Tone

Through speaking with people who know me it's become obvious that this blog is a bit of a downer. I don't know how to lighten the tone and I don't want it to sound like this job is always so heavy. I work with middle school kids because they're hilarious. My job involves hanging out with kids all day. And I don't even have a set curriculum that I have to get them through. I'm not held accountable for their test scores. And their behavior is not thought of as a reflection of my work. Like everyone I would rather work less - 30 hours a week would be about right - but I love my job. There's no other career type of job I can imagine having. So, no worries about me. I report to you what may be heavy and tragic but there's a lot of laughter and fun. My job rules.

Slow Week

There were no real emergencies this week but a slow week here is rather eventful anyway. For your enjoyment and edification (and edubacation), what follows is a list of things that happened during this uneventful week to the ten students I currently have on my caseload:

- a student who had been spitting out his meds decided he was going to take it now because he could notice a decline in his behavior when he was off his meds
- a student asked if he could have his schedule switched so that he would have no classes with his best friend because now, after failing every thing in the 1st marking period, he wants to get good grades and can't do that when his best friend is around
- 4 students caught up completely on all of their missing work
- a plan was formulated with an outside agency to get one student help with drug use
- I was called an idiot 4 times by a student who loves me (He didn't understand his math test; he completed it later following some reteaching.)
- two students came all week without their meds - this caused endless quiet cursing on the part of one and chasing, spitting and general over-excitement on the part of the other
- a student was able to attend the holiday dance for the first time in three years
- two students attended principal's lunch on the recommendation of their general education teachers
- a parent told me her child could decide for himself whether to take his meds or not and she was only doing it to satisfy "outside sources"
- a student became the highest achiever in his math class to date for the 2nd marking period
- a student received in-school suspension for wearing gang related apparel to school
- a student was suspended for two days for threatening and intimidating another student
- a student received five stitches when another student kicked open a door that smacked him in the face
- our most notorious work avoider completed the final draft of a major project in his humanities class
- a student couldn't stop talking about getting to visit his dad this coming week
- ditto for another student but his mom
- a student made a song using Garage Band and played it for me

And more, always more.

Return to Medlandia

I asked a student to promise to stop by the nurse's office to take his meds on his way from my class to lunch. This is a student who doesn't like to take his meds and whom I've had to walk to the nurse's office in order to ensure that he got there. Before I started escorting him he would skip it and have to be called out of his class and to the nurses office following lunch. Though he promised he would actually do it this time, I found out he skipped the office and went straight to lunch when I stopped by the nurse's office five minutes later. So I tracked him down in the cafeteria where he was chowing on a plate of nachos. I asked him why he didn't stop by the nurse's office to take his meds and he said, "Because it's Friday." That seemed reasonable to me. I suppose I could have coerced him into leaving the cafeteria right then or told him he couldn't go to recess now or taken some other form of revenge. But I just asked him to take his meds before he went to his class after recess. He did.

Meds? Meds. Meds!

One of my students takes a very small dosage of meds for ADHD. This student just told us he has been faking it for the past three weeks. He says that when he takes the meds he can focus but he can't do any thing. When he doesn't take his meds he can learn and do whatever he wants. This is true, I think. He's one of those rare people who can actually multi-task if one of the tasks is listening and the other doesn't require much concentration. The part he leaves out is that he gets frustrated and destructive when he's off his meds. But he sat in the office and cut box tops for an hour quite happily. At that point he could talk a little bit about what got him removed from class. Today I bought a football to play catch with him when he needs to have something in his hands when he's frustrated. We'll see.

Another student is perfectly well behaved and hardworking here. At home he throws things, yells at his guardian, walks out of the house and possibly hits people. Apparently he takes his meds regularly.

A third student had a very long history of violent incidents and was 5 years behind in reading and math. He recently was transferred to a therapeutic day program. He's never been on meds.

Nice try?

One of my students has been having a serious attendance problem. Working with him we rearranged the schedule so that this student would be an office aid first period and miss a class with a teacher this student dislikes. The receptionist has plenty of help first period but she decided that this student needed the support so she would find something for this student to do. I worked it out with this student's teachers, administrator and guidance counselor. The guidance secretary immediately changed the schedule and I gave the brand new schedule to the student 8th period yesterday. The student was psyched. The student didn't come to school today.

