Blogging at Noodletoon:
https://noodletoon.blogspot.com
(Occasionally reposting here, for the archive.)
Blogging at Noodletoon:
https://noodletoon.blogspot.com
(Occasionally reposting here, for the archive.)
NOTE: This morning I exported posts from my newish blog, Noodletoon, to here, my original blog, because I want to keep everything together.
Comments are off. Gmails are welcome at frescadp.
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"When we create something new, it takes tremendous energy."
Two months ago, I started working at a public high school as a Special Ed Assistant with autistic teenagers.
The sort of thing I do at work:
One of the students was sad and upset toward the end of the day yesterday. He had ripped his classwork paper into tiny pieces and was pacing outside the classroom in the hallway.
The teacher asked me to go and stay with the student. I went and asked the student if he’d like to go for a walk around the halls.
He did want to.
We passed the room where the copier is, and I got an idea.
I went in and I got several pieces of printer paper, and I asked him if he would like to rip up some more paper.
One by one, he ripped up five pieces of blank paper. We went back to class, and he was okay, calmer until school bus time.
Then he said, "I need your help again", and held out his arm, bent at the elbow, to link with mine. We walked arm in arm to his bus.
"I'm sad you're sad," I said. "Some days are sad days. I hope your weekend is better."
And I hope your weekend, blog reader, is okay too, or that you have some paper to rip up if it's not.
A student came up to me smiling yesterday and said, "THREE".
He, mostly non-speaking, had constructed his own way to ask me for a 3-second hug.
This student is lovely--appears childlike (loves Bob the Builder etc.)-- but is starting to experience teenage hormones, and his frequent hugs are getting longer, clingier, and sometimes “inappropriate" (with women), so some won't hug him anymore...
He doesn't understand that rejection and is visibly sad, so I came up with a game plan:
a 'count-to-three' hug--“one, two, three”--then a high-five, then a fist bump.
He seems very happy with that, and now asks for it.
I think I have good instincts for this work. Even though I don't know teaching tricks, especially those specific to neurodivergence, I can make up ones that often work.
Anyway, I'm shocked to see tactics some teachers who DO have training resort to. The other day (I might have mentioned), in annoyance, a teacher grabbed a student by the shoulders and moved them.
WUT?
I mean, this isn't "abuse", but it's a failure of communication and a breach of physical trust. I can see this student is wary of this teacher--so would I be!
I myself had actually grabbed a student by their backpack to redirect them when they were going the wrong way, in my first weeks.
The student was very angry--"Don't touch my backpack!"
I apologized sincerely.
"You're right," I said. "I apologize! I shouldn't have touched your backpack, and I promise I won't do it again."
I feel lucky that he accepted that and has seemed entirely fine and friendly with me since. In fact, he's the kid who picked up a pencil for me last week.
Some mistakes are repairable, hopefully, but you gotta repair them.
The teacher who grabbed the student by the shoulders didn't act as if she'd done anything wrong. And yet, imagine if a student did what she did. Shouldn’t we grown ups have the same standards for ourselves—or, rather, higher ones?
_______________
Somewhat related--the idea of having another way to do things--I recently read this about skydiving:
After you jump out of the plane, you pull a cord to release the parachute. Then you look up to check that all the strings to the parachute are in the right place.
If even one string got caught over the top of the parachute, you have to cut yourself free. (There's a release toggle.)
Then you open your reserve parachute.
It's counter-intuitive because the parachute will seem to be functioning... but it will not land you right.
Grabbing a student might feel good at the moment––the kids can be frustrating and slow––but you're setting yourself up for failure at the end.
______________
Finally, before I go to work--
I have started to dress a little nicely for school. One teacher I admire dresses like a slob, so that works--but I see a couple other teachers I admire wear slightly dressy clothes (the male librarian wears jeans and a dress shirt & tie), and I like that.
For myself, I feel like the message I'd like to send is:
You students are worth it for me to bother dressing grown-up and nice for.
I just mean casual nice: sometimes wearing a top that's not a T-shirt!And this weekend I bought some silver earrings that look like the moon.
