For the next 3 weeks it’s a marathon of writing IEPs and RRs, IEP meetings, progress reports, and grades. I’ll work through spring break to get it all done, from home. That stinks, but then I get most of June off and half of August. I teach for summer school. Today Martinez arrived happy to school. For no known reason, he was happy most of the day. He did his happy behaviors, asking for compliments, bragging, mentioning his pet subject interests, asking his favorite questions, laughing hysterically for again, no discernible reason, and he didn’t crash till the end of recess at the end of the day. And it wasn’t that bad. He didn’t tell me and Ms. Lisa to go kill ourselves 100 times. So… he won student of the day! Hooray, Martinez. He got an extra prize, and lots of praise. He was happy as a duck in water. But the worst part of the day for me and what ruined it right away was that X broke the new computer monitor just like he did our last one, yesterday, and I was so upset I screamed NO GODDAMNIT bc this time I was in the room and honestly it was partly somebody else's fault, his aide she should’ve known and if nothing else, put her body between him and the computer/me/my desk. I wasn’t at my desk because I was helping another kid with his morning work. And like 3 aides were in the back, talking. So that’s what happens when people are dumb on this job. I was annoyed all around, and also feel like physical shit today, even diarrhea, I even had to ask my roommate if I could come shit in the potty while she was taking a shower, and she’s so nice that she said yes. What else can somebody do when that happens, shit in the catbox? So I always poo in the morning and she always showers in the morning, it’s inevitable I’d have to humble myself that way and prove that she’s the better roommate of the two of us. Once somebody lets you shit during their shower (I light a candle after!), you can’t say anything bad about them, or be impatient with them, they’re in the get out of jail free card space forever more
So, I have this other student, Earl, who is a conceptually/verbally gifted child but also someone I previously characterized as the most infuriating and unpleasant child in all of special education because he never STOPS TALKING. never. Not for nothing. Also overthinking everything, asking a million questions, having panic attacks. being theatrical, and all the time looking like a young Jack Nicholson. I’m serious, he DOES. And our classroom characters are comparable to the psychiatric ward crew featured in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, starring Jack Nicholson (great movie). Even the nurse at our school is strict and (scary). I mean there are lots of nurses, but the head nurse. Nurse Ratchet! But at our home/school they don’t give shots/sedatives when kids crash out. If kids crash out too hard (like Earl, who was initally sent back to the hospital), then it’s 302 and back to inpatient.
Earl’s been with us since Christmas, and they say that on the unit, he’s still creating conflict, smearing poop around, tearing up vandalizing people’s stuff, eloping, constantly begging for attention, but in school, he changed this week. He might just be overmedicated. Staring off into space, he looks like Jack N. after the psycho-docts performed the lobotomy on him. Then his Native friend had to mercy kill him (in that film). All the staff noticed. They’re watching him on camera, like how’s he like that (calm) in your class?
Earl hasn’t talked this week! He stopped talking almost completely! I think it’s overall a dream come true! Even at lunch, which was something I used to think he would never learn that it’s a quiet activity. He just sits there, eating and thinking. Because at our lunch, our kids sit at separate tables. Eat, don’t talk. Talking always leads to arguing, because they lack social skills.
But instead of arguing and yelling, suddenly Earl just listens to us, me and my two teammates. He stares at us, never interrupting. He asks us for hugs! He seems to even love me all a sudden. “You have a cool name, you’re funny, I’m sorry that happened to you (computer smash)” like, WHO ARE YOU and where did the hell-child go? He used to argue about EVERY SINGLE THING and often wrong like about what time we go to lunch. He used to be like, What are we doing! Faster! FAster!” and stress me out by demanding to be engaged and entertained (center of attention, too).
But now he sits quietly all day in his chair.
He cried though, like a baby (not for the first time) at the end of the day, after one of my teammates left early for an appointment, saying “Now she’s dead,” although that wasn’t true, she just left early. I wondered if he was clowning us.
I was strict, cold to Earl for 2 months now, because he would just yell at me and insult me, but now he has... He has shut up. I think that he realized that he’s in hell, and it’s the witches brew, me and my two, and it’s our class, and we’re in charge. And you’re not. So be quiet or leave. He won’t leave now. He hangs off of us. It’s so weird. Is it “fawn?” Maybe.