UPDATE (12/5/06): The student came today after missing 5 days. Right away he learned how to find the slope of a line and finished the homework the math teacher assigned. I made him promise that he would come in again tomorrow.

12/7/06: Three days in a row! Also we've arranged to have help from outside agencies come to the school for his mental health and attendance issues.

Triage is the New Revolution

As a proponent of a more...er...progressive political ideology than the Democrats I was surprised to find myself rather ecstatic about the results of the recent election. Democrats truly do not represent progressives so I only vote for a Democrat when it's a very tight race with a Republican. And even then I usually don't feel good about it. I'm looking forward to the day when I can make a choice for actual progress but for now I'm just hoping that the bleeding can stop. Literally and figuratively.

Some will say, "What about the plan for universal health coverage & raising the minimum wage? That's pretty progressive." If we consider helping folks when they're sick and making sure that people are adequately remunerated for their work progressive then we are in trouble. It's 2006, not 1906, right? The labor movement happened, didn't it?

I don't think we ought to boast about no longer committing human rights atrocities after decades of doing so; we ought to boast about proactively addressing issues before they ever become human rights atrocities. The fact that a person can work for under $6/hr. in this country is absurd. The fact that that same person can work forty hours a week, get $240 (gross) and then not be able to take her child to the doctor is immoral.

Conclusion: It's great the Dems won because ending what should be considered despicable violations of the rights of every human being is better than continuing them. But we should do better than that.

Yeah triage! Woo hoo...

Providing a Person with SDI

SDI is specifically designed instruction. This is usually indicated on an IEP in an area a student has had difficulty accessing general education curriculum. For instance, if a student with a learning disability has particular trouble with reading she may be alloted 90 minutes of SDI in reading a week. This means that a special education teacher must provide curriculum tailored to this student's needs, modify/adapt general education curriculum and/or modify instruction/delivery of general education curriculum in order to make it more accessible to this student. An example of modified curriculum would be that our student with difficulty in reading might get phonics during independent work time when everyone else is working on making inferences in the novels they have self-selected.

Another method of delivering SDI would be to work with general education teachers to alter delivery of instruction. Some children with a learning disability have a very difficult time understanding oral instructions but when they read instructions they can do the work. So you might work with a teacher to make sure all of his instructions are written somewhere - on the overhead machine or on chart paper for instance. Another example would be that a particular student might need to only receive one step in a series of directions at a time. So you work with a teacher to make sure that this is happening.

Now here's the tricky part: If the teacher is now providing instructions in written format on the overhead, this is accessible to all in the classroom. This will probably make it easier for any number of students as well as the child labeled LD. But since it's used by the entire class it's no longer considered SDI by the Oregon Department of Education because it's not S and more. Which means you're no longer providing that child with her legally required SDI in this way.

You might say, "Wait a minute, that makes no sense." And I might reply, "You're damn right." But it would be true nonetheless.

What are the implications?

1) If the student starts to perform better and no longer needs support in that class to work at grade level because of these class-wide interventions (and if this were to happen it would be because of a series of similar interventions and not just the two listed above) you could have a team meeting and alter the IEP to remove the SDI in that subject area. In some ways this student is no longer disabled in reading because she is accessing the general education curriculum with no help from support staff. (So she's no longer disabled in reading...?)

2) Since altering the IEP is unlikely (in some instances parents won't want that because they want to make sure their child is receiving necessary supports OR it's next to impossible to get the parent in AND these meetings are time-consuming and teachers are overworked) one must conclude that passing good teaching techniques on to general education teachers is punished.

There are whole programs built around serving high needs students by altering teaching techniques that are very successful - Mel Levine's "Schools Attuned" is one. I'm a much better teacher in general and specifically to high needs students because of this. But in NYC we weren't punished for adopting good teaching techniques.

