Dependence

This past week the three adults who work in this program - I'm including myself here - went to a training on working with students with difficult behavior. It's a good training led by a guy who knows what's up. However, it occurred to me that our students have become far too dependent on us. Generally, with my returning students, there are few behavior issues of note. But while we were gone, some of them regressed to pre-us behavior. This not good but not because they're supposed to behave dammit! but because, obviously, we're not always going to be around. In fact, the most dependent students are the ones that are going to high school next year where they won't be able to access nearly the same level of support as they do here because the high school program - and specifically the guy who runs it - sucks.

So the other day we made a T chart of all the things that went well yesterday and all the things that didn't go well. Then the students took turns coming to the board and circling in green what would have happened if we had been here and circling in red what wouldn't happened. And we talked about that for a bit. Then we listed a bunch of ways they're currently counting on us in order for them to be successful. The list had items like, "remind me to stay on-task," "tell me to get to class on time," "get me started on my homework," etc. Each student then chose one item that he thought he could begin trying to do alone. So, among others, I'm expecting Headache to turn in his own work and RB to attempt his homework without prompting. We'll see.

Monday I'm out again to learn about changes in the IEP and how to write IEPs that are compliant with the district's interpretation of the state's interpretation of the federal department of education's updated interpretation of IDEIA 2004. I expect that Tuesday we'll do the T chart. Today I will remind them of what happened and what they can do to avoid it happening again.

The worst thing I can think of is making these students overly dependent on help because not only will they most likely fail in its sudden absence but they'll also feel abandoned. Moving toward greater independence is going to be a major theme this year.

That sound you hear, that's my heart breaking

Twice today. First, at a training on how to make sure we don't get sued I ran into the dude who does my job at the high school. He was telling me about my students who are now his students. He tells me that Z might already be "lost". He was absent all last week. Z has extreme anxiety and zero people skills but is so fun and interesting. I knew high school was going to be tough for him especially given that the first thing the aforementioned "teacher" does is inform his class that half of them won't graduate. Z is going to be a mechanic as an adult and make way more money than me if he can survive high school with some hope intact. Now I have to contact the social worker up there, give Z a call, get some teachers here to call him and try to brainstorm some other ideas for how to keep him in school. If that kid drops out, the fault rests with me in part.

Second, I get back to my school from the training and am informed by my sub that Fake Gangsta's family is being evicted and they have to move this weekend. This kid, whom his teachers said didn't belong in this school, who totally baffled me for 3 months last year, who required a gigantic investment of time on the part of the staff in my program and who we used to hope would be absent every once in a while to give us a break went on to win the most improved student award for his team. He started this year having avoided regressing behaviorally and with an attitude towards school success that I never would have guessed would come from him. This is the poster child for inclusive behavior programs. If that kid moves, I seriously might cry.

Starting Stats: 8-1+1+1

Before starting the school year there were 8 students on my caseload. One student moved out of district which brought the caseload down to 7. (And the circumstances for her move are tragic: she was placed in temporary foster care that had been ongoing for some time. That placement was the only stable living situation she had known. Her foster mother had been ill for quite some time though and passed away over the summer. She's now living in a group home. This is not a girl who should not have been subjected to one more iota of trauma for the rest of her life.)
One student refuses to attend school (School Much?) and is placed on out-of-school tutoring. So there were 6 students attending the school in my program as of week 1. I have a new student who started today who is originally "from Africa" his therapist tells me- Africa being the most diverse place on the planet and larger than it appears on our US-centric maps, it was disappointing to hear all Africans get lumped in together...but I suppose that's a blog for another time.
Another new student starts next week. Short on details at this point. So, here are the players in our great drama (some of whom you may recognize from last year):

Math Major
Head Ache
Let's Ride Bikes!
Miss Popularity
Fake Gangsta (formerly C)
Trains! (formerly RB)
School Much?
Virgil
New student- as yet without a blog name

w/ Interrupt & Wrestler as assistants and me as myself.

Stay tuned for the further adventures of me and "the bad kids".

