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Snapshot from the Hidden World of Residential Schools for Boys

Gary balls up his fists, gestures toward me, “Ouu! I’ve been Wanting to punch you for so long!”

I hide my laughter. Gary big mad. I’m truly a psycho for enjoying setting the boundaries And watching him melt down like the evil witch of the West, I’m melting, I’m melting! I enjoy Moments like that, and seeing him escorted from Our classroom. You’re not going to ruin everything For everyone, not even ruin today for me I don’t know what you’ve seen at home But this is a program and it runs a certain way You’re not the boss here, and I’m not your bitch

I like Gary. I think he’s verbally/conceptually gifted (Asbergers type A). He asks truly original and apt/insightful questions He believes he’s my “favorite student,” facts, he said that *Again I hid my laughter. My FAVORITE STUDENT BRO? Try The most unpleasant person I've met, child or adult You never stop, Gary. You never shut up. You can’t. Your driven to quell your anxiety by externalizing it. I feel like, I know I can save him. He’s already saved.

He’s so lucky he landed in my playground. It’s really the last/only chance, and I think he’ll take it. Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll really become JACK OF THE SHINING. Today I said that similarity, and Gary said, Does he die? I said no, he kills everybody. Then I pretended an evil, villain laughter. See, I’m not in denial. Gary said, Good!

He almost reminds me of JD Vance, physically and emotionally/energetically— also, maybe, a tiny doll of myself, with his hyper-thinking, impulsive blurting, comments and questions about everything. This is what I told his mother, who told him that he’s my “favorite.” He’s curious. He’s honest. He’s Asbergers af. He’s insightful, it’s all timing His mother loves him. He’ll go home. His parents are engineers, of course they are. They support him But couldn’t live with him— THAT unpleasant of a child

a lot of families have children like this: They are ruining *the family They endup the center of attention, fire after fire Putting out fires, the siblings feel stifled, ignored, insignificant At school, teachers start sending home red flags: This child cannot do the school drill, no matter what we try.

After 2-3 schools, the kids get sent to us. If you’re sent to us, that means nobody can fuck wy anymore You did way too much, for much too long, and this is what I told Gary, today:

You are NOT the only person here, in this room In this class right now, and you are NOT ANYMORE IMPORTANT Than ANYONE ELSE. So sit down, and be quiet. And guess what? He did. He now wants my approval. Because the kid wants to learn. I hope he makes it to society, And doesn’t get culled. This one has potential.

But he’s also such a bully… wants to pass on his self-loathing But I love my job of blocking his ambition. Also today, after another Asbergers student asked me the same question For the 30th time, (CAN HE WATCH CHAPTER 5 OF POPPY’S PLAYHOUSE HORROR GAME), or use the tape/sissors to create 3-D figurines (Rather than participate in class/schoolwork), I said, flatly, “What’s actually horrific is that this is the 30th time you asked the same question question, and I answered it already at least 10 times. Stop.”

At lunch I was trying to discuss an issue with my teammates At the “staff table” in the cafeteria and Gary kept saying my Name, asking annoying, purposefully attention seeking questions with known and obvious answers and I yelled,

“God DAMN… DARNIT! STOP SAYING MY NAME AND LET ME EAT AND TALK TO ADULTS!”

Then I said to a teammate, who had recently claimed we have to nicey-nice talk all these kids all the time, I said, “How was my tone there? Was it good?” And that let my team laugh, about our tension lately, and all the stress. Because my tone was obviously brutal. But guess what? the kids accepted It. Because I almost never yell, when I yell (and swear) it’s like whoa.
I hope. And I tryyyyy not to. lunch is hard, when you want them to shut the fuck up all the way, but they STILL want our attention. Incredible.

A Very Windy Day

Today my teammate had a seizure in class with students there I’m oddly good at spotting people having seizures. This is At least the 3rd one I’ve called. One time, a student tricked Me, and faked a seizure, and we sent her off in an ambulance Better safe than sorry, and I wasn’t mad at her like everyone else.

