Thursday, May 03, 2007

In case you thought it wouldn't be so bad?

Let me tell you about my day. First, we can set up the cast of characters:
Kids in the class:

Perfect Storm: My client. 11 years old. Extremely charming. Except for her sociopathic side.
Pete/Repeat: One sits behind PS, one sits next to her. They are both ruddy looking, "husky" whiney boys. And I cannot tell them apart unless they are sitting in their seats.
Hannibal: My secret favorite (besides PS of course.) Small pale, extremely intelligent. When we first got to the class in the fall, he stared at PS for about twenty minutes without saying a word. She was complaining, crawling on the floor, eating an eraser etc. Then in the creepiest voice Ive ever heard he said "Would you like me to acquaint her with the class Miss P?" The PS actually shut up and stared at him. His quote from yesterday after being thrown out of lunch was "Miss P, you seem stressed. You are not the Miss P. you used to be. What's the matter?"
Yoko Ono I HATE her. How can you hate a fifth grade girl Crse, you ask? Well you've never met Yoko. She is a large and unattractive girl who wears these strange out of context shirts like "cheer princess" and "Cute and sassy". Im thinking more like,"Queen of Temper Tantrums" or "ill-groomed and whiney". This is not why I hate her. If it was just the t-shirts and she was a nice girl, you would never hear her name. But she is mean to PS. And we cannot have that. She also thinks she is the belle of the classroom and pits her little posse of boys against each other. Which is actually kind of entertaining to watch.
Ted Ted is freaking ADORABLE. Except for his hair trigger temper that causes him to scream out and get in fist fights in the room.
Charlie M. The most violent kid in the class. Has attacked every single kid in the room and most of the adults. Everyone is afraid of him. Including the teachers.
There are more kids in the room but these are the main players.

Adults:
Miss P Youngish, abnormally thin classroom teacher. Pleasant woman but extremely soft spoken and disorganized. I think she is attractive, but Spike describes her as a "butterface" (everything is great on her but her face).
Mrs. N Kind, grandmotherly woman (well more like spinster auntly, but she is married. She does have that pinched look though...). Pretty much undoes any behavior plan we put into place. She's our wild card of the adults.
Mrs. SBy far the most consistent grown up in the room. We heart Mrs. S! Unfortunately for us, she is out this week leaving us with.
Miss Meanie She does not understand behaviorally challenged kids. It wasnt pretty.
PammyWhen I met Pammy, I did not like her. But turns out behind her stoic face and rude remarks, she is actually quite knowledgeable about the classroom and fills me in on the drama if I miss anything.
NurseyShe is one of those ladies that goes to the salon once a week and gets her hair supersprayed into place and doesn't touch it again until the following week. Its unnerving. I dont get too close in case she has a nest in there somewhere. She is supposed to be an aide for the class. In actuality, her biggest concern is making sure she has a chair no matter what the classroom situation is like. Its kind of alarming to see Charlie engaging in a hostage situation with the teacher and Nursey getting pissed because they are blocking access to her chair. (Im not exaggerating friends. Nursey actually interrupted PS in the middle of a lesson so she could get her chair back)
Freddy JonesEqually chair obsessed. Prematurely grey. We think he has a crush on Displaced Worker. He has never spoken to me, but has three pat conversations with DW. 1) do you have children? He asks her this at least three times a week. 2) Arent these kids crazy? um yes. Thats why they are here and 3)Do you watch American Idol? Sorry folks, she doesnt. She does wish he would ask for fashion advice because he has worn the same leather coat and scarf (yeah i said scarf) all day every day since he arrived. Interestingly, yesterday was the first day he took it off. She was not there. I tried to check for any notable marks he'd be trying to hide, but I couldnt get close enough without being obvious.

Now that we have our cast, I only have time to provide you with dashes of yesterday.

- PS got thrown out of art while I was taking her paperwork to the office. She was breaking pencils and throwing them at kids.
-Right after lunch, there was a fist fight between Pete or Repeat and Hannibal. We were out of the room.
-We had to go walk down to and around the school track for some sort of healthy america nonsense. After my first trip around the track, I saw the other adults standing by bleachers and I realized I was the only adult who was foolish enough to walk with my client. Who lapped me. Because I was dressed in black (yeah sunny and 70 here. Woohoo) and wearing unsuitable shoes.
-On our way back to the classroom. PS accidentally spit on Charlie's arm. I almost shit myself. I thought we were both going down. I made her apologize twice. By some miracle, he said it was ok.
-We got locked out of the building so the entire emotionally challenged classroom trekked all the way around the elementary school to find an open door.
- We had a concert immediately after the walk. We sat on the gym floor. PS was leaned up against me which is a boundary violation but stopped her from annoying other kids. Who were getting cranky. I ended up on the floor between Yoko and some smelly kid with PS in front of me. My ass fell asleep. So did my legs. I found myself actually agreeing with Yoko when she started to complain.
-Thankfully we got pulled out of the concert so we could go to recess. Emotionally challenged kids at recess? Kind of like watching the making of Jackass. It was going so well until someone took PS's matchbox car. She didnt cotton so much to that. And it just de-escalated from there.

So thats day two. Im heading into day three now...stay tuned.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are amazing. Have I told you that lately? :)

Jay said...

Good Lord I'd quit after one day! LOL

Pippajo said...

Good Lord is right. I'm kind of speechless.

ZigZagMan said...

Seee......smelly kids is where I draw the line..:)

Anonymous said...

I decided that a career in teaching was not for me because I would not be able to handle the stupid adults. This post makes me feel better about my career in garbage, because now I don't think I could handle the kids, either!

Hats off to you, my sweet!

Jennfactor

Winterskiprincess said...

I love the descriptions of the kids, "totally adorable....except"

Has the train wreck on my blog totally freaked you out?

The Mistress of the Dark said...

2 words: holy hell.

Crawlspace said...

and all I did when I was a kid was draw people pooping.