Mr. J

Okay, so I've been absent from posting for a while - my laptop died suddenly, and I had to replace it. So now I have a shiny new Mac that will be fab for updating blogs. :)

Anyway, last time I posted, I told you about Mr. A and his behavioral problems in school; this time, let's talk about Mr. J.

Mr. J was a pre-school kid, though he was in the Kindergarten prep class. The kids in this class are students who were just slightly too young to start Kindergarten during the current school year - maybe they missed the cut off date by a month or two in either direction (a lot of parents don't want their child to be the youngest one in their grade level, so choose instead to keep them home for an extra year, making them one of the older ones in their grade with the hopes of turning them into a social and academic leader). Mr. J was five and big for his age... not overweight, just tall and made of solid wiry muscle.

He was also extremely hyperactive. Like Mr. A, he was fine (for the most part) when his parents were there, but as soon as they left he went nuts. Mary, his teacher, worked hard to keep him occupied, and most of the time it worked just fine. However...

There were times when he had "episodes," or as they would say on the late great Wonderfalls, "a 'sode." These episodes were basically times when Mr. J lost it. It was never about anything big, always something little. One time he had a complete breakdown because his turn was done with the paints and the easel. Another time, because he didn't want to go out to the playground... or didn't want to come in. All kinds of things.

But there was one particular time when he had a 'sode that's worth noting. Lots of kids can get violent--usually it's towards other kids, and their teachers break them up, and by doing so the kids start to learn not to fight, and they develop social skills and all that. In high school you have to worry about students attacking each other more dangerously and sometimes threatening teachers, but Mr. J, this hyper little five year old, decided to take on Mary.

It was late in the afternoon, and the day had been extremely uneventful. The students were divided between two tables, working on a coloring project to help develop reading and writing skills, and Mr. J decided he didn't want to do it. I was working with a little girl who needed help writing something, and all of the students were so engrossed in their work that we didn't even notice right away that Mr. J had left the table and Mary had followed him.

Next thing I know, Mr. J is underneath my table, crawling between the students' feet and giggling this high-pitched laugh. Mary followed him around the table, spouting off typical teacher sayings: "Come out right now, Mr. J," and "if you can't control yourself, we need to go to the think spot."

When Mr. J refused to come out, Mary gave up and started to walk away--so Mr. J reached out from under the table, grabbed her ankle, and pulled her off her feet to the ground. She fell against the other table, knocked over a chair, and landed hard on her hands and knees.

And did I mention that Mary was pregnant? Yeah.

I have never seen a classroom of young children go so quiet so fast. Fifteen four- and five-year-olds sat in stunned silence with their mouths open. Mary ended up man-handling Mr. J out from beneath the table and carrying him by the underarms out of the room, Mr. J screaming all the while. She took him to the neighboring classroom, whose students were already dismissed, and dropped him off with the teachers there, who had no luck calming him down either.

When Mr. J's father arrived about ten minutes later, he was completely contrite and kept asking for ice cream and a new toy.

Just to put it in perspective, the previous school year Mr. J had another tantrum and kicked one of the other teacher's aides--we'll call her Ginny--in the chest so hard that she had a foot-shaped brownish-green bruise for a month.

So the lesson is this: parents--your children behave differently at school. If a teacher has done something to discipline your child because their behavior is out of hand, please help reinforce the lesson at home. Don't attack the teacher and insist your child is an angel and everything is the teacher's fault. You're entrusting your child to this teacher for the length of a typical work day. During that time, he or she is in charge of instructing your child in academics and in social skills... and if a child is acting up, not doing his or her work, or anything else that happens to be unacceptable, the teacher needs to take some sort of action without the threat of being fired because the parents think their child is the next coming of Christ.

Seriously.

Anyway, that's the story of Mr. J. He was pretty extreme, as was Mr. A. You wouldn't think pre-schoolers could do so much damage, but apparently they can! I'd be really interested to see these two boys in fifteen years to see how they turn out.

-Lauren

Things I hate about your school.

Dear School Secretary:

My job isn't easy. I don't get to go to work in the same place every day. I travel long distances with heavy equipment, lugging it across parking lots and down hallways, usually to the detriment of all of the muscles in my back. I go new places and have to talk to new people all the time. I deal with about a hundred kids per afterschool session. Every school has its own rules, idiosyncrasies, and insane rituals, which I have to memorize and follow. Here's a list of the things I hate but have deal with, smiling.