The R Word

Some of my otherwise brilliant friends use the word retarded as a pejorative. Many of my students do the same. A couple of years ago I tried to figure out a way to get folks to stop saying it. I first decided to reply to, "That's retarded" with, "Like my brother?" The problem being that I don't have a brother who identifies as retarded - in fact, I don't have a brother at all - and using, "Like my sister?" would have felt weird since I do, in fact, have sisters. I also thought being disingenuous was probably not the best approach. So I've started using, "Like my students?" That worked for a little while because I did teach a weekly literacy class with students identified as mentally retarded when I was teaching in NYC. Now that I'm a special education teacher out in Oregon, I don't actually work with students labeled mentally retarded. I've still been saying, "Like my students?" though because it's easier than saying, "I really wish you wouldn't use that word because it's offensive." Of course, the latter doesn't ruin anyone's day whereas a few times I've dropped "Like my students?" on someone I didn't know well and it really bummed them out and made me seem like a jerk. I don't mind coming across as a jerk for a good cause but I think it was mostly counterproductive. So I may be forced to be all mature about it rather than snarky.

Of course, none of this works with my students who say the R word all the time. They also say, "That's gay" constantly. However, given that my students have a host of problems I generally don't make an issue out of their use of either of these words as epithets. There are bigger (tofu) fish to fry, as it were.

I think I should point out that being literally retarded - slower or delayed when compared to the average - is mostly irrelevant much like being black or gay. But when we say, "That's retarded" or "That's gay" when we mean "That's really dumb" or "That's really uncool" there is no difference from saying "That's black" to mean someone about being really athletic but prone to crime and poor in academics or saying you're going to Jew someone down in order to get a better purchase price for something. So using those words as insults is insulting the millions of people who use those same words to describe themselves. You dig?

Jerry Lewis Renounces Telethon, Cripples MDA

This post is part of a group effort.

Jerry Lewis, comedian, actor and longtime fund raiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), held a press conference today too apologize for years of insulting people with disabilities during his MDA telethon. The long-running telethon has been criticized for years by the disability community for portraying people with disabilities as pathetic and half human. Today Lewis apologized for what he termed, "My enduring ignorance and insensitivity to people with disabilities. I want to stand up and be counted among the enlightened." When asked about the sudden change of heart, Lewis said that, "I was blind but now I can see." Additionally, he regretted the years of "turning a deaf ear and a blind eye" to the disability community's protests.

Lewis has decided to start a new telethon that will work with disability activists to raise money for organizations deemed worthy by the disability community rather than himself- a non-disabled person. Lewis commented, "It's time I took a stand alongside all of my wheel-chair using and otherwise disabled friends to fight against the medical model of disability." He added he "had been paralyzed with fear for years" by the possibility of becoming disabled but has come to realize that disability is natural. Additionally he noted that he looked forward to "opening the ears" of the non-disabled to community to his new understanding of disability.

Lewis said will omit any use of disability simulations on his telethon because many people with disabilities object to them on the grounds that one cannot simulate disability anymore than one can simulate being black or gay. Instead Lewis pledges to show videos such as "Talk" by the Disability Rights Commission in the United Kingdom which portrays the discrimination faced by people with disabilities in social situations such as dining out, professional ones such as applying for a new job and even within metropolitan infrastructure such as inaccessible public transit.

The MDA responded to Lewis' press conference by issuing the following statement: "Wanted: One famous person to run a telethon in order to raise money for a group of people by insulting them in order to pursue ends they largely do not support. Qualifications: Know little to nothing about disability but have a great many opinions about it. Position open immediately."

Lewis directed his final words during the press conference to the people he has offended in the past with his telethon: "No longer will I portray people with disabilities as pathetic because that's a really retarded thing to do. It's crazy to think that disability is anything other than a social construction. I know that may leave some of you speechless but I believe that all of us normal people will come to see the light and stop being so lame."

New School Year

As it stands I have 7 students on my caseload to begin the year with one student most likely beginning the year on tutoring - which means he won't attend my school. All of the students are returning students, none of whom are particularly difficult. I have one new educational assistant that seems like she's going to be pretty good and one returning assistant who, if God existed, would be God's gift to me.

I've also been selected to mentor a couple of teachers in my district who do my job at other schools. These are folks who are not new to teaching but new to the district and, I think, new to working with kids in a behavior program. It's quite possible that they have a good deal more experience than me in teaching and almost certain that they've got more special education experience since this is only my second year. My selection as their mentor speaks more to the fact that the pickings are slim for people returning to the job in the district.

There are two new assistant principals at my school this year since one of ours retired and the other was hired as a principal elsewhere. One of the new APs is new to administration and the other is a veteran. Seems like this is going to be OK too.