This is what I wore yesterday--here, in the staff bathroom:
I'm almost to my second month anniversary as a Special Ed Assistant with autistic high school students, and it's almost two more months from the end of the school year.
After a bit of reflection, I am resetting my intentions:
I am going to back off from Problem Solving Mode
and go into Wait & Watch Mode for a little while. (Maybe even until the end of the school year.)
On the whole, things are going well. But I feel myself getting frustrated with coworkers and systems that seem... inefficient or "under-performing".
Recently I found out that a couple coworkers have lost a parent in the past year and are themselves parents raising children. That explains some low energy.
Also, a couple other coworkers who'd seemed rather inexplicably hostile toward me are themselves autistic---what I read as coldness is simply their normal social behavior.
I wish I'd known this sooner.
I read my coworkers not-greeting me, for instance, as unwelcoming, but I now know that's not their intended message.
It's hard to switch out my initial interpretation, but I will set my intention.
It's a whole new set of social codes--very different than the thrift store!
My coworkers there were often neurotypically socially skilled, emotive story tellers, who placed high value on humor. Mr Furniture once said, "The good thing about work is we're always laughing."
They were often older and Black, with Southern roots, coming from generational poverty...
I see a ton of humor at the high school, but my coworkers aren't the joshing type--even the neurotypicals.
That teacher I am most baffled by/complain most about would have an easier time (or, I’d have an easier time with her) if she enjoyed how funny the students are--sometimes unintentionally.
A student offered the interpretation, for instance, that Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" (paved paradise, put up a parking lot) was a protest against paying for parking!
OMG, I thought this was hilarious---and could have led to a good conversation--but the teacher let it pass and commented to me after class about how "wrong" the student was.
Another immediate difference is my white middle-class coworkers take a lot of sick days off.
NOBODY took sick days at the thrift store unless they were immobilized:
if you didn't show up for work, you didn't get paid.
In fact, people would judge others who took time off as weak, and not pulling their weight.
After six years of that, to me my new coworkers seemed like slackers!
So--I can see I am importing old interpretations into my new situation.
I intend to STOP judging and problem solving (mostly in my mind, but not only) and go back to Gather Information Mode.
A thing I've been doing that works nicely for me is to keep introducing myself to teachers on the floor where I mostly work--and throughout the school too.
I'd lent Foyle's War to the US History teacher, and on Friday I borrowed a book from an English teacher down the hall. He's teaching memoir, and he recommended to me The Pact, by three Black doctors who grew up in the ghetto of Newark and made a pact in high school to become doctors.
It's not interesting as literature, but it's very pertinent to high school students---get yourself up and out into an adult life.
Kids--all of them--face a lot of dangers---looking at them I think of baby sea turtles racing to get into the sea before they're picked off by sea gulls.
The most evident sea gulls are drugs--also depression and anxiety and other internal hazards, also external economics and politics....
ANYWAY, I will feel better if I stay in the hunt-and-gather, open minded "what am I seeing here?" mode, and drop some of the creeping "This is not best practice" interpretation.
Even if it's not--(and I'm sure some of it is not)--I need more information if I'm to be an effective counter-balance.
So. That's me launching myself this week.
Which reminds me--the Marzipan leaves today! in her very own little car, which she bought around her 33rd birthday earlier this month--a 2012 Toyota Yaris.
A coworker of hers drew her picture (based on a photo--those are trees reflected on her car surface) and made it into the cover of a notebook a going-away gift.
Go, go little turtle, already in the sea—again launching yourself beyond the breakers!
Love ❤️ love love these—they will get little adjustments cut, but I can’t wait to share. Lettering (copied in reverse) from hand-lettering by student I work with (not the art student).
“Sidney Bearchet”
The bears featured are rescue bears--mostly from thrift store work-- bears that would have been thrown out because they were so dirty or damaged. They have holey holy powers.
I had an unexpected Sewing Day yesterday. Julia had invited me to participate in Mend in Public Day, but even before that, my day started with an old pal texting me an invitation to join her--in half an hour-- at the public library for a morning Needlework meet-up.
She started this informal group a coupla years ago, and they meet twice a month.