The Caste System

Any one who has looked at disability rights can see that people with disability are treated as, at best, second class citizens. And anyone familiar with Disability Creep knows that you too can be denigrated if you associate too closely with a person with a disability. (Note: Disability Creep has been used in different contexts to mean different things but this is the usage I find most...Useful.) Special education teachers, among many others, experience disability creep by being excluded in any number of ways from the goings-on in schools because we "got some on us". As advocates for those who are excluded and as those who are excluded ourselves, it seems to me that we should know better than to create hierarchies among school staff. Yet, in my experience, it's quite common to find special educators and other staff excluding educational assistants/paraprofessionals (EAs/paras).

My experience in New York City, which was limited to working with under 10 para-professionals in 6 years, was that the paras were more or less lousy which might excuse their treatment in some minds (though I'd be willing to bet that it was the treatment that caused the behavior and not the other way around). Where I am now in Oregon, it's been my experience that the educational assistants (same job, different name) are excellent and still they are treated badly. For instance, presence of EAs at IEP meetings is strongly discouraged at every level. But some of the EAs who work here have been working with students for 2 or more years whereas, in my case, I've been working with these students for two months. It makes sense no me to exclude those staff members who are most knowledgeable about a student when planning that student's individual educational program.

Unlike many other schools, teachers here are routinely recognized for excellent work. However, EAs are often excluded from recognition even when their part in a project or response to a situation was much greater than that of a teacher's. Also, the principal here is in most ways excellent. But he has a very clear negative disposition towards EAs...and the principal has a background in special ed and talks about special education as a civil rights issue.

I guess I'm surprised by this because I see such a clear link between imposing hierarchies on people with disabilities and hierarchies between staff members at school. I mean, it's right here in the same place! But it goes unseen or it's somehow justified. I would think it would induce cognitive dissonance but instead it's ignored. And we wonder why our student have cliques and mini-hierarchies amongst them.

How many educators does it take to make you emotionally disturbed?

The other day I participated in a meeting in which we (the school psych, two special ed teachers, a general ed teacher and the assistant principal) decided that a student was emotionally disturbed. The student met the qualifications set by the district for this label. Now the student can work with me on improving his/her behavior in school. This was the 3rd of three meetings we held - none of which the parent attended though the parent told us she/he would attend all of them. So the five of use sat together and determined that this student is no longer learning disabled but emotionally disturbed. Why did I agree? It was going to happen either way because I wasn't a required member of the team. And I actually think we're going to help this student now. Or more specifically, I'm going to help this student now. His previous casemanager was useless. So when we hear that someone is emotionally disturbed or autistic or retarded or learning disabled we need to remember that it's just a little group of people who sit around and decide that it's so.

So...what do you do?

I have to explain my job a lot. When I tell people that I work with emotionally disturbed kids I can't imagine what they think. Or, I can and I want to dissuade them that it's any thing like what they think. It's not some altruistic service that I do because I need to feel good about myself or pay penance for my privilege (though we do need to pay penance for our privilege). Mostly I do the same thing I did when I was a general education teacher when I worked with these kids but now it's my sole duty rather than a sideline that was time consuming, necessary and satisfying.

Since my school more or less does inclusion I spend 3 periods teaching a small group of kids. Two of those periods we do self-management skills like anger control, empathy training, bullying awareness, etc. One period each day I try to fill in some basic academic gaps like how to memorize information, how to read a chart or map and how to take notes. Then we do homework for the rest of the period. For two other periods I work in classrooms with students on my caseload making sure they can access the curriculum by monitoring their behavior and modifying curriculum. For two other periods in the day I do paperwork, meet with staff, make phone calls, plan curriculum and put out "fires". The two educational assistants I work with spend all day in general education classes making sure the curriculum is accessible to our students. Sometimes students misbehave, sometimes they get frustrated and sometimes they get themselves in hot water. Most of the time they do what they can despite the overwhelming obstacles they face.

