #10

It turns out my boss has bugged my classroom.
and my apartment.
And her husband is in an anti-government establishment involving highly technological weapons.

Note to self:
-Always look behind me when walking, driving, or sitting.
-Create all new passwords.
-Move.
-Create new identity.

Teaching: Day 70

I predicted I'd wake up in the middle of the night. I'm not always an insomniac, it's just that I had a conversation today that overwhelmed me just enough I knew it would take several hours before I actually got angry.
I knew it was a full moon today before the moon came out. Any special ed teacher has those powers. Today I was spit on, pinched, thrown chairs at, and overall beat up, all by children under the age of 9. I know that comes with the territory of my job, so I'm not going to complain other than to say that today, for the first day this year, my children stressed me out. Oh, and this all, by about 9:45am.
As I dropped off my last little friend at the end of the day, my clothes a sticky wet from spit and my legs barely able to hold me up, my boss called me into her office. It was 3:15 and she had walked in 6 minutes earlier. That's never a good sign. After clarifying with me that it had been a rough day, she asked me if I was feeling emotionally weak. I said I supposed so since I was tired but simply that it had been a physically draining day. She asked again was I weak, seeming to want a yes answer, and was satisfied when I again answered it had been a rough day. This led her into my favorite part of today. A two-hour discussion on my flaws, professional and social.
Things I do wrong in no particular order:
-not enough work. She's just curious if maybe it's because I'm tired, but then again, she simply can't imagine why I would be tired because she hasn't really seen me doing any work. It just confuses her really, and she can't figure out why I wouldn't do work when it's my job to do work, even in my contract you know, but I simply don't. I must be tired. But she's not sure why. Do I honestly feel like I can look her in the eyes and say, yes, I've done work? Because if so, that's just cause for worry, that I would feel as though I've done work when I haven't. This job takes dedication, organization and... work--and I have not shown myself to be capable of any of these very elementary concepts.
-I never let my assistants help. I do everything myself, when really they are there to help me. I don't need to take on all the work myself, and she can't figure out if perhaps I think I'm better than everyone and that's why I won't allow the assistants to help. It's too bad that I won't allow them to help, but perhaps I have a complex where I think I'm perfect, or must be perfect, or want to be perfect, but I'm simply not, and it's beginning to be a real problem that I refuse to allow them to do any work and demand I do the work myself. I'm not the only one who has a job here, and I'm not the only one who's got skills--in fact, most other people have more skills than me, and when I reach the point where I can understand that I must learn that everyone I meet has things to teach me that I must learn, I will never succeed--and perhaps this very issue is why I'm--not.
-She's not sorry she hired me but. That was actually the end of her sentence. That was her complete sentence. I didn't forget a word, she presumably did, although I do have a few guesses as to why she did.
-She's made herself literally sick over the fact that no work has been done in my classroom. She's simply sick about it, and to continue this conversation will cause her to get physically ill to her stomach. The fact is, she's getting sick to her stomach now by simply bringing it up.
-Maybe she's given me too much work. But then she hasn't given me any, really. Maybe I don't know what's expected of me. That's understandable. She expects work to be done, and maybe I'm not used to that. It's curious, but maybe I'm simply not used to that. And that's where she comes in, to support me in every way possible, but I need to make sure I'm actually working for the children... she's just so confused by what I do with my time. And I do need to remember, the assistants are there to work with me... I really need to let them do things around the room. I'm not the only one with experience, and to act like that is simply a huge, huge, huge mistake. I need to stop doing all the work in the classroom.
-The one thing she forgot to mention in our 2 hour long chat: the six teachers in my classroom alone that quit last year, before I came along.

Note to self: Reschedule phone interview with new school that I missed due to extra long meeting with current boss.

Teaching: Day 68

Today I spoke with Dirtbag (dirtbag? I’m never sure whether to capitalize something like this. It is a name, so proper noun, but I’m nearly certain she means it as demeaning as possible… so that may hint at lowercase) and his wife after school, which is nothing out of the ordinary considering the fact that I am lucky enough to speak with them not just every day, but twice a day. Drop-off and Pick-up are among my favorite moments of the day as I get to speak with two forms of human beings who are quite possibly more difficult to communicate with than my nonverbal special education students on the autism spectrum.

Dirtbag’s wife had some questions for me as to whether the pronunciation of /m/ is “muuhhh” or “mmmmm.” Questions are alright with me, as she generally comes into school with 17 or 18 questions on all differing topics ranging from dental floss to the length of my latest necklace, but today’s questions were especially unique in that as she leaned in to pronounce these sounds to me, somewhere underneath the thick black framed glasses that reach from mid forehead down past her nose, her eyes made contact with mine.

This may have been a first in the 66 days that I have known her.

Now, I’m not sure I would have been so flustered, except that, as she leaned in closer and closer, “mmmmm. Mmuuuuuuh. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Muuuuuuuhhhhh.” I was quite sure she was actually going in for a makeout session. While her bonnet like hat had covered her hair so completely that she could have passed for a man, I was still uncomfortable with the idea of making out with dirtbag’s wife in the middle of my school lobby. “MMMMMM. MMMuuuuuhhh.” Her utterances were getting louder and my palms were getting sweatier. I needed a plan. How should I deal with her breath? I couldn’t remember the protocol for bad breath/uncomfortable makeout session with student’s parent, but then I wasn’t sure there is a protocol.

So, I made up my own.

Lean towards the left, back into the corner of the lobby pillar. Suck in lips. This did not work as she began to push her lips out further to display her sounds. “MMMM MUUUHHH MMMM.”

Alright, new protocol.

I nodded with each “mmm,” shook my head to each “muhh” and wiped my hands on my pants, while inwardly calculating my monthly paycheck to be just under anything worth today’s conversation. If I’d been timing, I would have known that exactly 13 minutes later (and 26 seconds) she nodded after the last “mmmm,” and began to repeat “mmm” under her breath while backing up.

Backing up is dirtbag’s wife’s way of signaling us she’s not ready for us to speak yet, and generally my signal to run—and run is what I did.

Note to self: keep tic tacs on hand at all times.