Screwed Up, and Not His Fault (for the most part)

Poor Peter.  He is so screwed up.

To put it briefly:

His family was at the park a couple of nights ago.  He sees a girl there from our class (I think she was with her family).  He got into an arguement with her and ended up exposing himself to her and saying, “You wanna suck on this?”

What is going on with him?  I can’t believe a fourth grader would do that!  What has he seen at home?

Then this morning at home, I guess he was sick of seeing his 7th grade brother choosing not to go to school, and instead play Xbox.  So he throws a fit and runs off.  Mom and dad corral him and drag him to school, but even at school he doesn’t want to go in.  When the principal goes out and talks to him his demeanor changes, and he comes in.

The family also found out that the things the the 7th grader accused his dad of were made up.  He faked it.

Yes, I know.  Remember, the boy was being bullied because the kids at his school found out about what the dad had done to him.  But wait, how did they find out unless he told them.  But wait, he made those things up.  They didn’t really happen!

That kid, that family, is screwed up.

Homework Meetings

Jenny’s mom insists on them once a month, just so she can see what’s coming up.  My school uses it as a chance to see what’s going on with her, and to see what she’s worrying about.  It’s rarely about homework, though I come prepared with what I’ll be covering for the next month.  I think I was only asked once about it so far.

Jenny’s mom want to make sure Jenny’s aide reads the homework paragraph for Jenny before Jenny goes home.  If there is enough time, that is.  Mom wants to make sure the math is explained.

Funny, Jenny’s best subject is math.  I would think mom would want to make sure the language arts is explained.  But apparently Jenny gets frustrated easily when she’s reading the paragraph for homework.  Well, you know what?  Jenny, even with her autism, reads a lot better than at least a third of my students.

In a couple of weeks we have our second big I.E.P. with her parents and all the lawyers, and all the district personnel that comes with.  I know our speech teacher is already losing sleep because of it.  It will take about 4 hours.  I have to have an all-day sub so I can attend.  The RSP teacher is also getting stressed about it.  The pressure is more on them, so I’m less worried.

Don’t worry.  I’ll be plenty worried when the time comes.

Disobeying in the Classroom

Melanie tells me Imalda is doing her homework in class.  Imalda, who tends to throw little fits when she gets in trouble, gets mad at Melanie for telling me.  I ask Imalda to calm down, and to not do her homework until she gets home.  Five minutes later, I see Imalda finishing her homework (I’m sure she didn’t read the passage before answering those questions).  I tell Imalda I am disappointed that she disobeyed me, and ask her to turn a pin.  She throws another little fit.

Imalda has missed about half of the school days for the last 2 weeks or so.  She also seems a bit emotionally unstable.  I hear her dad was scaring the teacher last year at parent/teacher conferences.  Fortunately, only mom showed up this year.

Oh, Peter had about 3 lines from a pencil going up his forehead.  Made me kind of laugh.  I’m always amazed at his immaturity.  Like today when he finally took off to run his laps for PE.  His legs were flapping around like a 1st grader’s.  He told me his mom was probably going to marry Zuckerberg (the billionaire who founded Facebook).  He said his mom met him.

I’m not sure I’d like to marry in to Peter’s family.  It seems to be like a train wreck.

Rediculous

You know I have a special needs student in my class, Jenny, right?

Our district bows down to her, because she has lawyers who tell her what her child needs.  Make sure you understand that.  Her lawyers tell mom what her daughter needs at school.  What she deserves.

The Wednesday before Spring Break we had an awards assembly.  The day before, when I sent notes home for the parents of the award winners, the students found out who was getting the awards.  Jenny asked why she never wins an award.  I casually told her that many students haven’t won an award yet.

Jenny’s mom complained that we weren’t comforting Jenny enough (we being my assistant and I).