Working with students classified as ED it has become clear to me that most of the disability they are classified as having is environmental (which would call in to question whether these students are actually disabled...although, that's true for most disabilities, right?). For instance, one of my students was removed from his parents at a young age due to drug use and has spent time with innumerable foster parents; another has no father and the mother provides almost no oversight; another lives with both parents but has had all other siblings removed due to neglect and comes in having not been put to bed and wearing extremely dirty clothes. Still another student has grown up in a house where the parents scream at each other and have extreme social phobia; another is dirt poor and seemingly unloved; and another is continuously told by the mother that school is a waste of time. The student I have with the most extreme behavior lives with an adoptive father who has an occasional relationship with a woman who may or may not be the mother who spends most of her time wandering the streets trying to score whatever drug she is currently addicted to. This father doesn't clean, put to bed or take any educational interest in the child. He also calls his "grandmother", who carries a gun, over when he misbehaves and beats him up when called. So, why are these kids misbehaving I wonder? I believe it when it's said that most misbehavior is a response to unmet needs.

So when I tell people what I do I might say I work with the bad kids - emphasizing 'bad' so it's clear I don't actually think they're bad. And sometimes I say, "emotionally disturbed" kids because the label ED causes most people to take notice pretty quickly. Other times I just say I teach or that I teach special education. But if you want to know what I really do, I'll tell you right now: I try to make a few hours of each day that I work with my students better than they would be otherwise in whatever way makes most sense at the time. And hopefully, hopefully this leads them out of where they are and onto something better where they don't have to pay for the mistakes of their parents, often caused by factors out of the parents' control, for the rest of their lives.

LRE as LEE

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) is a measure built into IDEA that protects a disabled student's right to receive an education with non-disabled students whenever possible. Essentially, the student should be placed in as close to a regular setting as possible. Sometimes the least restrictive setting that is appropriate is a very restrictive setting. For instance, a high school aged student with with severe mental retardation coupled with numerous physical impairments might be best served in a separate school designed to help prepare this student to live as independently as possible. That's pretty restrictive because there are no non-disabled peers in that setting but it's probably appropriate.

Just as LRE is sometimes MCE it is also LEE - Least Expensive Environment. The district office has denied a transportation request for cab service for a student for whom we have serious safety concerns. They say it's because they are concerned that it's too restrictive and there is no data to back it up - which, by the way, is false. It seems to me that it's much cheaper to plead LRE in this case than to pony up the dough to get this kid to school in the way that is safest. If, as a parent, I knew what the situation with this students was, I wouldn't let my child ride that bus.

Update 11/20/06: This student called the bus driver a terrible name, called all the kids on the bus the same name, was reportedly harassing a female student and was reassigned to the mini-bus. Two weeks later we got a risk assessment report back from an outside agency that recommends that this student NOT attend the home school due to the high risk factor. This student has since been placed in a private therapeutic setting.

Why I oughta...

I was absent from school on Tuesday at an all day training that was actually relatively useful. Apparently, the substitute was a wheelchair user. When I came in on Wednesday a teacher said to me, "I thought it was ironic to have a substitute in a wheel chair with the behavior kids." I think she meant something about the blind leading the blind...wait, that's abelist....but you know what I mean. I wasn't sure how to respond without ruining my working relationship with her. I just said, "Oh yeah?" and let a long uncomfortable pause sit there between us. As she was walking out the door she mumbled something about chasing kids down the hall in a wheelchair. Of course, no chasing went on of any sort and everyone reported that she was quite competent.

FAPE 'em

Recently I noticed a colleague heard FAPE used as a verb. Free appropriate public education (FAPE) is mandated in IDEA for students with disabilities. This was the first time that it was made explicit in federal law that students with disabilities had to be educated at public expense in an appropriate manner. And remember, IDEA was passed in 1990 so...rather recently. As noted elsewhere, the word "appropriate" is rather, well, inappropriate because it's so open to interpretation. However, what might be even more inappropriate is the use of FAPE I have recently heard at meetings of the special ed teachers in my district. The usage went like this:

"So what happens when a student attending private school does not come to the nearest public school for his special education services [as mandated in our state guidelines]?" asked one special ed teacher.

Replied the special education program manager, "You FAPE 'em. Send the FAPE letter [a district-wide standardized letter] indicating that we stand ready to provide FAPE whenever he might begin to show up for his services."