My teammate today, she has a seizure disorder and life full of pain She has PTSD, and a host of physical situations, and personal situations I couldn’t tell at first if she was having a panic attack or seizing.

Last year when the Russian boy seized, I called it, and everyone came to our room. Too many people, all three nurses working the shift, because Everyone liked that kid. But today, only one nurse came, and not quickly. I was a little panicked. I said, Should I call 911, and a student yelled YES! SO I did. But I didn’t hear anyone answer at 911, so I returned to helping My teammate. I thought, let me show the kids how to care for someone and prioritize their health. My other teammates thought she was begging for more attention, because she always wants to confide about her feelings Fears and pain. I’m mostly attentive, because I like “easy” confidence connections Possible when people have low boundaries, those are my “people.” But in the past, I told this teammate, “I can’t talk right now— I have to prepare for the Day.” And she started verbally aggressing me about it, using hostile Jokes, and probing for me to apologize. She said she felt I ATTACKED HER. BECAUSE I SAID TO AN ADULT, Can you please tell me the story/issue later? She’s not a rational person, and is also insecurity to paranoia. She always thinks she’s going to be fired.

Today, my bosses came, and they were mad/annoyed that the police had Arrived, because I called 911. The first boss came and said, they had contacted the school, and was everything ok? She had explained it was “just a staff medical issue,” and sent them away. Then my other, more direct boss came and said, YOU GO TALK TO THE POLICE! THEY’RE HERE! And I had ALREADY gotten in trouble earlier about including an outside- service provider (physical therapist) on an email that including dirty company laundry, telling a story about a kid I was advocating for, and Never thought: wait, how might this get our school in trouble? What if the other person childlines claiming neglect, etc.? So she had begged me (nice about it, at least) to run all emails by her before sending them When issues arise, as they will. Because I don’t think in HR, PR mode. So I said I was sorry and agreed to it and went back to my class, Feeling a little dazed, because *getting in trouble, for ANYTHING is Triggering as hell. It’s hard to accept. I’m good at it now, but I wasn’t before.

I had to have things go wrong in so many ways among trying to work as a team and with supervisors, bosses, leaders, teachers So many communication that took a nose dive, crunched into asphalt Like the accordian car in the 4-car collision I saw Thursday on 79 south. This title cannot be reconstructed, the conversation/collaboration is Kaput beyond repair. Too much triggering communication. I got un Professional. And so “staying professional” is a high goal for me. And I’ve been doing great. Yesterday a coworker came and YELLED at me and my entire class, while being MISTAKEN about the issue, And talked OVER ME, and God Bless Hamas, I didn’t even blink. That’s my a teammate told me, it was amazing how I didn’t react To obvious disrespect by a peer. I made space for her rant, and even let her yell at my student. But I complained later, and THAT’S the email that landed me in HR. For including the outside agency on The email… The damn emails. Things sound great till they’re received. I thought I had checked off something on my to-do list when I sent it.

So back to the seizure. I was already distracted by the triggering sit down with my boss, then I see my teammate having a seizure, and barely anyone in the building responds to it. My boss comes, yells at me to go talk to the police Who have already been sent away. And I helped my teammate try to contact her Family to come pick her up. I felt so bad for her :(. She’s too sick to work But she needs the money :(. That’s so fucked up.

Nobody could come get her, but I had to leave her side to return to my class, where they were still scared, saying Ms. Alice is a nice Lady, is she going to die? Is she okay? We said she’s fine. Then on her own, she came BACK TO THE ROOM. To “sit.”

Bro, I was ready to be done with the day at that moment (9:30 AM). Instead, we pushed through it, and had a decent day with most of the class, enjoying our break from student C, who’s behaviors Are so distracting, and attention requiring, that it disrupts everything We love when he lays down and takes a nap. And if you observed our Group for a few hours, you’d see why, and not worry about his “education.”

Eventually Alice’s husband or daughter came to pick her up.