There are close to 20 new staff members at my school (out of 60) so there are a lot of new faces. My school is supposedly the toughest school in the district- which means most diverse really - so we had a lot of turnover.

I've got things pretty much together at this point. I'm enjoying my last non-contract week day (holidays aside) until June.

This will be my eighth year teaching. Here we go.

Gilliam does disability wrong

(Note: The following bit of writing contains spoilers regarding the movie Tideland)

Terry Gilliam, a director who has made a slew of great movies, including Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, also wrote and directed Tideland which I just got around to seeing this past week. The movie was largely panned due to its graphic content - though I found it approximately as controversial as Sesame Street.

I did however find its treatment of disability disappointing. The movie ends with Dickens, a person with a developmental disability, blowing up a passenger train that runs near his house using dynamite he stole from a construction site that he had been holding on to in order to do just this deed- which, according to the film, is because Dickens doesn't understand what he's doing. Not only has he most likely killed dozens of people, he too seems to die in the explosion. I'd like to do a little unpacking of two points.

1) The implicit message is that people with developmental disabilities are a threat to the (so-called) non-disabled world. This is a classic in film and literature (see, for instance, Of Mice and Men) and is the exact opposite of reality. The non-disabled world daily visits horrors upon people with disabilities and generally seeks a world devoid of "them". But film and literature would have you believe the opposite - that the disabled world seeks the destruction of the non-disabled world (see, for instance, The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Personally, plots to kill the able-bodied world by someone with a disability is not something I spend much time worrying about. It's disappointing that Gilliam would subject his audience to such malarkey.

It is the case that Dickens is in need of help. We could blame him for making errors in reasoning except that we know that his reasoning is atypical which makes those around him complicit in his acts. We could blame his sister, who is his caretaker, but she appears to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the death of their mother and disappearance of her lover. As always, we need to look at the lack of social services available to the majority of people with (and without) disabilities in this, the richest country in the world. We can, for example, give billions of dollars in "aid" to Israel and Saudi Arabia (and in this case "aid" means "weapons to kill people with") but we can't get a respite care worker to aid Dickens and his sister.

2) That Dickens dies implies that he simply cannot live in this "able-bodied" world. There is no place for him in the world that Gilliam shows us in Tideland. Again, this is a common theme that goes something like, "The safest thing for 'us' and the best thing for him is that he should die so he can never hurt anyone else." (Again, see Of Mice and Men for another "fine" example of this.) Gilliam, and the rest of us, should at very least become reconciled to the fact that the difference we label as disability has always existed and always will. We may be able to kill "them" off in film and literature (and we may attempt to do so in real life- see, for instance, the Nazis) but "they" are here to stay. When we accept that we might be able to start figuring out how exactly "we" are going to have a society that considers "them" as more than an after thought we'll be getting somewhere.

Audience in Performance

When I started playing music in middle and high school I was playing in bands that wanted to "rock" the audience. The music was designed to be audience friendly- though of course, we found it fun to play as well.

In college, when I started to play more difficult music (as in, difficult to listen to), I dismissed the audience as irrelevant. This was useful because when you play difficult music you can't count on an audience to respond positively to what you're doing so convincing yourself that you don't care what they think and that you're playing the music solely for your enjoyment is a practical defense mechanism. Though the music I played at the time was intensely personal in many ways and it was satisfying to play it in rehearsal with my band mates and we could even play shows to no one and still have fun, it was still obviously a lie that the audience was irrelevant.

Now that I play improvised music that is, by definition, different every night, I've started to rethink my ideas about audience. In improvised music, unlike in structured music, the audience can truly change the performance. For instance, if you're playing a structured song and you see that people are enjoying it- singing along, dancing, etc - then you might get excited and play your part more intensely or jump around but the music itself doesn't change much because it's preplanned. However, if you're making it up as you go along, as we do in my bands, and the audience (if we're lucky enough to have one) is visibly or audibly excited, it can literally change the music by affecting the decisions we make about what to play as we're playing. Case in point: when we played a punk show in Salt Lake City, we weren't sure if any one there was going to enjoy it. Five minutes into the first piece people in the audience were yelling encouragement and had their fists up in the air like they would if a punk band was playing. That's a shot of confidence that has to affect to music.

Furthermore, when we play different venues we have a lot of options for how to present the music. For instance, when we play a gallery show, we can assume the audience will probably have more patience and we can take advantage of that by allowing the music to develop more slowly. If we're playing a punk show, we generally plan to present our most intense and chaotic side more quickly. If you have a set of songs you play each night, you don't really have the ability to do this.

