The Airforce and Navy Seals of Teachers
Alternate Title: we all protect the weakling
9:00 AM Martinez came in angry. He goes in and out of the classroom, despite being instructed to stay in with us, given the chaos in the gym.
In the gym, at least 3 kids are screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to break stuff, pounding on doors, yelling curses included worst ones than you might have ever heard.
Last week Martinez accidentally broke my teammates thumb during an angry mood. Today he tried to hurl a chair and other things His IQ is around 60. He’s autistic, “low functioning,” but “verbal.”
80% of the time, I can be a “Martinez whisperer,” and flip his mood to happy. He immediately reacts poorly to a stern voice. Today he called me a whore, told my teammate he hates her and will never be her friend again. he told all of us that he’ll shoot us all, and attacked our weakest member, Patrick, intermittently Violating other students personal space, taking their stuff, sitting at their desks, mad that we have school.
Andrew is also 100% mad that we have school, because it means there will be expectations. He’ll have to follow our schedule, (I barely even challenge him academically, academics come second to safety and physical emotional regulation).
He’s convinced himself that: He cannot tolerate not having scotch tape to create his art He has a right to make paper figure art 12/24 hours a day without interruption. Otherwise, it’s our fault that he starts yelling and threatening rampage and destruction. If we would just put on a movie and stop bothering him, he wouldn’t have to call us names and scream about it.
At the end of the day he was furious at me because we witheld his daily potential reward. He didn’t get the scotch tape and sissors and he didn’t get to print pictures from the classroom computer.
When he’s mad, he mutters to himself, rocks in his desk, shakes, grimaces, points at people, balls his fist at people, makes verbal threats, and cries. None of that really bothers me. I felt great about witholding the reward. He lost it because he complained dramatically about being asked to do simple tasks (our academic schedule), and kept engaging in back-and-forth argument with Sheldon, who spends all his time at school trying to instigate conflict with anyone and everyone. He cannot tolerate not getting his way, either.
See, kids do have “special needs.” But one very special need kids have is learning how to accept “no” and “not right now.” If adults who raised them haven’t been able to hold the line and have given in when annoying, aggressive, and unpleasant behaviors escalate, rather than letting the child take space to be mad, but also shown compassion and regulation that they can copy. Adults have to model the ability to accept disappointment and comfort kids who are disappointed once the rage (if it flares) subsides.
Many adults and parents can’t tolerate the idea of their child being angry at them. They take the fury personally, and are triggered by memories of being young, powerless, and disappointed, and in many cases, children are already MEETING ADULTS EMOTIONAL NEEDS OR TRYING TO, because their parent expects it.
Children are actually people. They have the full range of thoughts, emotions, all of that. They are extremely perceptive, especially about mood and body language. The worst thing adults can do to children is
expect children to meet their needs. needs for intimacy, needs to feel in control, needs to assuage fear needs of practical caretaking, parenting younger siblings because the parents are struggling with homelessness, incarceration, addiction and alcoholism. — in other words the war on poor people Most Children will do what they are asked to do. (the orphans could not) And by asking children to meet adults needs, the children are sacrificed
These students have been savagely sacrificed to adult needs. Which is why I don’t need anything from them, overall and on purpose. Adults should only ask other adults to meet their needs. Otherwise, you have children like my students, and they’re broken.
They cannot tolerate their feelings. They don’t know how to calm down. They haven’t seen adults calm themselves down. They’ve seen rage and racism. They’ve been targeted and neglected. They will be incarcerated, hospitalized, or ideally, in a functional group home when they graduate. They graduate according to individual goals, And they graduate no matter what. 21 is the oldest school can go for them.
At my job, there’s a lot of work looking for new homes for these kids. They were so consistently unmanageable that they’re sent to the cuckoo school It’s hard to convince another school or foster parents to want a child who’s aggressive on a daily basis, and may burn your house down, who has emotionally disturbed feces/urination behaviors, who abuses younger children, who may stab somebody with a fork (use plastic sporks) who can’t be left alone with pets, who should never be left alone at all. Don’t take your damn eyes off them or you’ll be sorry. This is a burden that has to be spread out, it can break an individual adult.