There’s a student at our school who I do truly think Would be better off dead. He’s just so miserable, hateful, racist, He just wanders around with red eyes (not allergies, just misery) Throwing paper airplanes. And he targets black staff, and uses The most vile racial threats and insults to try to get them to Hurt him. Sometimes he screams for them to fight or restrain him. When baseline, he instigates conflicts among peers, at expert level He brings out the worst in them, and he loves it. This teenage boy Almost 18, is fully broken. He’s probably going to shoot up a black Church if he can, if he ever gets “out” of the system. I can’t Lost my clearances, I’m a teacher not a vigilante, but I see things And I think things. If anyone should be culled, it’s these Type of white boys with uncontainable, racialized rage. I told my coworker, if only the cameras would go off for A few minutes, she agreed, feeling that, but not a real wish, just “If we could really make the world better right now” type of feeling Also, no one should have to work with him, like that, he’s not trying He obviously wants to die. But maybe a couple ass whoopings Would really help. I usually don’t think so. But I think this type of Boy only listens to masculine, physical military discipline Has has no innate conscience or sense of connection with anyone

I’ve seen him smile on the basketball court, during better weather But smiling once and awhile doesn’t mean they wouldn’t or won’t kill everyone and not cry later about it. Never cry about it.

For the traitors to be scalped

The traitors are the women Who weren’t as strong as we are At one time we showed weaknesses But now we don’t

The traitors are in Los Angeles The traitors look like copies of each other They sell their looks on fascist media Look at me! I fit in! Look at me, I’m in! I look exactly like the “It Girl,” don’t I!?

I’ve bought the nicest clothes, full price, no less I’ve bought a skinny nose, and I can be the best Better than these hoes, shopping at the dollar store My lashes are real horse hair, my color cost 500 My toes and nails are acrylic, my makeup is thick I use a filter, I suck in my belly, I puff up my tits Click click click Sell my pictures for likes

You’re a traitor, Gwen Stefani You’re a traitor, Madge And you look like shit Thanks for nothing Damn puffy shiny lips Forehead that can’t crinkle

Guess what, your husband still cheats on you With younger women, and he would fuck teenagers if he could

Might as well let yourself go Be one of us, the witches who wait for thee Cackling, teasing your husband, eating men alive

my job

I would do my job for free, I think just not full-time

My job is a teacher is different than most teachers’ jobs

I’m a teacher in a residential psychiatric impatient program for boys.

So the most student students I can have in my classes is eight and there are from one to four other adult adults helping in the classroom in various roles.

The most challenging part of my job in the part that took the longest to learn is being the head Parent with various other parenting vibes happening because teaching his parenting.

And it’s hard enough to work with one other person and find enough common ground that you don’t end up, hating each other while trying to raise a child or children together

So I didn’t choose the people that I have to parent with, but in Pennsylvania at least I have core differences from the adults on my team in terms of beliefs, value, values, and style

And like all adults, I have a nice long list of triggers and times that I’m not behaving in a baseline way for myself. I’m interacting with people from a scared and angry place.

So I’ve gotten into a lot of situations while trying to lead other adults toward my vision of a valuable classroom, but getting triggered by the other adults and then being too aggressive, and then quit quitting or getting fired

I also had Hella problems letting supervisors try to parent me as a parent

I’m just using the word parenting for teach teaching because they’re really not different. We are the day Parents you are the night Parents.

In my case, my team, we are the day Parents and the night parents are a bunch of people hired to socially manage the residential lives and they are chronically understaffed, and it is not a safe place to live or work

But it is not the worst of places like this For some reason right now we have a core group of functioning educational staff that I would vouch for in terms of them showing up in good faith to do the best things for these kids and allow themselves to be challenged as well.

