This past Friday may have been the day of my last teaching assignment. I was assigned as an intervention specialist to a wonderful educational/psychiatric facilities in the Unified School District. I had been an intervention specialist there before, so in accepting the assignment I knew exactly what I was getting into.
The facility has two classroom, and about 8 to 10 students in each room. They are classified as "special education" students. The students are severely disturbed kids, but there are as many as five teachers or intervention specialists in each classroom at a time. The main thrust of the teaching these students concerns relationships -- how to get along with their fellow students and with their teachers. During the day, throughout the week at various times, different students have actual psychiatric therapy sessions with a psychiatrists on the premises.
The day at this facility normally starts with a ten or fifteen minute meeting of the staff to discuss any adjustments in the schedule, as well as the special needs of various kids and what they are going through in life.
The schedule is fairly predictable -- a morning greeting period in which each child has the opportunity to explain how they are feeling and why. A cart with various things they can have for breakfast is wheeled in and they have a choice of what they want to eat, if they are hungry. This particular morning there was milk, fresh fruit (apples and bananas), and a delicious dish comprised of custard, fresh fruit (strawberries and blackberries), as well as dry cereal if the students wanted it.
This particular day was to be a low-key day in which kids would do not only some academic work, but also during educational periods could play with one of the two iPads each room was equipped with.
Then comes an educational period, in which children are given educational work to do -- perhaps reading, perhaps math. I was able to be useful here because I could sit with a child and get them to focus on the work at hand, and help them figure out answers and get through it. After perhaps 45 minutes, it was time for recess. The kids went outside,played basketball, shot hoops, ran around playing tag and getting fresh air while they exercised. I encountered one kid whom I had helped earlier that day, a Hispanic kid, who was almost in tears. I asked him why. He said he was feeling bad because he wasn't any good at basketball or most of the other things the kids did. He was also really disturbed still because that morning his sister at home had called him stupid and said he was a "bitch."
I explained to him that one of the reasons he wasn't as good as the other kids at basketball was that he was smaller than they were. The tall ones had an advantage in jumping up almost as high as the basket and slam dunking the ball into the hoop. I also told him that from working with him I was sure he wasn't stupid, and that he should ;learn to ignore the names his sister called him because they weren't true.
We came back into the classroom and "snack time" had arrived, during which the kids were offered fruit, cheese crackers and other treats. Then we started on another educational period, reading aloud or silently from various books each student had chosen, or doing math on pages in a workbook. Lunchtime followed this. The students were given lunch -- not a bad one at all, with burritos and fruit and milk.
After lunch, the kids returned to the classroom for more activities. On this particular day these involved games they played with each other, either on their iPads or on boards at their desks.
Another period following lunch was a "skills" period, in which the kids were taken outdoor and did various physical exercises that gave them a good workout. On this particular day, they lined up and the one in front ran as fast as he or she could about fifty feet to a marker, caught a ball that the supervising teacher threw to them from the starting line, then returned with the ball and gave it to the teacher.
My tasks were easy ones. I was there to do two main things, not to handle emotional breakdowns and tantrums. One of my tasks was to help the kids do their academic work when they were supposed to be doing it -- to keep the individual I was working with focused on the tasks at hand and help him or her take them to completion. Another of my tasks was simply that of supervision. No child is ever to be left alone, either in the classroom or outside in the recess area. There were times when all the other staff members had something to do, leaving me alone in the classroom with anywhere from 1 to 4 students. Sometimes I went outside and just watched or played with them. A favorite game is "Zombie Tag," in which the person who is it chases the others and tries to hit them with a very soft basketball, thus making them "it." I never understood exactly what this had to do with zombies, but I was a favorite "it." Despite the fact that I had a hip replacement a few years back and am not very good at speedy running, I did a lot of chasing around during these periods.
Finally it was time to clean up the room, pick up papers under their desks, sweep up any food spills, and prepare to go home.
This sounds like a fairly simple schedule, but what it doesn't note are the interruptions and assorted crises the kids go through each day. Make no mistake about it, these students are severely disturbed. One of the girls, for instance, is repeatedly exposed at home to her mother having intercourse with various boyfriends. Others are simply mistreated psychologically, told they are worthless or no good. If the tortures were physical, they would be taken away from their families and placed in foster care. But when they are mental, there's a difficult line to draw before this kind of action can be taken.
Every day one or more of the kids in each classroom have a "meltdown." Perhaps they are told they cannot leave the classroom without permission and they do this anyway. Or sometimes they fight with other students (in this case, both are expelled for a day or more). Or they simply will not do what the teacher tells them to do, and go instead into a screaming, kicking fit, throwing chairs. In some cases, the staff have to resort to physical handling of the kids. The facility has a "rubber room" where kids having screaming, spitting, kicking tantrums can be placed in isolation but under observation until they calm down and can be returned to the classroom. I was told on my first day at the facility -- I had been here several times before -- that I should leave the physical management of the kids to the regular staff. I did.
My feeling about this facility is that it is a very good one where the children from families that cannot afford psychiatric care for their children would be very happy to have a family member attend school. And wouldn't you know that the Unified School District is about to screw things up. The limit on the number of students in a special education classroom is presently 12. Starting next year, the District has raised the limit to 14. This facility is not large enough to handle the increased number, so it is being split up and the pieces moved to several other places.
What the District has done in increasing the number of special education students allowed in the classroom may help their budget, but in the future the rest of us will pay the price. In effect, they have primed the pump that will send even more people with psychiatric difficulties into the prisons.