Anything you can do with a needle in public, you are welcome to do with them.
One woman was constructing an intricate hat, another was crocheting an afghan, a couple sweaters were in process, and an amigurumi--those tiny cute/kawaii Japanese crocheted animals.
I repaired a couple holes in my Star Trek wallet. I've carry it in my back pocket since Annette gave it to me maybe 15 years ago.
I cut a sunflower out of a carrier for a reusable bag--a replacement eye for Spock:
I'm at a coffee shop across from my cat-sitting gig this Saturday morning.
I've been looking online for projects for the student I attend art class with. The art teacher is a great person--he creates a welcoming classroom. But he seemingly has no knowledge of autism, and he's not researching for this new student in his class... so I will.
Fair enough, I guess? I don't know. Is it my job as an assistant to teach the subject to the autistic students in gen-ed classes? Maybe not, but I expect it's quite common that it turns out that way.
I. "Think Different" is not just a slogan
I have to think differently with this student-- not so much in words & ideas.
These
abstract concepts the teacher uses might be fine for some of the
autistic students--every autistic person is different--but my student
doesn't respond at all to talk about things such as negative space and complementary colors.
Luckily I am more than happy to mess around with art.
I love it, and I was sad that this week the student said that he wants to drop art (he keeps trying and rejecting different classes in this time slot). The lead special-ed teacher told him that he has to stay, though--the school year runs only 8 more weeks.
I'm happy to be in Art, and naturally I want the student to be happy in some way too. What is that for him?
Below, here's some student art.
LEFT: The art student randomly carved a linoleum-block, reluctantly pulled one print (this one), and then said, "I'm done."
OK, then.
I think it's gorgeous, but he showed no interest in it.
On Monday I'm going to see if my art student likes mixing food
coloring into glue. I looked up how, since he likes squeezing the glue out. He can try
painting that way.
Yesterday he was very mad and sad.
He asked in another class if we could watch Inside Out
--the Pixar movie about emotions depicted as characters. I've said
that we watch too many movies, but this student choice was brilliant! He
talked about it the whole way through and felt much better afterward.
And
I liked the movie too--I'd seen it when it came out (2015) and hadn't
been personally moved, but watching it with young teens? BINGO!
The
emotion characters, Joy, Sadness, Anger, etc. all have colors--and are
sometimes simply depicted as balls. I'll suggest the student paint them in glue colors....
What are the teachers I work with thinking?
Yesterday the students were to choose a song to analyze for the Poetry unit. But, Teacher said, "It has to be school appropriate".
Of course half of the students don't listen to school appropriate music--the songs they chose were full of sex and drugs and violence and racial terms...
"But that's what I listen to!" they said.
So, there was a classroom full of unhappy students who felt shut down. I felt put on the spot, enforcing a half-baked rule.
This teacher seems to lesson plan day-by-day, on the fly... and I am not included. I'd say, let them analyze whatever they are listening to--OR, the teacher could pre-choose acceptable songs from contemporary music--Beyonce does some.
Nothing I can do about that.
Jeepers!
[UPDATE: I found and texted to the teacher a site full of Beyoncé lyrics that are empowering for women. Still not exactly squeaky “clean”, but I think they’re fine.]
In my morning classes, I can change things up, and I took steps to do that yesterday.
I talked to the lead teacher about how I'd like to be more useful. Sometimes I'm a fifth wheel. Literally, occasionally there'll be five grown-ups and five kids in a classroom.
It's great to be well staffed, but this is ridiculous.
(Also, I'm aware that regular folks pay for my work out of their own pockets. There's not even enough: the school budget is getting cut for next year.)
And, when lead teacher isn't there (the first half of the day), often we're watching a movie... THREE times this week. Full-length movies, like Kung-Fu Panda or a National Geographic nature documentary. So we're all sitting around in the dark. I bring something to do--sewing (I sit by a window for light), or this week, my linoleum block from the student's art class.
First Holy Bear Card in progress---BED BEAR. (I reversed the image--of course I am carving the letters backwards, to print.)
We're carving linoleum blocks in art class this week, which is great because I never used the linoleum printing kit I bought last fall.