My team has shown that they can take feedback, they can advocate for themselves, and that they care about the kids as much as I do under our care

And this is the first time I’ve been able to manage a team, and before that I could barely participate in a team without going off

I would go rogue in like confront the teacher when I didn’t like her response to a student because it triggered me because it was authoritarian, but you have to be united as a team or it won’t work

And I’ve been in a lot of classrooms where it wasn’t working And those classrooms are not safe

One of my students told me that my teammate told him outside our classroom, God, she’s so fucking stupid! This was a team and I didn’t trust and I found out about that later. If you can’t trust your team, people get hurt

These are kids that have behaviors so aggressive and unpleasant that both their families or foster homes and all educational settings have refused to deal with them anymore

It cost the state like $1000 a day to keep them housed and receiving baseline basic service services And one of those services it’s casually known as booty juice, which is a sedative given by shot, a muscle shot, when patients get too crazy. If you saw one flew over the cuckoo’s nest with Jack Nicholson, my work setting is like a kid version. Well, teenage boys, too.

My boys are between 14 and 17. Working with them is a truly a joy to me But I also have to entertain and engage the adult staff who are helping the students during lesson lessons. If they get bored if they don’t like what I’m doing if they think I’m not working hard enough, all of that they will likely go tell on me to my boss And that’s how the culture is in school because it’s hierarchical and capitalistic, people don’t adults don’t know how to communicate and work out the differences so they just rat on each other and talk about each other behind each other’s backs A few times I got taken down by a team that decided they didn’t like me. I was totally taken off guard because I wasn’t paying that much attention to them. I feel like their adults and they should be able to occupy themselves and I can’t worry about how they’re feeling about every fucking thing, that’s how I felt I wish they would just listen to me and followed my lead And I complained about them to my bosses So the bosses always got an earful on both sides and I’m sure that’s how it works everywhere Because we infantilize ourselves when we are interacting with a so-called teacher, parent figure.

So the other difficulty is that while I’m enjoying entertaining and making low-key jokes and involving the other adults, and any comedian knows this that if you are a funny person, you’re also an impulsive person. Well, maybe some funny people privately painstakingly crafted out their own jokes but for me, I just say whatever I think of that sounds funny I have a low filter and low boundaries, but it creates a very warm involved classroom I do a lot of thinking out loud. I admit when I have no plan I ask people what they wanna do. I accept a lot of suggestions things take a lot of time to decide in all the adults thoughts and feelings matter to me because they broke me down and I admitted that they will have to. There’s no way to have obedient teammates I have to actually care and that means I have to know how they’re responding to everything I do and I have to walk a fine line of pushing them a little bit, but also kind of pretending or over exaggerating how helpful they are to me, the same way I have to do the children. I have to parent them. And let them challenge me.

I am excited because driving home today for the first time in Well, since summer 2024 I thought of a way to write my story/novel idea I’ll find the best, free software to build my world and NOVEL Maybe I’ll just write one Maybe I won’t finish it But I know who my characters are based on now And the problem in the story to solve

we project our anxiety we protect our guilt and rage there are different kinds of hate Tonight I’ll confess one that’s petty and hypocritical And a product of a long winter With my flatmate

She rents a room and I rent the flat I’m an older, single woman She’s a younger single woman I’m conscientious, she’s carefree I’m a smoker and a drinker She’s an artificial food addict

She probably ate 5000 cal today Of frozen, artificial food +3 men’s serving size of meat Mini hotdog, ground beef, Pepperoni, bacon, ham

I hate the sound of her putting on lotion Or washing her hands with soap The slimy fast way she does it

She says she doesn’t do politic She shops at all the places I’m boycotting She watches 10 hours of TV Per day, copaganda shows All day long, cops, cops, cops While binge eating

She likes artificially bright colors She’s like a blind rat Never turns on the lights just fumbles around She’s the laziest person I’ve ever ever met Does every single thing half assed Like she’s in a hurry to get back to the TV She verbally interacts with every commercial Saying all the fast food looks yummy, Yum, Wendy’s, McDonald’s Yum, Starbucks, Yum, hot pockets

Then she watches TikTok and laps hysterically at the same videos Every day I shut my door She never shuts her door

Her shit smells like decomposing, artificial food, of course Rancid poptarts and cheese its She hides the Mountain Dew in her room and just chugs it Then comes out and talks about herself in front of me I guess that’s supposed to be conversation but I just tell her to stop

I overhear her talking to her siblings Long distance and I cannot believe How rude she is to them They ask questions, they express care She talks about what she’s watching on And what she’s about to make In the kitchen