In the meantime, it was a pleasure to work with dedicated professionals as competent as the ones at this facility, and hopefully to be a tiny part of help out a few kids.
The facility has two classroom, and about 8 to 10 students in each room. They are classified as "special education" students. The students are severely disturbed kids, but there are as many as five teachers or intervention specialists in each classroom at a time. The main thrust of the teaching these students concerns relationships -- how to get along with their fellow students and with their teachers. During the day, throughout the week at various times, different students have actual psychiatric therapy sessions with a psychiatrists on the premises.
The day at this facility normally starts with a ten or fifteen minute meeting of the staff to discuss any adjustments in the schedule, as well as the special needs of various kids and what they are going through in life.
The schedule is fairly predictable -- a morning greeting period in which each child has the opportunity to explain how they are feeling and why. A cart with various things they can have for breakfast is wheeled in and they have a choice of what they want to eat, if they are hungry. This particular morning there was milk, fresh fruit (apples and bananas), and a delicious dish comprised of custard, fresh fruit (strawberries and blackberries), as well as dry cereal if the students wanted it.
This particular day was to be a low-key day in which kids would do not only some academic work, but also during educational periods could play with one of the two iPads each room was equipped with.
Then comes an educational period, in which children are given educational work to do -- perhaps reading, perhaps math. I was able to be useful here because I could sit with a child and get them to focus on the work at hand, and help them figure out answers and get through it. After perhaps 45 minutes, it was time for recess. The kids went outside,played basketball, shot hoops, ran around playing tag and getting fresh air while they exercised. I encountered one kid whom I had helped earlier that day, a Hispanic kid, who was almost in tears. I asked him why. He said he was feeling bad because he wasn't any good at basketball or most of the other things the kids did. He was also really disturbed still because that morning his sister at home had called him stupid and said he was a "bitch."
I explained to him that one of the reasons he wasn't as good as the other kids at basketball was that he was smaller than they were. The tall ones had an advantage in jumping up almost as high as the basket and slam dunking the ball into the hoop. I also told him that from working with him I was sure he wasn't stupid, and that he should ;learn to ignore the names his sister called him because they weren't true.
We came back into the classroom and "snack time" had arrived, during which the kids were offered fruit, cheese crackers and other treats. Then we started on another educational period, reading aloud or silently from various books each student had chosen, or doing math on pages in a workbook. Lunchtime followed this. The students were given lunch -- not a bad one at all, with burritos and fruit and milk.
After lunch, the kids returned to the classroom for more activities. On this particular day these involved games they played with each other, either on their iPads or on boards at their desks.
Another period following lunch was a "skills" period, in which the kids were taken outdoor and did various physical exercises that gave them a good workout. On this particular day, they lined up and the one in front ran as fast as he or she could about fifty feet to a marker, caught a ball that the supervising teacher threw to them from the starting line, then returned with the ball and gave it to the teacher.
My tasks were easy ones. I was there to do two main things, not to handle emotional breakdowns and tantrums. One of my tasks was to help the kids do their academic work when they were supposed to be doing it -- to keep the individual I was working with focused on the tasks at hand and help him or her take them to completion. Another of my tasks was simply that of supervision. No child is ever to be left alone, either in the classroom or outside in the recess area. There were times when all the other staff members had something to do, leaving me alone in the classroom with anywhere from 1 to 4 students. Sometimes I went outside and just watched or played with them. A favorite game is "Zombie Tag," in which the person who is it chases the others and tries to hit them with a very soft basketball, thus making them "it." I never understood exactly what this had to do with zombies, but I was a favorite "it." Despite the fact that I had a hip replacement a few years back and am not very good at speedy running, I did a lot of chasing around during these periods.
Finally it was time to clean up the room, pick up papers under their desks, sweep up any food spills, and prepare to go home.
This sounds like a fairly simple schedule, but what it doesn't note are the interruptions and assorted crises the kids go through each day. Make no mistake about it, these students are severely disturbed. One of the girls, for instance, is repeatedly exposed at home to her mother having intercourse with various boyfriends. Others are simply mistreated psychologically, told they are worthless or no good. If the tortures were physical, they would be taken away from their families and placed in foster care. But when they are mental, there's a difficult line to draw before this kind of action can be taken.
Every day one or more of the kids in each classroom have a "meltdown." Perhaps they are told they cannot leave the classroom without permission and they do this anyway. Or sometimes they fight with other students (in this case, both are expelled for a day or more). Or they simply will not do what the teacher tells them to do, and go instead into a screaming, kicking fit, throwing chairs. In some cases, the staff have to resort to physical handling of the kids. The facility has a "rubber room" where kids having screaming, spitting, kicking tantrums can be placed in isolation but under observation until they calm down and can be returned to the classroom. I was told on my first day at the facility -- I had been here several times before -- that I should leave the physical management of the kids to the regular staff. I did.
My feeling about this facility is that it is a very good one where the children from families that cannot afford psychiatric care for their children would be very happy to have a family member attend school. And wouldn't you know that the Unified School District is about to screw things up. The limit on the number of students in a special education classroom is presently 12. Starting next year, the District has raised the limit to 14. This facility is not large enough to handle the increased number, so it is being split up and the pieces moved to several other places.
What the District has done in increasing the number of special education students allowed in the classroom may help their budget, but in the future the rest of us will pay the price. In effect, they have primed the pump that will send even more people with psychiatric difficulties into the prisons.
In the meantime, it was a pleasure to work with dedicated professionals as competent as the ones at this facility, and hopefully to be a tiny part of help out a few kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment