What Intervention Specialists Do

I decided a year ago that I was burned out being a regular "substitute teacher."  I was tired of walking into a class of high school students, and having someone in the front row look up at me brightly and say, "You know, we hate substitute teachers."  I was tired of trying to keep order, with kids occasionally trying to shoot dice in the back of the room for money.  I was tired of babysitting.  I heard about the position of Intervention Specialist, which pays less than that of substitute teacher, but which leaves the discipline to the regular teacher in charge of the class.  At the age of 73 (now 74 as I write this), I decided I wanted a job with less stress.

I have been an intervention specialist in three different schools.  One of them, the high school I described in the earliest posts on this blog, had a class of severely impaired kids who needed one-on-one or one-on-two tending.  There I was put in charge of a Korean young man who could not speak, and who could barely put shapes in a cut-out board.  He spent about half his time standing up and sitting down.  Another intervention specialist, a truly marvelous man, had taught him to be able to go to a faucet, turn it on, get himself a drink of water, and turn it off.  If you had seen this student yourself -- he was about 17 -- you would consider what this other intervention specialist had achieved with him to be just a little short of a miracle.

In another school, a middle school, I worked with a teacher and several other intervention specialists in a classroom with about a dozen kids.  We had a definite schedule, and almost every day went the same.  We met their buses as they arrived at the school, wheeled them (most were in wheel chairs) to the dining room, got their breakfast and placed it in front of them.  Some students needed to be fed.  Then we wheeled them across the playground to their classroom, where they learned basic skills intended to make them as independent as possible.

Sometimes we took them out of the classroom to places of interest.  For instance, a branch of the public library was located in the same neighborhood, about three blocks away.  We pushed their wheelchairs to the library, helped them read or get onto the library's computers, and generally allowed them to amuse themselves, with an occasional assist from us.  Then we wheeled them back to the classroom.  About once a month we took them on a major field trip -- would you believe bowling ?  We took them on the Bay Area Rapid Transit train to a station a few stops away.  Then we maneuvered them from the train level via elevator to the street level below, and pushed their wheelchairs about half a mile to the bowling alley.

In the bowling alley, were located bowling frames -- metal contraptions that the student could place a bowling ball on, then release it.  The ball rolled down the metal tracks to the floor and onward down the alley to the pins.  The trick here, of course, was that the metal tracks had to be aimed precisely in the right direction so that the ball continued on a straight path to the center pin.  If the metal track were not aimed accurately, the ball would simply go into the gutter.  After an hour or an hour and a half, which usually included some time for the students to eat the picnic lunch we had been provided with when we departed the school, we wheeled their chairs back over the half mile we had wheeled to get them to the alley in the first place, maneuvered them into the elevator at the public transport station, got them onto the train, and took them back to the classroom.

My biggest challenge with these students came with one of them who needed to learn to cunt to ten.  Over and over and over, we started counting. . ."One, two, three, four, five, six . . ." And then the student would stop.  Despite the literally hundreds of times we went through this exercise, he was never able to say "seven."
Once I said seven, he was able to resume and count all the way to ten.

Once in a while we took the kids to a nearby supermarket and had them buy the ingredients for smoothies or other classroom treats.  Some of them were quite able to give money to the cashier and receive change.  This may sound extraordinarily easy, but remember that these kids had to learn it because someday, if they were not institutionalized, they would need to be as independent as possible (they would probably stay in a group home as they matured), and that included being able to shop for themselves, at least for treats.  We take this independence for granted, but without this simple ability, the student grown into adulthood would not be able to take care of him or her self.

I often thought about these students and wondered what they had in store for themselves after their parents died.  Would a relative be willing to care for them ?  I think everyone working with them had the same thought many times, over.

My First Stick-Up

I've told you that the school I am currently teaching in isn't in the best of neighborhoods.  Earlier I wrote about how at the beginning of the day one car came racing up the main avenue chasing another car and firing a gun at it, then the two of them veered onto school property and finally left.  Meanwhile my class and I spent about 45 minutes on the floor of our classroom, away from windows and behind a two locked doors.

Yesterday morning I drove to school as I usually do, but I made a stop at a convenience store/gas station about four blocks from the school.  I got some breath mints (these days unless I have something like breath mints my breath would curdle a cup of coffee -- and yes, I do go to the dentist), some tortilla chips and a sandwich.  I went up to the cash register counter and found standing in front of me a fellow with his back towards me.  He was in the process of reaching over the counter and snatching money that Mr. Singh, a Sikh who always wears a dark blue turban and who customarily takes that shift, had placed there, evidently on his orders.  This customer turned around and looked at me from about four feet away, and pointed a gun at me.  He snatched up the money, shoved it in his pocket, and then dashed out the door.  He jumped on a bike and pedaled up the street as fast as he could.  I ran outside, quite a ways behind him, to see him turning a corner onto a side street a block away.