The reason I've been rethinking the role of audience is because I don't know whether it's a good thing to consider audience or to allow yourself to be affected by them in performance. Does it make it less honest? Or is it just a lie to attempt to ignore audience? How do we acknowledge the role of audience while still playing music that is true to ourselves?

Inclusive classrooom set up

An inclusive classroom set up should be uncrowded. I mean this in a few ways:

1) Students, regardless of whether they are typically mobile or use wheelchairs or other assistive devices, should be able to get around the whole classroom easily. The reality is that it's not always possible to do this because most schools were not built with inclusion in mind. We can do our best with what we've got by removing any furniture that isn't directly useful to our students. This means that if space is tight we toss our bulky teacher's desk and cabinets of materials that only we use. We make the aisles wide and try to create some open spaces when possible. Again, the reality is that most of us teach in classes that are too small for the number of students we have and as teachers we hate to get rid of anything. However, it's imperative that we do what we can in order to make it possible for all students to attend and be included in our classes.

Another word about why this is important: We've all felt like so much cattle in a pen when we've been squeezed into a tiny space with a large number of people. This is insulting just about whenever it occurs but extremely so when it's in an educational setting. Overcrowding in schools sends a terrible message to our students about the value of their education. Furthermore, when students with emotional and/or behavioral issues are added in, we have to assume difficult behavior will be the result. And it would be unfair to entirely blame a student for acting out in this situation.

2) Though hanging up posters and charts is very important, it's also important that it is clear to all students where they should be focusing their attention. I like hanging up charts to remind students of what we've been working on and as references for them. However, too many make it so that some students just block them out entirely as they home in on the salient information while other students who find it difficult to determine saliency (students with learning disabilites, ADHD, etc) lose their focus. Aside from being careful with packing our classrooms with furniture, we must be careful of packing our classrooms with visual stimuli.

3) Much has been written about the arrangement of desks in a classroom- whether all desks should be in rows or cooperative groups and whether the classroom should be arranged so as to clearly channel attention toward the front where, presumably, the teacher is standing or so that students are facing each other. In my experience it's important to pick a method and stick with it so that students are not wondering/worrying about where they will be sitting as they're walking to your classroom. Being able to balance students' needs for accessing other students at times while being able to work privately at other times is important and being able to make the transition between the two predictable and smooth will help many students shed their anxiety over seating.

As with all planning, we must considering that any student, not just the typical ones, may come to our classrooms and it will be our responsibility to include them to the full extent possible.

Mind Set

Part of the reason why I've met with some success as a teacher is because of the mind set I have. I don't think that the following is the only way to think about about work with students with diffficult behavior (SWDB) but it's been useful for me to do so.

Teaching generally, and students with difficult behavior specifically, require a lot of patience.
SWDB test limits again and again for various reasons. Some want to see if you can set limits and stick to them. When you do so you're creating a safe place for students and that helps many students avoid acting out. On the other hand, if you make a rule and then allow students to violate the rule, the implicit message is that there are no rules. Additionally, if you have a short fuse and blow easily students feel unsafe because an angry adult is often an unsafe adult. It seems reasonable for students to think that if you can't keep your own emotions in order how can you maintain order in the classroom?

SWDB also want to be in control. This is a typical characteristic of students labeled emotionally disturbed in particular. One way of being in charge is by being able to make the teacher upset. This provides these students with a feeling of power. There's nothing wrong with this impulse- we all want to be in charge at times and we all like to feel powerful. As an educator it's my job to provide these students with authentic opportunities to make decisions and feel empowered. This often cuts down on the number of times a students will try to gain control over the class- the need for control has been met elsewhere.

How to be patient with these students? It must be acknowledged that it is extremely difficult to be patient with SWDB because their behavior, by definition, is challenging. We can't let this be our excuse though because I would argue that it's more important to be patient with these students than with typical, unlabelled students. These students are more fragile and often more prone to even more extreme behavior when confronted with a power struggle with an adult. In some ways I find it easier to be patient with SWDB because these students are difficult for good reason and often without choosing to be so.