Yesterday, during music hour, he said, You old ladies are almost like…. almost like… three—“ “Witches!” I finished for him with a big smile. “Yes, and I actually AM a witch!” “I knew it,” he said. I said, “Bippity boppity boo! You’re a frog. Ribbit.” “Gribbit” he said, which is his favorite word/animal. Frogs. But I was making light of the fact he just saw straight through us. He gets it. Which means he’ll get to go home soon.
When X raced across the room and smashed the monitor, and I yelled, it wasn’t Tom who stood up and started yelling, it was Brandon, and he pounded his fist on the table and hollered, FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING CRAZY KID! And Tom said, That’s why I want to go home, kids here breaking everything, Why do X have to break the computer!? Brandon was going on and on, so I said, “Okay, but didn’t you break the computer in your last classroom when the teacher was out, a few weeks ago?” “I did not!” I said, Yes you did, so you can be mad, but you can’t judge X, we can’t judge him.” And he listened to that. He put his head down and kept it at that level.
The weather is warmer and it smells like earth, mushrooms, and wild onions. After X broke our new monitor, I lost all ambition to teach. I didn’t teach anything. I worked on my reports and they watched movies. And I took them outside to the playground, and we all wandered off on our own, especially Earl. He’s been walking the perimeter of the fence that encloses the property, looking for bugs and cool things like that, I think.
Everyone’s worried about him, but I’m honestly not. I think we won, and we saved him.
For X, I don’t know if anything can save him. He lives in so many other realities than none of us inhabit. I realized that yesterday, when I took him to the bathroom, and he said, GET AWAY, and I moved away, and he slinked along with me, across from me, not letting me get away, that it’s possible he WASN’T TALKING TO ME because he’s constantly talking to so many invisible people. Sometimes he acts like the floor is lava and hangs off our arms, or acts like he’s dashing across a burning bridge. Sometimes he starts jerking around in his desk, making obscene, strange faces, and even other kids say, What is he doing? I say, I think he’s turning into a wolfman, a warewolf.
Because he asked me to watch videos of that before, and loves it. So he turns into a beast man- and then asks to take a break and goes to lay on the mat, and if the boys lay on their stomachs we have to watch them, before they be sexual in public, in the classroom, but sometimes I feel like only me and Ms. Mary really watch them with the dangers in mind but I also miss a lot. She’s very observant and doesn’t forget. I couldn’t do my job without her. So I’m glad she keeps showing up. Two heads or three are better than one, for witching work.
On Tuesday, I was doing this “science” activity where you put your hand into a brown bag, feel what’s inside, describe it’s TEXTURE, and guess what it is. For Earl, I had him feel two gaming dice, because I know he liked these dice and was interested in DND, and one of them is that kind and the other is like 18 sided. Cool dice. First he asked if he could keep them, and I said no, it’s just for you to check out in class, in school, but then I left them on his desk and decided if he takes them, that’s fine. So he played with them all of Wednesday, and stared at them (looking over-medicated) but I want to add that I think part of the over-medicated behavior is an act. He’s very smart, smarter than most adults, and learns instantly, he accused me and my witches of “favoring” X and he’s right, we do. X has been there the longest and he’s a beautiful kid. Earl asked questions about society and the news that most adults couldn’t come up with. I told his parents what I thought. His mom told him that I was his favorite student, and he told me, but I never actually said that, I don’t think, but I didn’t correct him. Maybe he needed to hear or believe that to calm down and follow me. Let me teach him. But I think he’s faking the silence the same way he faked a seizure a month ago. Bros will do anything. I should probably call his dad and make that connection, but I’m nervous. Most parents believe their kids’ problems are not their fault. But they almost always are. But I gas up parents when I talk to them, I’m good when I’m ready to do that job. I get in the mood to get along. But I’m nervous about talking to Earl’s dad for some reason. And that’s some type of flag. His mom is the epitome of good faith. Earl is a devil’s seed. But I helped him do something he needed to do. We did. We made him give up on something he needed to give up.