My student carved some random marks, which I think will print a cool pattern, but after two months with him, I don't get the sense he cares about visuals.
This student loves music, and he's social. Art class doesn't interest him, offering neither--he'd rather go for a walk outside.
Luckily last night's rain has just stopped here at 6:30 a.m., so we can walk for the second half of class.
I'd rather stay and work in art class, myself. Good timing, as I'd just been blogging about what I love, and Toys R It. I'm starting a series of Holy Bear Cards:
portraits of the toy bears who live here, with tokens of their powers.
First up: Bed Bear!
Pirate, Adieu
First off, I am sad this morning: Pirate, beloved husband of our blogfriend GZ of "ook?!" is gone... after a long, active, good life.
GZ is the blogger who made the little translucent gold glazed pots the girlettes claimed. I've known her online for years, and she often photographed Pirate, a bike racer like herself, in velodromes and on country lanes...
It's a true sadness to lose a member (-by-marriage) of my bloglife real world.
Condolences to you, dear GZ.
_________________________
I enjoy my job.
Speaking of biking--I'm not today. The wind just blew my screen door open so hard it tore off the spring closer...
I shall take the bus.
Kirsten asked in a comment--if I don't love my job, do I at least enjoy it? "The days don't seem to be the same," she wrote, "which can balance out the not-loving."
Yes!
Exactly. There's a lot of variety in people and activities, and I enjoy a lot of parts of my job--all the students! and many of my coworkers-- even if I don't exactly love the job overall.
My home people are autistic students with "high support needs", but every hour or two I change classrooms, and while I see a lot of the same students in other classes, they are not the only ones. I go with one student into an art class, for instance, where the other students are all gen-ed. An English class is all special-ed students with different dis/abilities who need little support, so that's a different group again.
My home group takes all sorts of outings--a weekly grocery store shopping trip via city bus and a walk to the library, as well as special field trips. If a student wants, I can take a walk outside with them--I do this almost every day now.
In class, the students do all sorts of different things, from cooking to watching movies, practicing social skills, and free time on their school-issued laptops.
A small (15 min.) portion of the day is spent on "academics"--reading or math.
. . .
Why don't I love my job?
I'm not sure.
I never felt called to teaching. You can be good or decent enough teacher without a vocation--I sense that I'm a good aide already--but without a Calling, would it be a Love?
Magic & Mechanics
What do I love?
It's a funny thing, but ever since I was little, I've loved the stuff at thrift stores and the like. Scavenger hunts, antique stores, garage sales... actual garbage. Dumpster diving, picking up "found objects"... broken things...
Things related more to magic than to mechanics-alone.
"Art" is in that thrift-store magic category.
Collage and assemblage are often made from actual garbage (found or discarded objects), but all art holds the delight of objects that humans make not-for-use-alone, and the serendipity of discovery...
Toys are similar--objects made for pure fun, transfer or transitions, or for fun-learning. Thin line with religious tchotchkes, sacred totemic knickknacks.
Little Free Libraries, bookstores, and libraries--ditto. (Internet shopping doesn't appeal to me--it lacks the physical hunt.)
Oh! I have to go catch the bus! Wow--I thought I had another hour.
I'm not done with this question, but all for now.
I check myself over, like a car mechanic.
It appears that all systems are go:
sleep has returned to normal; I drink a glass now and then; I'm not binge-eating; I’ve attended to some financial and medical paperwork that was long overdue; I don't feel disdain for most of humanity (well, not daily).
I am fine.
"You look great", said my friend RMcG when I met her at the art museum café yesterday. Looking at me closely, she asked, "What's different?"
Nothing. My hair, eye glasses, weight are the same, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, as usual...
"Maybe I look relaxed," I said.
That must be it.
Later, bink thought so too.
"You were always in distress at the thrift store", she said. "The things you'd say: 'I had to wait 5 minutes before leaving work because there was a shooting outside; I blessed a toy for a homeless sex-worker who wanted it for protection; I went to a Narcan training because there was an overdose in the parking lot; I lent money for rent to a coworker living in their van; I went to the food shelf for supplies to make lunch for staff, some of whom had no groceries;
... And management did nothing.'"