This was my first real-life stickup.  All the others I had seen were on CSI or the like.  This was also Mr. Singh's first stick-up, too.  This morning I stopped back at the same store.  As I walked in, Mr. Singh and I greeted each other, and I said, "Do I dare come in here again at this time ?"  We both laughed.

Is It OK to Cut Yourself ?

In the normal course of being an intervention specialist, I am asked almost daily and sometimes several times daily to take one or more students to the library.  There, distractions are few.  Students with problems concentrating are better able to focus on their schoolwork.

A few weeks ago I was asked to take a young lady in the seventh grade to the library to go over some math problems with her.  She was a pleasant-looking, Hispanic, young lady, with lustrous black hair, a slightly rounded face, and a beautiful smile.  Dressed as students at this middle school are required to dress, she wore tan pants and along-sleeved, green sweatshirt with the school name across it.

I had seen her laughing and smiling and joking around with other students in the classroom she had come from.  But when we were alone, she seemed troubled.  We started on the math problems.  After three or four minutes, she stopped and asked me:  "Do you think it is ok if students cut themselves ?"

If I had had my psychiatric wits about me, I might have asked her in a very non-judgmental way, "What do you think about it?"  My reaction, however, though non-judgmental, was to reply that I didn't think it was a good thing to do.

As we talked, she pulled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt.  There, carved freshly into her skin, was her name.  She said she had started doing that a while ago, and that some other students did it, too.  If she had not mentioned the therapist, I would have immediately reported the situation to the school nurse.  But she made it clear that she was talking to the nurse already, and also "getting therapy."

We chatted a bit about her life.  She, six other people and a dog lived in a single room and shared a kitchen with other people living in the apartment.  Her father was an electrician.  He could not get much work, however, and was barely able to pay the rent and buy the family food.  What worried her the most, however, was that her father was going through some sort of immigration proceedings, and ran the danger of being sent back to Mexico.  "If they deport him, what's going to happen to us ?" she asked.

With these things hanging over her head, I did not know how back in the classroom she managed to smile.

How My Day Goes

My day as an intervention specialist goes in a fairly predictable fashion.  One day I go to one selection or teachers' classes, the next day I go to a somewhat different selection.

The day starts with "Boost," where I spend about 30 minutes.  Here the instructor in charge and I sit between different pairs of students as they do sets of math problems from packets of Xeroxed sheets.   We are there for several reasons.  One of them stems from the fact that these students all have educational disabilities.  Many of them simply have trouble focusing on their work.  They may do one problem, then start staring off into space or watching other students.  Our job is to draw their attention back to their work, to keep them "on track."

They are working in pairs.  While one is actively doing a math problem, he or she is supposed to be explaining to the other how it is solved.  In sitting between them, we watch the students' work and try to catch wrong answers as they are being produced and to bring the attention of the student to these problems and have them do recalculation.  The sheets have about ten pages stapled together and as a student progresses through the packet, the problems become progressive but slowly more difficult.  What is unusual here is that the students are graded at the end of each half hour session not by the number of problems they completed, but by their interaction with the other student in their pair.  Did Student A actually talk to the other student about mathematical solutions ?  Did they have any eye contact with the other student, or were they just mumbling to themselves ?  The theory behind this is that if the students explain problems to each other, they will learn better.

After "Boost" comes crew.  Most days this lasts from 8:30 a.m. until about 9:05, but on Wednesdays, when the school day is shorter and the number of classes reduced, it lasts about an hour.  During this period, many students come from the school cafeteria where they can get a free breakfast,  They bring their breakfasts with them, and spend time eating and socializing for ten or fifteen minutes.

Each student has a day planner which, when open, shows a full week of activity.  In this class, the instructor-in-charge and I circulate around the room, making certain that each student has had his parent or guardian sign at the bottom of the previous day's entries.  Later in the day, the first thing each student will do upon entering a classroom will be to copy the homework assignment from the board into his or her planner.  This system has several advantages.  First, the student is accountable to teachers at the beginning of every class, because the teacher makes certain assignments are written down.  Second, it automatically involves the parent in the educational system.  They can see what the assignments of the day are, and they can use this information to make certain their child has done homework.  Third, the use of the planner serves as a concrete reminder to the student of just what he or she is accountable for.