After cooking in the kitchen, it’s like a child was in there Greasy knobs, dirty sink, grimy, stove, top, splattered microwave

When I say her name, she pretends, she didn’t hear me She thinks she’s treating me like I treat her But normal conversations include a greeting, an introduction, a stated message and the closure that involves both people

A conversation is not talking about yourself while ignoring the person you’re talking to

There’s not a minute that goes by where it’s just quiet coming from her room where she’s sitting with herself or thinking about something or reading a book or learning something

Her IQ is probably like a nine-year-old and not a smart one But she has the nerve to complain about people who don’t speak English

Whenever I tell her something, she pretends that she was just about to say the same thing or to tell me the same thing

The stupid competitiveness The stupid bids for attention

I work with kids during the day and have to juggle and manage constant bids for attention and it’s part of the job that most of them are inappropriate

But at home, if my roommate wants to make a bid for my attention, it needs to be direct and concise

A lot of the vocalizing she does is just stimming because she’s on the spectrum. But she doesn’t shut her door to do it And it sounds so weird and creepy And then she’ll just do a long loud fart

After saying all this, you might not believe that I care about her and that I’ve done concrete things for her and been verbally supportive

She’s also done concrete things for me and shown that she cared when I was sick and when I asked her for help with things. She’s taken into account some of my feedback about her, needing to clean up after herself

After she takes a shower, there’s tons of dirt and hair on the floor of the bath Has she ever cleaned the bathroom in five years? Of course not

When you think about how there’s no justice regarding at least on first glance who’s allowed to live, and who has to die, this one is a thorn in the side. why so many people like this live in America? In a culture that thinks a shopping mall is beautiful and that is fine with empire and genocide as long as it doesn’t affect their world? why should she go on eating the world‘s share of the meat?

She practices a religion. She can’t believe in because it’s bullshit, but she’s still pretends and goes to the church and Network with those people.

Mormonism, the most seriously stupid American thing ever invented. Perfect example of being culturally devoid of spiritual, emotional or physical meaning. Literally all they do is scam people for money. She used to invite the female missionaries over for a meal once in a while.

I hated them so much it ruined my evenings at home when they came. They would ask me What has Jesus done for you today? The smiley, blonde, innocent, young missionaries So naïve, so white, so empty

Also, so evil

Why should they live and thrive?

How many people in America are kind of like this? Like my roommate?

I’m a special kind of shitty and so there’s not that many people like me

But how many are like her? No real interests prioritizing consumption, no real values or beliefs, chases, trends, tunes out for years at a time, not really generous, not creative, not skilled, not careful, and having directly toward a heart attack? Or diabetes?

I mean, at least she doesn’t smoke cigarettes, they are probably lots of people like her that also smoke cigarettes. Sometimes I smoke cigarettes. And I told myself to shut the fuck up with all my irritations and judgment because I’m over here, risking lung cancer and feeling better than thou because I’m not obese or addicted to my phone.

She’s always got her head bent over that phone and her neck is gonna get stuck that way.

She’s enjoying life more than me, she’s happier than me, but that’s not the point or the problem.

Does everyone have secret beliefs about who does and doesn’t deserve to be alive? I mean, I actually don’t deserve to be alive. Or maybe a deserve to be alive, but not happy. Or maybe I deserve to be happy, but choose not to be.

I mean, there is no deserve this or deserve that; it’s just a way to understand the hypocrisies of my own morality. It just seems like the cultures on the people who made the greatest things and have the greatest talent and the most beauty and all these things you know they got cut down

But fat Americans, smoking cigarettes and addicted to their cell phones, watching stupid videos and laughing while slavery and mass incarceration creep, closer and closer, and I’ve always been knocking at the door Like don’t you wanna do something with your life?

Sudden Reality Acquisition Syndrome (SRAS) SRAS is a real drag on the walk to comfort While I’m doing this, others aren’t While I’m okay, others aren’t Too many narratives No denouement possible

This is my new blog But I don’t understand it