I forgot! (I didn't forget.)
Send in the Clowns
I volunteered at the store for the fifth time yesterday. I love it.
I set aside a couple clowns for Emmler, who does rude alterations to them.
Now I'm working at a place that tries to help—children, anyway.
The school is not perfect, by a long shot, but systems are in place to TRY to help the students.
Society pulls together to try to launch young people.
Once you're eighteen, it drops off...
In the store parking lot, a couple of
young people living rough were rootling through the dumpster. They could
be the students I see now, a few years and some hard turns down the
road.
Sunny Afternoon
With the support of the art teacher, the students and I did turn lemons into lemonade on Friday. Three of the fifteen had made fresh lemonade before.
I said to them, "If
life is sour or unpleasant or sad, you can do something---you can add
your sweetness, you can water it down, you can stab the lemon!"
And I
stabbed it repeatedly.
The teacher yiped.
"I thought you were going to cut off your thumb!" he said later.
I told him I'd worked as a cook and am good with food safety.
This is a lie. I did work as a cook, but I'm kind of a kitchen klutz and have stabbed myself.
But it led to a conversation about how he'd worked as a cook too--and both of us had worked at collectively run, hippie restaurants that had started in the 1970s!
(He's in his fifties, I think.)
So that was good.
What the students thought of it, I can't know.
They paid attention, and about half of them came up and squeezed a lemon, and many of them accepted a glass of lemonade.
"They'll remember this," said the art teacher.
I don't know that it was significant, but what I would want them to note is not the cooking, not the expected moral, but rather that you can DO unexpected stuff (like stabbing a lemon) in a locked-down setting like high school.
In a tight place?
Find yourself some wriggle room… Try anything!
The Trout
I also took myself on a tiny field trip---to the science
wing of the high school. I didn't even know it existed, but it's a new
wing on the old building. What a difference from the run down old half
(much as I like old things, this shows a lack of funds--but some big
bucks went into the science wing, with large modern classroom labs.
I went there to see rainbow trout that an environmental-science class has been raising, in coordination with the DNR.
I
knew about this because teachers announce field trips in all-school
emails, and the class is taking a half-day trip to release the young
trout in a rural river.
How cool is that?
With a couple exceptions, I'm disappointed by the teaching staff I work with. (Granted, just a few people.) I'm not seeing genius or great energy.
I'm seeing a lot of grown-ups putting forth minimum effort. They default to letting the kids be on their laptops.
I can imagine the staff is tired. Mostly, they are benign.
My job is good. I don't love it though.
I do love the kidlettes.
And there are a lot of teachers in the school--I only see a small handful. The other day I walked past a teacher standing outside her classroom, as some teachers do to greet the students.
Something about her caught me. Her stance? Facial expression?
I stopped and talked---she teaches US History and is beginning the start of WWII.
"I just started rewatching Foyle's War," I said, "a detective show set on the south coast of England in WWII. Have you seen it?"
She hadn't--so the next day I brought in the first season on DVD.
"It doesn't fit your class, though--it's England."
"Oh, but I'm interested for myself," she said.
———//////
P.S. bink just came over for Sunday morning coffee and gave me the news that Iran has attacked Israel, so I just want to add, it's (been) nice knowing you all! 💓💔💕💖
______________________
Schubert: Trout Quintet: Theme & Variations, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, with a couple youTube comments:
I love when they arrange to meet each other without my help/interference. These two were chatting together this morning.
This morning in the gen-Ed art class I attend with one student, the teacher used the phrase “turn lemons into lemonade”. Some students didn’t know it, and it occurred to me that many students might not know how to make fresh lemonade.
I asked the teacher if it’d be a good idea to make lemonade with the class—my sped class was going to the grocery store the next hour and I could buy lemons and sugar. He said absolutely, and so that’s on for tomorrow.
My Montessori life! 😆
I’ve taken two walks outside with two students, each from different classes this morning. One student was quiet, the other told me about all the cars we passed. All students should have the option of a walk in their school day.
Speaking (post below) of the gap between what is meant and what is heard...