The instructor-in-charge also has an opportunity to explain many things to the students.  For instance, today the instructor spoke about why the students are required to wear green sweatshirts with the school insignia on them, and khaki pants.  The green sweatshirts and khaki pants are regulation uniform for this school because the area around its location is heavily infested with gangs.  Wear blue or red and you're in trouble.  You won't be able to pass through certain neighborhoods.

The instructor I'm working with has seen all the gang life possible because he grew up in a part of Los Angeles where gangs were very common.  He also became a football player in college,  He has the kind of tough, athletic bearing one would expect from a football star,  In the morning as each student enters the classroom, he exchanges a Black fist bump and a "Good morning ! How are you ?" or some such greeting to each kid.  Some of them have their own special fist bumps, moving their hands around in special ways, and he knows every one of their specialties and follows along with it.  He has great rapport with them, and a great sensitivity to each student's mood on any particular day.  He's also an incredibly intelligent person, with a wide range of knowledge that he feeds in bits and pieces to the kids during what is called "Morning Crew" period.

Crew is about 40 minutes long, and the kids arrive ready to show their notebooks, their papers from the previous day signed by their parents or guardians, and their pens, pencils and marker.  Yellow highlighting is required of the kids in most of the school's classes.

The school seems finely tuned to the needs of the students, right down to their ethnic preferences.  At the beginning of crew, those kids who didn't eat or want breakfast at home can get it free of charge just before Crew, so they can bring the food with them into the classroom.  While they are eating, the instructor-in-charge reads school announcements and gives small talks about behavior the kids are encouraged or discouraged from engaging in.  He does this with a sense of humor and compassion, yet a sternness that the students like and respond to.  I sure wish I could handle students the way he does.

I have enormous admiration for this particular instructor.  He is studying for either a masters or a Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley these days, with the eventual goal of becoming an administrator.  I would rather see him get a much higher salary and stay where he is, where the kids respond to him, and where he is changing lives in a direct fashion.

An Interesting Experiment Across Continents

When I was in a teacher's class several weeks ago and the students were studying malaria, she made an interesting side comment.  She said, "Wouldn't it be nice if the students could talk to someone who had had malaria to find out more about it ?"

Because I have been to West Africa three times and have a number of real African contacts there (I say "real" because I don't want the reader to think that these are with French or British expats), I had a good reply.  I have been tutoring a few African students in math and English via Skype, I said, and I could arrange this.

I have a friend who runs an internet cafe in Tema, a small city right outside and abutting Accra, the Ghanaian capital.  When I discussed this prospect with him, he suggested that I talk with one of his friends, a teacher at a nearby private school.  He put us together on Skype and we had some great conversations.  Yes, the teacher said, they would be very interested in having some of his students talk with some from our school.  We fixed on a time and date, and actually made it happen.

Typically, our students asked questions like the following:  How do you know when you are coming down with malaria ?  How often have you had malaria ?  What do you feel like when you are going through a malaria attack ?  Do people die of malaria ?  How long does a malaria attack last ?  What can you do or not do when you have malaria ?  How do you catch malaria ?

Eventually the discussion moved on to other things rather than science.  Since Ghana is a great football (rugby) power in Africa, and since almost all Ghanaian students play it, they naturally asked if our students play it ( they do).  What kinds of teams do we play against ?  What is our school like ?  What do students do in the course of an average day ?  What do we study ?  How long is our school day ?  What is our life like ? Would we like to visit Ghana ?

The question I found most interesting and that requires a lot of deep thought was one a young man asked:  "What does it feel like to be an American ?"  Readers, have you ever thought about that one ?  I hadn't, no more than I had ever thought about how I feel being white in American society, and what a privileged position this is.

The idea came up that it would be great to have one of our students go there to their school for a while and them send one of their kids to our school, too.  And as I think about this possibility, I know that it could happen, assuming the school district sees it as beneficial to the students.

Our students and the students in Ghana have certain things in common, the most important being that most of them in Ghana and in our city are from very poor families.  But our idea of poverty would probably be relatively comfortable for the Ghanaian students.  Many of them have only one meal a day, sometimes two.   During school days, our students get free breakfast, free lunch, and even a free meal after school if they want these.  In Ghana, there are no free schools.  The kids in our contact school have to buy meals or do without.

The kids in our school come from a very poor section of town.  It is a dangerous area, and kids are advised to walk home in twos or three if they aren't picked up by friends or parents.  More than half the students in one class I was in the other day, when asked if they knew someone who had been shot in the streets, raised their hand.  I don't think life in Ghana is anything like that.

But isn't it an interesting concept -- bringing students from different countries together via Skype ?  If you want to know  more, get in touch with me.  And in the meantime, let's all think:  What really does it feel like to be an American ?