Whack-A-Mole

You know that game at the arcade, whack-a-mole?  The one where you try as hard as you can to hit the little animals as they come up out of their holes?  And you are frantically trying to anticipate where the next mole will come up?  You have a great big mallet and a limited amount of time to hit as many moles as you can.  Some days at school, I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole all day long (without the mallet of course).

This is what I'm talking about.  All of my students have the need for adult attention.  They seem to crave it.  They will do anything to get the attention they need.  Positive or negative, they will get the attention they want.  So as a teacher I try really hard to give them positive attention and teach them patience when they can't get it immediately.  I really try to keep from acknowledging the behaviors that lead to negative attention.  Some days it is really a struggle to keep things positive. 

One day last week, it was really difficult to keep up the positive attitude in my room.  It seemed like as soon as I started working with one student, someone else would start with the behaviors that normally get them in trouble.  As soon as I shifted my attention to the newest outburst and got that settled, someone else would pop off.

It was so frustrating.  I knew that I wasn't making the situation better because I was feeding the negative behavior with attention.  I was helping the situation continue each time I stopped teaching to deal with the behavior.  And the behaviors that were occurring weren't horrible, they weren't harmful to the student or even to stuff in my room.  They were just annoying.  Little stuff like being out of their area, talking out, not working, tattling on each other, etc. 

So at the end of the day, I was exhausted.  I didn't get any teaching done, and the kids and I were crabby.    I went home and had one of those really long moments of self reflection where I beat myself up and then try to make a new plan.  How do I stop the whack-a-mole cycle?  How do I keep from feeding that negative attention monster?  The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I am going to have to put teaching academics second right now to teaching behavior management.  As frustrating as that is going to be... I think it's the only way to keep the whack-a-mole from starting. 

The next time this starts, I am going to stop paying attention to the little behaviors, even if they are annoying.  It will be difficult and might feel chaotic for a while.  I think I can do it, if I can stand that the behaviors will escalate before it gets better.  I know this will be a good thing in the long run. 

So think of me while I throw out the mallet, and embrace each of those moles as they pop up their ugly little heads. 

The Grand Adventure

Much to my amazement and consternation, there are still many things that I haven't done in my 11 years as a special education teacher.  I thought I had seen it all.... or at least all of the interesting parts.  This year, I have begun a totally new classroom experience.  I am the teacher of a self-contained student learning center with elementary students ages kindergarten through 5th grade.  All of my students have serious needs, socially, emotionally, academically, and in many other areas.  We call this the intensive intervention classroom.  My students have multitude of diagnoses, from ADHD and Autism to Developmental Delays and chromosome disorders.  I have students with emotional disturbances and students with extreme family situations. 


You are probably thinking to yourself, what did she DO to piss of her principal and get this assignment...  Actually I volunteered for this.   I know.   I must be crazy to take this on.  There have been days when I have seriously doubted my own sanity.  The planning for this classroom started last spring when our special education team started talking and planning for this school year.  Each of our 4 SPED teachers had 1 or 2 students who just didn't fit in with the others.  They had more difficult behaviors, or were significantly lower functioning academically.  We just didn't feel that we were meeting these students needs.  The idea came up that we needed a classroom for those students where they could have direct instruction in stuff like social skills and behavior management.  EVERYONE thought this was a great idea.... NO ONE wanted to be that teacher. 

Now I will stop my story here to interject that I might have a martyr complex and crave punishment.... the jury is still out on that!

Anyway, after a lot of thought, and more thought, and maybe a prayer or two.... I decided that, with all humility of course, I would be the best teacher in my building for this job.  I asked my partner in crime, Ms. W (the world's best para educator) if she would be willing to take on this challenge with me.  After we talked about it a lot, she agreed that we could give this idea its best shot at success.  So I went to the principal and told her that I would volunteer to be the intensive intervention teacher (on the condition that she allow Ms. W and I to keep working together).  My principal agreed and the planning began.

You would not believe the amount of planning required to start a whole new classroom concept.  The plus side was that I got to "recruit" my students from the student body, just as long as I took the ones the principal wanted also.  I started to meet with parents and describe a classroom that I haven't even started yet.  I asked them to trust me to come up with a plan for meeting all of their student's needs.  Thankfully I was supported by everyone on my SPED team, especially my principal and the school social worker.  We decided to start the year with a total of 8 students from across all 6 grade levels.  You might be tempted to think that only 8 students sounds pretty good for a teacher.  You would be mistaken, because I have had several teachers tell me that they would take 30 other students rather than my 8. 

Now you are probably starting to think.... she's complaining a lot for a person who volunteered for this job.  As the master story teller Garrison Keeler says... "I told you that story so I could tell you this one."

I freaking love these kids!

Every day is a challenge and has been from day 1.  When I go home at night, I am exhausted.   I have worried and fussed more about this classroom than I have since my first year of teaching.  I feel unsure and apprehensive almost constantly.  I'm also having the most fun I have had teaching in years.  I can't believe that I can really do this.  Other than the kids, one thing that really keeps me going is having Ms. W by my side.  I literally could not do this without her.  She is constantly keeping me on my toes and making me smile.  We are a great team and our styles compliment each other. 

So here we are... 2 weeks into the school year, and I haven't had to call in the police, or the SWAT team, or even the principal....   I consider this to be a great omen for the year.  I can't wait to see what happens next.