Every day seemed to get easier with my students. I appreciated their honesty and loving spirits. Even Patrick who sat sucking his thumb most of the day would lay his head on my shoulder on those occasions when I might be sitting beside him.
We had broken up our day into manageable segments: self-care, group music, group activity, lunch, annual goal focus, workshop activities. Our schedule was complicated, trying to maximize the “womanpower” of two staff in order to meet the needs of ten students. But everyone was enjoying the variety of the day and how much quicker the time seemed to pass.
After the firedrill fiasco, we knew that going for a group walk outside was going to be a challenge with just two adults. So, for our first attempt at this, we decided to walk out one building door about 200 yards to the building door where the buses dropped the students off each morning. Most of the kids could walk on their own and would stay with the group, but I armed myself with Shyna and Deena while Joan took Kathy and Patrick. Off we went with the others dancing, jumping, or waddling next to us. We were about 20 feet from the door and about 30 feet from staff parking when Rich suddenly took off running to the nearest car, ripped open the gas cap and began inhaling the fumes from the tank. I unhooked Shyna and Deena and walked up to Rich. He immediately began biting the palm of his hand, but walked calmly back to the group with me. We proceeded to return to the classroom, exhausted by the time we entered the door. Hmmm, I thought, maybe there are reasons for these students to remain inside our classroom.
Later that afternoon, Darryl and I found a quiet spot in the cafeteria to work on his circles. We sat together at a lunchroom table, me modeling how to make a circle. He kept trying to imitate what I could do very easily, but couldn’t quite match up the ends. We tried making circles in the air, on the table, on the carpet, and any other surface we could find.. We found circles on bulletin boards to trace. Darryl approached the lesson with such enthusiasm I was convinced he was intentionally refusing to learn because he wanted the extra attention from me. We worked on circles for awhile and then returned to the room.
“Lori,” Joan said, “you need to go see Colleen in the office.” Colleen was the school social worker/psychologist/assistant principal. I thought, “This is it. They heard about Rich sniffing the gasoline fumes—I’m gone.” Actually, I had every intention of letting Mr. Brock know what happened, but planned to tell him after school. I never felt comfortable leaving the classroom unless I had to.
“Hi Lori, Come on in.” I stood at Connie’s office door. She was a very personable, breath of fresh air in our school.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Well, we heard from Amy (the teacher on maternity leave)” she began.
“Here it comes,” I thought.
“She is not coming back this year at all. We were wondering if you would be willing to keep on teaching until the end of the year?”
I just about fainted. “Of course,” I said. “I would love to, but…”
“But?” she raised her eyebrow s in question.
“But?” she raised her eyebrow s in question.
“I need to tell you what happened when we went for a walk outside today.”
Connie was supportive. She liked the changes we were making in the program and suggested we keep going for the walks, but maybe borrow an aide from another classroom for extra support. She encouraged me to keep making changes, set up a time when she could help me write and prepare individualized education plans for upcoming annual reviews and then sent me on my way.
I danced into the classroom, feeling as though my life had been rewritten and shared the news with Joan. Then we all had a spontaneous celebration before approaching Joe’s weekly hairwashing task.
“Goddammit Joe, don’t you cuss…”
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