And that made me think that's what we're doing to our students all the time - FAPEing them. Modified your curriculum! You've been FAPEd. Provided alternate setting for your test! Consider yourself FAPEerized! FAPE up to the facts!

Note on 10/6/06: Earlier this week at a district training of all SPED teachers and related service providers the phrase "Fape 'em" was used repeatedly by folks at all levels. So clearly this is part of the lingo that as a newbie I'm just not familiar with.

Most Convenient Environment

A major section of IDEA is the Least Restrictive Environment clause (LRE). LRE is defined as the educational setting where a child with disabilities can receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) designed to meet his or her education needs while being educated with peers without disabilities in the regular educational environment to the maximum extent appropriate. This means that we can't have self-contained classes of students with disabilities unless less restrictive settings are inappropriate. You can seee that you've got that mushy word "appropriate" in there which can, and does, cause all sorts of problems. It seems to me that "least restrictive" is often reinterpreted to mean "most convenient" and not for the student but for the teachers. It's inconvenient to have a student in your class that learns differently and/or acts differently from most other students because that means you might have to change your teaching. It's that or move the student to a different class. Which one happens most often, I wonder?

So, in my district, it's no wonder that there is a good deal of resistance to the push to include students with disability in mainstream classes by ending self-contained classes that took students away from their home schools and relegated them to spending the whole day with one teacher and a bunch of other "high needs" students - a recipe for disaster if there ever was one. That and the district office keeps reminding everyone that we have to do this because it's part of No Child Left Behind that is being enacted this year and the district got in trouble last year from the state department of ed. for having too many students in self-contained classes. Notice that no one mentions that inclusion is more ethical, leads to better educations for all and the LRE for the vast majority of students.

Special Paperwork

So I had to change a kid's transportation from the mini-bus to the regular bus today because his very upset mother called me at school today to request this. He was riding the mini-bus to another school last year because it wasn't his districted school so the regular bus didn't go there. This year he goes to his districted school, with his brother, so the regular bus works for him. The busses all arrive and leave at the same time from the same spot at the school. So theoretically he would just follow his brother to his new bus without an issue. Easy enough, right?
Below is what I had to do to officially change his transportation placement:
- speak to the vice principal that manages this kid's team to find out how to make this happen
- speak to my special ed mentor in order to figure out the official process for doing this
- fill-out a special ed action prior notice form, send the one to the district office, one to his parents and add one to his permanent file
- fill out a request for transportation form, send one to the district office and add the other to his permanent file
- rewrite the first page of his IEP to reflect this change and send one copy of this home and add another copy to his permanent file
- call the district office twice to get advice on how to do this properly.

This was, literally, hours of work. I didn't see a single student in their general education classes today. Not a good day for "servicing" students.

How to Flirt in Portland?

I must preface this by saying that as a married man I don't, as rule, flirt.
___________

In NYC, the slightest interest you showed in another person would properly be construed as either A) flirting or B) confirmation that you're not from these here parts. For example, if you go to a coffee shop, a typical, non-flirtacious interaction would be as follows:

You (standing in front of the counter waiting to be served: ....
Barista (standing behind the counter, looking bored and not showing any real interest in you): ...
You (giving a clear motion with your head that your attention has now been turned from the menu to the barista): ...
Barista (spoken with a carefree inflection): Hey.
You: Hi. Could I get a large soy latte?
Barista (nodding slightly and walking to espresso machine): Yup.

This, mind you, is an example of a rather friendly barista.
The following is an example of an extremely flirtacious and almost aggressive barista:

You (standing in front of the counter waiting to be served): ....
Barista (seeing you she/he shows a hint of a smile): How's it going?
You: Not bad.
Barista: Alright.
You: Could I get a large soy latte?
Barista (nods slightly and walks to espresso machine): Yup.

In the above situation, the barista has made it clear that she/he is in to you. However, I have found that in Portland it is common for a barista to ask you all sorts of questions about yourself with real interest and...a full-on smile! At first I thought I was being flirted with ceaselessly. But then I figured out that it's the near excessive niceness of the people in Portland that causes baristas, and everyone else here, to act this way. Which is fine. Until you start wondering about how actually to flirt with someone. It was so easy in NYC. You could just ask how someone was doing with interest and you'd have made it obvious what you were thinking. Here, that's common practice with everyone you meet any where. I began to think you had to ask really probing questions or be super forward in order to make your intentions clear. However, my new theory is that you have to show some disinterest. If you act cool and distant you may seem intriguing to someone who has learned to be open and kind at all times. I hope someone can try it out and get back to me on how it works.

