Breathe in, breathe out

Today was one of those days when our special ed program felt more like a hospital unit than the local elementary school. For my colleagues, and anyone else who is interested, here is a recap: (not in any particular order. Gawd, it would take too much out of me to try and remember the actual timeline!)

One first grader arrived almost an hour tardy, ran into the building from his car, his mom drove off without signing him into the office; he zoomed eighty miles an hour through the halls and down to our room, arriving out of breath, no backpack, no lunchbox … and no meds! He growled through a good part of the morning lessons.

One little one was in crisis over 50% of the day…. In and out of the counselor’s office, back to class, then flipping out, screaming and crying, running and kicking. (It’s part of a bipolar cycle, not much we can do about it.)

New kid kicked me twice, HARD, on the upper thigh. Later complimented me on my watch and bracelet combination. He’s got a sense of style, that one.

‘Nuther new kid peed on the walls of the time out booth in anger.

The gen ed principal was helping to calm a frantic kid…then he hocked a big loogie at her and it dripped down her nose. Now she REALLY knows the answer as to why we don’t get more of our students fully prepared for the state standardized tests.

Student entrepreneur caught selling weapon related projectiles to classmates at lunch table.

Doors in our small section of the building were temporarily locked to prevent a belligerent kid from going from room to room to disrupt any semblance of learning going on at that moment.

A university supervisor of student teachers observed her charge and got a great snapshot of this wonderful new teacher in action. “You’ve got your hands full,” the supervisor noted with a straight face.

At days end, most of us stuck around to mull the day’s happenings, to tell and retell as a way of making sense of the sometimes senseless. It took a while to “decompress”, but we are buoyed by the knowledge that tomorrow just has to be better!!