Without fail, the SWDB have baggage. As the social worker at my first school liked to say, these students come to our classrooms with heavy baggage that they set down next to their desks and start pulling stuff out of when class starts. It's been important to me to find out what their lives have been like before they get to my classroom. This is so because it turns my students into real people rather than a mere warm body and it's much more difficult to mistreat people whose history you know because you can't help but feel some compassion for them. This is why dehumanization is an integral part of sexism, ableism, racism, slavery, genocide and all other forms of discrimination and prejudice. You can't perpetrate these sorts of horrors on those that you know and accept as human. So when I know that Math Major's father is extremely grumpy and mean all the time, I can have a lot more patience for his need to have my attention all the time. When I know that C's house is absolutely vile and his mother does nothing resembling parenting, I can easily understand why behaves in seemingly bizarre ways.

So the mind set is that I must have patience with these students. I know them as people and I have compassion for them. Patience flows naturally from that position.

Soccer Round Up

We interrupt this blog for a summary of my indoor soccer career to date:

Games played: Approximately 25

Injuries: torn left quad, torn right quad, sprained right ankle, sprained right knee, broken right index finger, pulled right and left hamstrings

Injuries found debilitating: Both quad tears for a total of 6 games missed

Gear purchased: red jersey (from Goodwill), blue shorts (from Goodwill), turf sneakers (from Sports Authority), soccer socks (from GI Joe's), shin guards (from GI Joe's), 3 Ace bandages (from Fred Meyer), two leg braces (from GI Joe's), ankle brace (from Rite Aid)

Goals scored: 3

Goals intentionally scored: 1

Goals let in playing goalie: Upwards of 12

Conclusion: I am not 18 any more

This is why I teach middle school

Tuesday: Math Major is telling Who Me? all of the Spanish he knows. He then gets very quiet so I won't be able to hear what comes next- except, of course, I can. He says to Who Me?, "And puta." Who Me? asks him what it means. Math Major replys, "Either the 'B' word or queer."

Note for our non-Spanish reader: Puta means prostitute.

Wednesday: KO is doing his math homework while repeating to himself in a sing-sing voice, "Poopy, poopy, poopy, poopy, poopy...." in an attempt to drive everyone crazy. He succeeds at this so I ask him to stop. A couple of minutes later, still working on his math, he starts to say to himself, "buttocks, buttocks, buttocks, buttocks...."

Role call: additions and subtractions

    Z
    CC
    ACDC
    Math Major
    Let's Ride Bikes
    Head Ache
    C
+  Miss Popularity
_____
       7 - starting point

+   Who me? (new eligibility as ED, added to my caseload)
+   Slick Rick (Returned from longterm suspension)
+   TS (moved into district)
______
      10

-    Slick Rick (placed at day treatment center following repeated suspensions)
-    TS (non-attendance following being kicked out of Dad's house)    
+   TS (re-enrolled)
-    TS (moved)
+   TS (re-enrolled)
-    TS (dropped out/moved/refused to attend)
______
      8

+ RB (moved in from different district)
+ School much? (Moved in from different district)
+ Mike Tyson (transferred from different school following total of 14 days of suspension)
+ WW (moved in with Dad following running away from bio-mom in different state)
______
     12

-   Who me? (moved in with Dad in different district)
-   Head Ache (moved to different district - mom lost Section 8 housing)
______
     10 - ending point?

(Possible additions: Jehovah &  Smiles, transferred to my caseload following new eligibilities)

What do I teach?

On my way into the school today, a student I don't know asked me what I taught. It's a good question that I didn't have an answer for. I didn't want to say, "special ed." I also have abandoned my previously prepared answer of, "I help student learn who have a difficult time behaving in school" because I don't want my student labelled as "the bad kids." What I should have said was, "I help make the school a place where everyone can learn." That thought occurred to me a minute later. And then I thought of a diagram that describes what I do:

Special Ed Life

Z is a gas. He's fairly incapable of interacting with most people, even those he knows really well. Every day I greet him warmly and he says, "Be quiet." Which for him means he's doing all right. He's been in a behavior class for several years now and believes that he's been victimized by the situation because he feels he hasn't learned all that much. This is probably true and I've told him so. But he also refuses to do his work a lot of the time. He'll sit there for 45 minutes until the period is over because he thinks he's getting revenge on you. He's also really afraid of failing and gets frustrated easily when he can't do the work.

Z has made tremendous strides this year. Last year he was a desk thrower and would pound his head against the wall when he was frustrated. He spent a lot of last year in an office cubicle because that's where he felt comfortable. He refused to go to mainstream classes and there are some amazing stories about his interactions with his mom on school grounds. This year, other than a little binder slamming and stomping around, he's had zero intense behavior issues. He goes to all mainstream classes and does well for the most part.