I finally found this again--a favorite bit of silliness:
"What would you do with a raisin?" VO (voice-over) of Star Trek by Day Job Orchestra.
Dolly Parton gave my favorite response to the problem of Intent vs. Impact:
In 2018 Parton renamed the Civil War-themed ride 'Dixie
Stampede' at her amusement park, Dollywood. She said:
When they said ‘Dixie’ was an offensive word, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to offend anybody. We’ll just call it The Stampede'.
[--via]
Ta-da! Easy. A graceful and grown-up response to the problem of Intent vs Impact =
What we mean may not be what is actually heard or experienced by the receiver.
***Once we realize we've caused harm, even unintentionally, what do we do?
Parton said, "As soon as you realise that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. I would never dream of
hurting anybody on purpose."
Speaking of growing up, I've been sorting old photos this week, my spring-break, and I am shocked at how young I was when I was young.
BELOW: My friend Tracy, left, and me, right, at 21 y.o.
I mentioned the museum outing in the post below--then remembered I hadn't written about it here.
The “sensory-friendly” museum visit was well-planned by museum staff who had all sorts of interactive tools. Some planned activities the students engaged with, some they ignored.
In the black room where this film was running, however, on their own the students started making hand-shadows in the stream of projected light.
I. Water Beetle
I'm reading Turtle Diary (1975) by Russell Hoban--slowly, but too fast. This morning, halfway through I started reading again at the beginning.
I laughed out loud at this, on page 9.
The character Neala H. writes:
“I fancied a china castle for the aquarium but they had none at the shop, so I contented myself with a smart plastic shipwreck. Snugg & Sharpe are expecting a new Gillian Vole story from me but I have not got another furry-animal picnic or birthday party in me.
I am tired of meek and cuddly creatures, my next book will be about a predator. I’ve posted my cheque for 31p to Gerrard & Haig in Surrey for a Great Water Beetle, and I should have it by tomorrow.
…Here I am, I thought, forty-three years old, waiting for a water-beetle. My married friends wear Laura Ashley dresses and in their houses are grainy photographs of them barefoot on Continental beaches with their naked children.
I live alone, wear odds and ends….”
________________
The story is set in middle-aged loneliness.
The other character, William G., works in a book shop. They do not know each other. Independently, both have become concerned with the captive sea turtles at the zoo.
When Neala goes to the bookstore to find out about sea turtles, he doesn't welcome the intrusion.
"It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out."
(In fact, in the 80s it was made into a film with Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson. I haven't seen it.)
_________________________
II. Bowling
My class was part of an outing to a bowling alley yesterday, hosted by the Unified program. Unified Schools are a program from Special Olympics "to build inclusive school communities for young people of all abilities."
It was the opposite of the museum visit, which was carefully planned.
I don't think the students minded the chaos.
I look like I'm having fun, but I don't like bowling (boring and loud), and I was cranky because the neurotypical (NT) kids didn't mingle much with the neurodiverse (ND) kids. Poor planning.
But then I remembered:
the ND students prefer to hang out with one another mostly, anyway.
It’s OK—I’m liking my work, but it would be sweet to have a day off. I will get one soon enough: starting Friday we are on spring break!
I was happy to find (on FB) a map of the clans and families of Scotland, from Amazing Maps. Some of my mother’s ancestors were Sutherlands – –circled in red, below. The earliest one to emigrate was Uriah Sutherland, in the mid-1700s.
I took these photos ^ for my fantasy Pinterest page on what classrooms really look like.
This idea came to me after looking at millions of reels and Pinterest boards of cute ’n’ clever ideas to make your classroom look like – – – oh, like no classroom I’ve ever seen.
I certainly don’t expect teachers to put in time as interior decorators, Though if it were my classroom, I probably would take down the faded-marker, two-year-old Valentines cards…
Teachers or staff are supposed to care for the classrooms (including cleaning them) on their own time, and pay for it themselves too. I have now seen a couple pretty cool classrooms – – set up by young energetics teachers. But the ones I work in look like the above.