1. Parking lots with parent pickups.
Some schools have nice big parking lots and lots of spaces. However, when I arrive or an afterschool program, I usually find that I have to beat the parent rush. Not all schools have this, but a massive chunk of them do. Parents line the streets like vultures, waiting in their minivans and SUVs with stickers that say "My Child Is An Honor Student At _____" and logos with the school mascot. The elementary school mascot. The cars are lined up as close to the school as possible, and parking is not allowed except for the back of the lot----and that's if you can find a space. Sometimes when I have a long walk I'm able to drop my kit off at the door, park, and then come back for it, but not when there's a line of cars at the entrance... I know I love a good quarter-mile walk with my good old bin. (I wish my hand truck wasn't broken. I wish my job paid me enough to purchase a new hand truck that wouldn't break. Even so, even if I HAD a hand truck, your asshole school would have stairs, and lots of them. Handicap access? What?)

2. Prison lockdown.
I don't know when this started happening. Schools weren't like this when I was a kid. Doors are locked during school hours and in order to get into the building, you need to ring the doorbell and be buzzed in. I understand why, what with all the loonies walking around and wandering into elementary schools every day (tch). Still, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, I suppose, except that everyone knows that the real loonies wait around in vans outside the school.

3. Visitor badges.
I get it. I do. The people who aren't on the staff at the school need to be accounted for. They can't just wander about willy-nilly. I don't mind signing the log. However, a lot of schools use sticky-label badges to mark their visitors, and they don't stick to my polyester lab coat. My lab coat has the name of my company on it and my professor name. I guess if I were a complete skeez I would wear this around when abducting kids, but ... no. Anyway, it gives you peace of mind and I'm glad to comply, but that damn sticky badge doesn't stick to my coat.

4. No prep time.
I don't think you get it. I don't arrive half an hour early to sit in the office and dick around. I arrive half an hour early to get into my classroom and set up, so that I don't waste time when the kids arrive. I need to have things set up and organized so the class goes smoothly, so the kids are happy, so the parents are happy, and so the school is happy. I need this time. Everything I have is shoved (neatly) in a bin. I have to take stuff out and find it and lay it out. I have to mix chemicals and lay out materials. If you tell me I have a 3:15 class and I can't get into my room until 3:10 when I arrived at 2:45? You were told I needed 30 minutes in an empty room. You knew this and you complied. Don't give me doe eyes and act like those five minutes are a big inconvenient gift you're giving me.

5. Earlybirds.
I need time to prep. Sometimes I have to set up secret things that the kids aren't allowed to see. Don't tell me I have to set up in front of the kids. They touch things, they crowd me, they ask questions. Set-up and clean-up are my zen private time. I'm not a babysitter, and I can't set things up if you give me a high-traffic area... say, a classroom that still has kids in it (which only pisses off the teacher), or the cafeteria, where all the kids are waiting for dismissal or other programs. No. No, no, no. I don't want to sound like a diva, but would you like it if you got to your office in the morning and had a bunch of kids talking and staring and trying to touch your stuff? I didn't think so.

6. Miscommunication.
School offices have a lot to deal with. Between parents being obnoxious and teachers being whiny, a school secretary has a lot on his or her plate. But you know what? Y'all need to fucking talk to one another. The principal needs to write sticky notes for his staff and let them know that I'm coming and where I need to be. Write it down somewhere. Put it on a calendar. This Professor gets cranky when you send her to the wrong room----the cafeteria, full of kids, with two other programs going on----force her to set up, and then have the principal redirect her to the proper room with five minutes to set up. That's like a triple-whammy and this Professor has a tantrum. Privately. Because I smile through it and hide the fact that I'm shaken and frazzled.

7. Your attitude.
Just... seriously. Would it kill you to be nice? Your job sucks, I know. It's got to be a bitch to work in an elementary school all day, every day, and take phone messages. But unlike you, school secretary, I don't live down the road, and I don't just amble in at 6:30 with my coffee and sit down and get ready to make miserable people more miserable until 3 or 4 PM. I'm sure your job warrants that level of crankiness, but if I can drag a sixty-pound bin across a badly-placed parking lot, balance it to ring your buzzer, carry it into the office, sign in, put on a visitor badge, and then lug my kit down six hallways and up a flight of stairs only to have you tell me you had my classroom assignment wrong and that my kids are coming in early so now I have no time to set up and STILL have a fucking smile on my face, so can you.