We've arranged various modifications and accomodations for him this year. One of which is that he gets excused from an assignment every time he does another assignment - it's a two for one deal. Between his work refusal, below-grade level achievement and frequent absences, he just can't keep up. When he sees that he's missing 14 assignments in one class he can't see that it's largely of his own doing and he just wants to throw in the towel. So, we've got this accomodation worked out to keep him motivated.

One of his teachers really feels like this is doing a diservice to Z in some ways because we can modify and accomodate until we're blue in the face and then eventually he's going out in the world in which there are very few accommodations for people who don't fit the mold. Obviously, this is not the way we want it to be, but he's right to point out that this is the way it is. He's getting special ed schooling but there's no special ed life out there. He's going to have to show up for work and finish jobs as they're assigned. He's not going to be able to berate people for not knowing how to do something and he's going to have be somewhat personable to his employers. If not, it's unlikely he's going to be able to participate meaningfully in society. Z's issues are compounded by the fact that his disability is "invisible": he has some intense anxiety issues and victimization issues but he looks like a typical person - albeit a bit withdrawn and quiet.

Some folks, like the above mentioned teacher, just don't see that he's disabled and he's not going to magically be "cured". This is who Z is. And he rules. He's hilarious and smart. He knows way more about cars and all things mechanical than I ever will. It's too bad that most people will write him off for being a difficult person because he's got a very rich personality and it's been rewarding to know him this year. More than likely he'll be a mechanic of some sort when he gets out of high school and make more money than any one who ever tried to teach him.

Rational Response Vol. 2

I got a new student two months ago that I'll call RB here.  RB came to us from a nearby district but it was quite some time before his file arrived.  This is worrisome with students who are in a behavior program because the behaviors can vary from "Why is she in a behavior program?" to "How is he not in residential care?"  So it's good to receive a file beforehand so we can have some idea of what is difficult for a student and know what sort of behaviors are typical.

Well, RB started without the file in hand and he did great:  completed classwork, participated in class, wasn't disruptive at all....pretty impressive.  Most students start at a new school like this so I knew it was just a matter of time before we saw what landed him in a behavior program.  Sure enough, after the first two weeks I noticed he had stopped handing in work.  Then I noticed that the reports of his excellent behavior were somewhat exaggerated- he didn't disrupt class but he also didn't really do much work.  He flew under the radar as it were.  And then I got his file.

The file noted that RB had been a runner at one of his schools.  By this I mean that when he got frustrated he would leave school and run away.  This is why it's important to have a file ahead of time -I would never have pegged RB as a runner and I hadn't planned on this possibility.  Thankfully, he hasn't run yet and says he doesn't do that anymore.  Instead - he just refuses to do work at times.  He has a hard time getting along with an educational assistant that is pretty much loved by all and has gotten himself kicked out of several classes for simply sitting there without even looking at the work he's been assigned.  RB also has some severe attentional issues.  When you're talking to him you can see his eyes glaze over after saying literally one word to him.  I'm not exaggerating here.  I've said, "RB," to him to get his attention.  He'll look at me and than before I can get the next word out he'll already have a far away look in his eye that I know now means he's not listening anymore.  

In sum, he has a history of running from and cutting school and being extremely disruptive and disrespectful.  He's currently refusing to do work (even with help from assistants, myself and his teachers and with modified work) and he's not making friends even with several students making friendly overtures.

Here's why this is rational:  his father has disappeared from his life as of a year ago, his  stepfather just left the family, his mother is completely disengaged from parenting, all three of his older brothers hit him at times, one of his brothers was removed for abusing RB and has just come back home, RB has received no counselling for what happened, the brother closest in age to RB (just one grade above him) does the parenting.  Refusing to care about learning pre-algebra or the Greeks seems really rational to me.  