Last month, one of our housekeeping staff got fired because she slapped a student who came up to her, demanded a hug, and then spit on her (his modus operandi). I was on her side. She shouldn’t be required to deal with the students. She’s cleaning up their literal messes and didn’t train for composure given insane circumstances. I think they hired her back, though, it’s not a fun job, I bet. Lots of soiled linen. She was rude to me more than once, but got nicer over time. I’m on her side.
Patrick is a weakling that we conspire to protect (and dammit we fail). He’s a “girl.” I think he really is a girl or female, and wants to be, but has no power to do much about it. He jokes about being called girl names. He wears a onsie every day, with a tail, over his clothes. He stands with his hands at his nape like a little squirrel. He has big sad eyes, or mischievous, a dirty mullet for hair, and missing, gray teeth. He’s hard to understand, his voice doesn’t carry. He told me on Monday, when I asked “What’s new?” about the weekend Patrick: I’m pregnant with a unicorn Kid loves unicorns and Christmas lights, draws 100’s of the lights, I’d die trying to protect him! Thankfully I didn’t have to, yet
At the beginning of the day, he reported that Leontae had
kicked him again, and threatened him not to tell, and being sexually inappropriate, pulling his pants down
So as a team, we reported that stuff and set the process in motion.
Then Leontae’s therapist came down, and took him out, and told him off.
He came back pissed off thinking snitches get stitches and tried to attack Patrick 3 times.
I blocked for him twice and had to hustle Patrick to another classroom
Leontae punched him in the head over my head, with his long arms.
Leontae is twice Patrick’s size. That triggers our desire to protect him as a basic decency.
I was sad Leo’s arm/fist reached Pat’s head because only last week, Sheist hit Patrick over the head, HARD (from behind, of course) with big, plastic, sound-cancelling headphones And it gashed his scalp, beneath the “business in the front” part.
When Leo got him, and I rushed Pat out, taking him to another room, while trying to get the stupid classroom door unlocked, I held up my leg and kicked Leo back. That’s what he gets, ay? I yelled HELP HELP and my new teammate who’s a big, fit sports guy He grabbed Leontae in a one-man hold While I jiggled the key to room 10 until it opened.
Walked back to my room, another student has crashed out and is being restrained after having the best day he’s ever had.
The school day ended, and I spent the rest of the day following up to make sure that Leo or Pat was moved to a new unit, and the roomateship would be no more. And this occurred.
If our students have repeated sexually inappropriate behaviors, we refer them to a brother program that specializes in that treatment Our program is more for severe Autism, IDD, and less consciously deviant students. Our student are slower. That doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt, even just accidentally, like tripping during a big commotion. My teammate broke her ankle like that, last year. I have multiple teammates and it changes. I’m the teacher. They have other positions that support me and the students.
At one point, even I was running away from Martinez in the gym He tore his hat off and threw it down. He can’t catch me, jogging. I’m really never mad at him. But I’m worried about him.
All the students act out the most against the weakest members. Sheist has punched 3 students in the back, people who won’t hit back. We try to talk to them about self-defense too, but some kids just won’t. Some kids really depend on adults to keep them safe. To get the predator away from them. I tried to talk to Patrick about kicking as a possible self-defense move. Could you think about kicking? the next time?
One of my kids used to bite another kid in the arm, he did it like 10-20 times. Every single time, the bitten kid would look up Confusedly, pointing to the boy hanging off his forearm, and not even be able to form the words. I would knock the arm out with an imprompru karate chop Not too hard, just to separate them, but we could not get the bitten party to do anything but freeze. The bitten party would even giggle- a bit of fawn. That’s sad!
I really get animated protecting victims from bullies but the most impossible thing – or the goal- would be for them to feel safe enough, to pick a self defense strategy. It can be sneaky. You can use a weapon. You can do it later, delayed. But you’re worth it, kiddo.
Andrew is a fighter. He wanted to attack both Martinez and Leontae, but was convinced to let it go. He tried everything to convince us not to hold him accountable for earlier behavior. Ranting, evil eye, crying, acting like he truly would not survive.
It feels good to be the calm one. Show em how to do it. Setting boundaries, not taking things personally. Following through with consequences, not falling apart when he shakes and tells me how mean I am, haha!
Today was a lot. And I’ve written a lot. Driving home, I thought how drivers deserve to crash, and so does the U.S.