Affiliate Blog!

Kait here, with an affiliate blog!

JL is my partner, my lady, my girl. She helps set up the programs that I work at. She deals with the parents while I deal with the kids. She sits in an office all day while I break my back dragging equipment around. She has a consistent location while I travel to the middle of nowhere.

Her blog is called Please Go To Voicemail, and I hope this will be the start of a long and fruitful blogging relationship.

If I had a nickel for every damn time...

News flash, children!

If I ask you a question and you have an answer, raise your hand. If you don't have an answer, don't raise your hand, because chances are, I will call on you.

Let's make this clear: the answer is not "I FORGET." The answer is NEVER "I FORGET" unless the question is "What happens when you get amnesia?"----and that is never the question.

The next time a child raises their hand with utmost enthusiasm and gives me an answer of "I forget," coupled with a giggle and snicker, which is then joined by all the giggles and snickers of all his little friends, this instructor is gonna have to open up a fresh can of whoop-ass. It is not the first time I have gotten this answer. In fact, I get an answer of "I forget" at least three times a week. Please. Stop laughing like it's the funniest thing you've ever heard. It's like you're the loser who just discovered LOLspeak and still thinks it's funny.

Also, I don't care if you're six. :)

I hope you hav a clazz, too, little lady.

My after-school programs started up again today. This particular kit is a stressful one to teach. Very hard to set up in a short amount of time, about 50 minutes of cleanup. Corrosive chemicals that the kids can't touch, so they're observing for most of the class and they hate it. Kids were good, all of them under 8 years old, so they got antsy about 40 minutes in. Antsy and hungry, which is to be expected given the fact that we're talking about kitchen chemistry today.

Feeling tired and a little frustrated, but that's how it goes. And it's all wiped away by the fact that I got this the moment this one girl walked into the class. A little card!

Front:


Inside:

What's the deal, Dairy Council?

Don't get me wrong. I grew up drinking milk like a good child. I drank 4-7 glasses every day because that soon was the only thing I'd drink. I gave up milk a little over a year ago as part of several other health choices to shake up my diet. I read some books about the dangers of animal products and how they really ain't as good for you as the corporations would make it sound. I'm not going to go on a vegan rant here. I'm not that strict a vegan anymore, but the truth of it is, I learned a lot. Specifically, the way that the meat and dairy industries have essentially put substandard products into our school lunch programs.

Yay.

So, on a fundamental level, it bothers me the way that milk is The Cafeteria Lunch Drink. Not only is it served, often without any other option for children who are allergic or lactose intolerant or being raised vegan or any other reason, but there are posters plastered all over the cafeteria. Images of popular children's icons (Miley Cyrus, the High School Musical cast, Shrek, etc) with milk mustaches with the phrase "Body by Milk" line the walls in almost any cafeteria. Now, I understand that if you're raising your child in a non-dairy way, you just send lunch with your child and forget about the school lunch. However, it's another situation where I feel like it's blatant propaganda. You must drink milk or you will not be healthy. (This, by the way, is not remotely true.) You will also not be cool. (This is also not remotely true, though fewer studies have been done.) I went to a school the other day where the only decoration in the cafeteria consisted of milk posters and magazine ads. Plastering the walls.

I found one school that didn't have one single milk poster. Only one, and it struck me so strange to not see a milk mustache that I actually wondered if I was in the cafeteria. I wondered if it had to do with the fact that this school had a child with such a deadly milk/peanut allergy that the child actually had to be partitioned off with cones so none of the other children went near him. I am dead serious. That's a whole other zany rant altogether.

I guess I just have a problem with advertising-as-decor. Children don't understand that it's an ad. It's the same as putting up posters for Coke or for a snack or for some hot new toy. I don't care who they have on the ads. They're still ads, trying to sell a product and convince a child that the product is not only good, but essential to your diet and level of coolness. It just skeevs me out.

I am sure I would agree if I knew her, young fellow.

Overheard today. Said by a second grade boy:

"I spitted on your girlfriend, okay?! I hate Amanda! She's so fake!"

Wow.