Earth plus Sky equals Food

I have tried to remain aware of the fact that as a New Yorker I, more than most people, am divorced from the source of the food I eat. It's not so bad as the scene in Feed (M.T. Anderson) when Titus visits a fillet mignon farm (or possibly veal farm) where all the meat is growing out the ground) and says, "I really like to know where things come from." But still, it's pretty bad. Driving through Indiana and Illinois this became utter apparent to me. You just drive through mile after mile of corn and soy bean fields - especially when you get off the Interstate and drive on smaller roads. And I know this is obvious but it was still heavy. Food comes from the earth. The sky and the ground get together and make plants that we can eat. There it all is. No packaging or preservatives or signage or any thing. Just food coming up from the ground. That's how it's worked out so we can manage to live. And there it all was stretching out on either side of us as we drove. I was amazed and humbled.

Philadelphia - Gotten to know you

Though we're in the midst of moving 3,000 miles away I still feel like Philly is a natural place for us in many ways. East Coast, mid-sized, music and activism in abundance, we have good friends there, affordable housing. I don't even know what it is about Philly that appeals to me so much because there are certainly other cities with the above credentials. Perhaps that it's a scaled back version of a large city like NYC but not Boston - a city I never see myself living in. It's somewhat large, somewhat cosmopolitan...but not overwhelming. This is quite possibly academic because a move back east is at least 5 years away I think.

"Me and Mike Watt playing Guitar"

Watched the Minutemen documentary, "We Jam Econo," the other day. I am re-psyched on these guys. Such timeless music. And Double Nickels on the Dime is one of the greatest records ever. But what it mostly made me think of is playing music with Christopher. I've been fortunate in that I've basically only ever been in bands that have been populated with my best friends. I'm not really sure how else to make music (though I guess I will learn when I get to Portland). Being in That's All She Wrote with Christopher was very much like taking all of the experiences you had as a teenager, adding a dose of broadened musical taste and making a band out of it. There's something about being in a band, and all the component parts of that (practicing, writing, touring, etc), with people you love and you've known for a long time that elevates the experience to another level. Truly a beautiful thing. So if some day it's possible I hope to be able to make music with Christopher again.

The End of Fire&Flux

A couple of weeks ago Fire&Flux played what may be its last show. I would like to think this is not true but we'll be living 2000 miles apart so that makes it rather difficult to get together. That said, Rich is still planning a tour for us some time in the winter. Sounds good to me.

The last show was pretty fantastic. Christopher came down from Providence to play and Chris J came in with his new girlfriend Teresa. Some other excellent individuals came out too. We played well I thought though I don't know if it sounded as good to other people as it felt to us. It was a pretty intense set with some really screaming sections. Chris took 200 pictures of the event so it's rather well documented.

Throughout our set I did my best to forget that this was it, this was the last time we're going to play together. Improvised music really requires one to focus in a way that other doesn't - at least for me. So focus is always an issue and always something I'm working on. Those moments when you can forget yourself are the best moments of playing. And living. In scenarios like this, when there's substantial subtext to the playing, it's hard to get your mind in the position of only thinking about music.

Christopher's set was awesome. Intense and beautiful like all his music. Some dude got on stage afterward and tried to embarrass him though. I kind of flipped out at him afterwards cursing him up and down. There was definitely a part of me that wanted him to hit me so I could feel free to hurt him. It's the same thing as always: he hurt me (by trying to hurt Christopher) so I wanted revenge. There's part of me that thinks this is totally wrong and part of me that thinks people have to know what they can't get away with.

So it was exhilarating and sad and fun and exciting. Enough people showed so that I could give Christopher a non-embarrassing amount of money to get home with and we all left relatively happy. And then that part of my NYC life was over.