The Rational Response

A therapist conducted a home visit in order to begin serving a student of mine whom I'll call C. C has struggled in school but his general trend this year has been up and up- which has been really gratifying given that his regular ed teachers wanted to give up on him immediately and seek outside placement. C has needs that stretch outside of the school setting so I referred him to a program that is a "wrap around" service- so-called because it covers what the school isn't covering thus providing service in areas that would otherwise be left open. When the therapist left the home after the interview he immediately filed a report with child services because the home is a complete mess and the baby in the family - whom C deeply loves - was gnawing on an oil bottle. (I know, it seems unbelievable but that's what he reported.) Most of my students have issues of neglect at home and though the extent of the neglect in this case is extreme the presence of it is not surprising. What is surprising is how C has been responding to it.
Lately, C has been amazing. He hasn't been suspended in months and months. He's been on time for classes and he's currently passing all of his classes. His behavior has been such that you would never guess that he is in a behavior program or is labelled as emotionally disturbed. This seems irrational to me. If I were going home to what C goes home to I wouldn't take the time to learn how to find the area of circles or how to conduct a scientific inquiry. I would break things. I would hit people. I would curse/cuss/swear at the principal. That seems like a rational response to the situation to me.
Two points here: when C does exhibit odd behavior (growling, foaming, disrespectful/foul language to adults) it's rather easy to have a lot of patience with him because I know what he has to live with. Also, we have to accept that learning capitalization or how to multiply fractions isn't going to be that high on some students' priority lists and it's for good reasons.

On Not Feeling too Good

For most of my students, I'm the only responsible adult in their lives. By responsible I mean different things for different students - being consistently present, being patient, attending to their needs, etc. Since I know that I do a lot for my students and that they're all doing better in school than they would otherwise it would be easy to get a big head about this and congratulate myself for being such a hero. Fortunately for me my students rarely say thank you. They rarely ask politely for anything. They'll be really upset if their flavor of granola bar is missing rather than being psyched they're getting anything. And this makes sense, I think. You really shouldn't have to be grateful for being fed. You should actually feel entitled to help in school. I don't think my students are unreasonable when they aren't thankful because they're only getting what they deserve. So this keeps my ego in check (somewhat, anyway). There's not much need for congratulations when a kid gets what he or she needs.

3 for Electives

Three of my students are getting out of one of my two periods with them so they can attend an elective class. It's difficult to get extra services to kids in the school day without removing them from something but it's too bad that they have had to miss elective all year. Fortunately, they're been doing so great that they're going to be able to spend the last third of the year in a tech-ed class that they all really like.

The silly thing is that this technically changes their placements - which is a big special education deal. Right now they all receive regular education with 21-60% special classes. The change would drop them to under 21%- technically a different placement. So I have to notify their IEP teams (a gen. ed teacher, parent, district rep. and me), revise their IEPs, send home meeting notices, hold the meeting, finalize the IEP and send the letter home that says we did what we said we were going to. All for what amounts to a schedule change. And it's OK of course. I've actually done every thing except for the actuall meetings and send the follow up letter but I did all the prepatory stuff instead of going to class with another student.

This is not to say that these things aren't important- having a process can help prevent abuse. But I called all the parents to see what they thought, I spoke with their teachers & administrators and we're all on-board. We stil have to have the meeting and do all the paper work that comes along with it. I don't mean to whine but my eyes are going to fall out of my head if I have to look at a computer any more.

ED or CD?

I have a new student who, like most of my students, is labelled as emotionally disturbed. He mostly maintains in the classroom fine but he has conflicts with male peers that lead him to some extreme behavior. This behavior has manifested as this student causing serious injury to other students as well threatening students, staff and parents (with some truly vile language). Because he is a student who qualifies as needing special education a school's ability to punish him is limited. Basically you can suspend a kid for ten days after which you need to determine whether his behavior is a result of his disability. If it is, you can't suspend, never mind expel the student.

None of that is terribly interesting to me because I'm not much for punishment since it's mostly a form of revenge. However, the rub is that if a student as violent as this one gets into trouble with the law he would then be able to access all sorts of resources that he would otherwise not be able to access. So, there's been some discussion of reevaluating this student to determine if he truly is emotionally disturbed. It could be the case that he simply has a conduct disorder. The former is a label served by special education, and thus protected by that ten day suspension rule I mentioned, and the latter is not. So you can suspend and expel a student labelled as CD but not one labelled ED. Makes perfect sense, right? It gets worse.

If he's labelled CD the county would have to pick up the tab on whatever services he receives because it would be outside of school. This is strong incentive in a school district feeling a pretty serious economic crunch. Also, there's the possibility of this student ending up as part of the juvenile deliquent system. And there's some suggestion that this may be what he really needs. It's hard to argue with that when you read what he's done to other kids. But it's not hard to argue with that when he sits in your class and smiles at jokes in the novel we're reading.