Duct tape notwithstanding, I like the building a lot – – it’s 100 years old, with tall ceilings, wood floors, big windows – – I’d rather work there than a pristine modern building. Or, worse, the schools built in the 1970s that look like prisons, with window slits that don’t open.
Our windows open (a few inches), but our doors don’t. A teacher looked shocked when I commented that our school is like a prison because the doors are locked.
I think everyone’s gotten used to that, like industrial livestock, but it continues to bother me a lot. Especially because it’s matched in many ways with an attitude towards the students that they are not full human beings who have their own voices. Certainly not equal in power or dignity to the adults anyway. Often – – usually – – the teachers are benevolent in intent, but the students are more like inmates then full participants. Same as it ever was.
I just keep thinking of my rule to be like the teachers I see who do create a little bubble of dignity and personal space for the students.
Yesterday morning I found one of the special ed kids lingering in the hall – – they did not want to go to their class, taught by the one teacher I have a serious problem with. So I asked the student if they wanted to come to the art class I was supposed to be in – – even though my student hadn’t turned up. This other student said yes happily.
Afterword I told the teacher that that was a testimony to what a good place they have made their classroom – – that a student voluntarily wanted to go there.
The student drew my portrait in class:t
Auntie Vi! Hello! I miss you!
Why are you still dead?!
I'm going to check in with you anyway, because I know you'd LOVE hearing about my new job.
Yesterday as I was unlocking my bike at work--I park near the school bus drop off/pick up--a coworker said, "I dare you to bike next week"--meaning in the snow.
After a dry, dry winter with almost NO snow, we're supposed to get a nice, big snowfall here in the next few days.
I wish it would close schools, but it probably won't be that big. (If it even arrives... I hope it does!)
I probably will bike to work--unless it's horribly icy. I'm only a mile and a quarter away, straight down my street, and one block over.
It takes about 7 minutes, door to door.
Deceptive.
I need to be careful-- especially if I'm blogging or emailing, I wait until the last minute to start finding my keys, packing my lunch, etc.
Not a good plan!
It's not like the thrift store where it didn't matter when I got there: at school, I walk certain students to wherever they need to go, so I need to be there on time.
Luckily, I've never not made it.
I'm liking my job a lot. I fell asleep last night thinking, "This is really interesting".
It is. People say of teaching, It's all about relationships-- and I'm seeing that.
Relationships are really my entire job.
I don't plan lessons, take meetings & phone calls with parents and administrators, and all that other stuff the teachers do. I just walk and sit and talk with the students.
The autistic students are a little more different from other people I've known than I expected.
My intuition is not in itself sufficient to understand them well--I have to observe and attend.
Wait and watch.
Talk and listen (mostly listen).
I had a satisfying success yesterday.
A few days ago, a student had burst out in anger at something a Teacher does in class: "It's for babies!"
I won't go into it in public, but I agreed with the student.
I'd even wondered on my first day why the Teacher did this thing--it didn't fit the students' chronological age. (I mean, just because someone might not have certain intellectual abilities doesn't mean they aren't the age they are, socially.)
Turns out, the student had complained about this in the past, too.
I talked to another aide, who suggested I take the student out of the classroom during this particular activity.
I went to the Teacher yesterday and suggested this plan of action.
At first they said yes, good idea; then said that it might separate the student from the class community--not a good thing...
Pause...
"Maybe I could just stop doing [that thing]", the Teacher said.
We talked a little more, and they decided, yes, they would do something else in its place.
! ! !
And that very afternoon, they did.
OMG! I never got such a reasoned response at the thrift store.
No ego, just a "Hm, yes, that's not working, let's try something else."
And I felt good that I hadn't just fumed in silence, but had talked to a work pal about how I could help. And then I COULD help!
So nice.
And now time to pack my lunch and head out the door.
Have a wonderful day!
FB has cottoned on to my new interest in education and is showing me teaching TikToks--including ones of clever Pinterest-y classroom ideas. "Make a sensory board in only 15 minutes" [not counting the couple hours it takes to shop for supplies, plus you have to pay for them yourself].
I laugh. The classroom aesthetic I see at work is more like
Artwork-from-Students-Graduated-3-Years-Ago.
A friend suggested I be careful, blogging about work. I
will go back and edit some earlier posts. The main thing I've been curtailing
as I go along is stories about the students--sooo many funny, smart,
unique stories!
Here's a coffee pot instead.
I mentioned to Abby that the teachers' coffeepot was broken, and she gave us one she didn't want herself (an expensive Bunn, too big for her kitchen).
When I set it up on top of the mini-fridge, I laughed to discover the electric plug-in situation... I'm sure there's a decorative cord cover-up on Pinterest.
Spring equinox is tonight at 10 PM, here in central US (in UK, it’s this coming morning, March 20 at 3 AM GMT)– – a suitable orb has been found for a tableau— to be constructed when I come home from work today. Hopefully bink will join us, as she is a masterful constructor.
Penny Cooper is mightily pleased--plans are well underway for this year's Penny Cooper Triumphant:
The Annual Easter Reenactment of the Martyrdom of Sydney Carton.
(––"It
is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", from Tale of Two Cities, ya know).
Yesterday Emmler lent me a grocery cart to be Penny's tumbrel.
It should have only two wheels, like a wheelbarrow-- but it has been deemed "an acceptable modern interpretation".
Aaaaand, bink & I went to an antiques faire this Sunday, where I found a little food chopper that will make a perfect guillotine blade. (Only two dollars.)
The guillotine is new this year--at Penny's repeated request.
I'd always been reluctant to make a guillotine before, but this year I've lightened up. "It's just pretend," she says.
But it went great!
Better than I'd hoped.
Everyone was glad to see me—even, after giving me some grief, Manageress.
She said my BOOK's replacement, Amina (not her real name), was doing well but had lots of questions that she herself couldn't answer---could I hang around until Amina came in to work?
I said I'd be happy to. Would she like me to start sorting toys while I waited?
"Please!" she said.
Okay, then.
I felt at home, in the best possible way--in my element, an entirely free agent, with NONE of the pressure of being staff. What a relief, to be free to do just the stuff I love.
I also felt a little smug, being able to report that my new job is going well, and that I enjoy it.
I told them what I earn and was encouraging everyone—Manageress included—to look into working for the public schools. Manageress got play-angry (not really play) – – saying I should stop trying to lure her staff away, but when I said that teaching aides get unemployment over the summer, she got quiet.
Then, “…I could go home and visit my mother in Eritrea,” she said.
Amina has been doing a good job, but is naturally not yet as fast as I was, and there was a pretty big ol' pile up. It felt good to plow through and get that down--and sorting the little toys into grab bags was always a favorite task of mine.
I even set up a side-by-side on the Toy Bridge—pink-haired, star-eyed figures of Strawberry Shortcake and Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy.
I priced and put out a lot of toys before Amina came in, and then we spent the afternoon sorting books. She's smart--more than I'd realized (I'd never really talked to her in the years she was a customer, just liked her, intuitively) --but she's only a freshman in college and doesn't have the breadth of knowledge.
You can't quickly learn all the details, every author/book/topic, there are too many; but you can develop a Spidey book sense--a tingle that says, I should check this particular book.
She catches on quick.
I was careful to emphasize that BOOK's are hers now, and I'm just there to support her. I said I'd come again, if she'd like--maybe regularly on Saturdays, if I can manage it. She said she'd love that.
Nice!
I'd texted Em that I was at the store, and she came to help for the last hour, and said she'd like to volunteer every Saturday too, if I do.
I'd love that. We rarely manage to get together outside the store, and we have a lot of fun there, exclaiming over tchotchkes and ephemera.
I walked her home after, and she lent me the toy grocery cart. Of course she had a cart. Her apartment is a palace of creative destruction and re-creation, collections, and tools & supplies for quirky, playful, sexual, angry, sumptuous collages and constructions:
-- some, possibly unsettling, like a framed tooth (she has dental issues), or mutilated religious imagery (that to me is in keeping with the grotesqueries of the religious imagery itself…).
I will take photos sometime.
_______________________
Having gone back to the store, I am returned to myself.
my Samsung washer machine brought me here.