Listening to: Pops Play Puccini
Reading: Summer Sisters(yep, still on the same page…)
Weather: 50 degrees and drizzling…foggy too
Trivia: Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who died in 1832, left his entire estate to the London Hospital provided that his body be allowed to preside over its board meetings. His skeleton was clothed and fitted with a wax mask of his face. It was present at the meeting for 92 years. (yuck!)
Cool word: commodious [adj. kuh-MOE-dee-us]
If something is commodious then it is comfortably spacious. Example: "The new sleeper cars feature commodious cabins with private showers and tables large enough for four to play cards." The meaning of this word has changed somewhat from Middle English, when something commodious was convenient, suitable, or handy. The word is from Latin commodus (convenient), a compound of com-(together) and modus (measure).
Didn’t Happen
Well, after all the anxiety over the adult education computer course..it didn’t happen. The Village Idiot and I went over to the Middle School today to be sure the computer lab could be set up the way I need it for the class, (television screen hookup etc.) and we discovered that we couldn’t use the room tonight. It was parent’s night.
Apparently the Middle School principal is the Grand Poobah of Village Idiots and she hadn’t bothered to fill out the correct building use paperwork, so no one knew there was a conflict. If we hadn’t gone over there today I would have gone to use the room and not been able to get in. My Village Idiot was royally pissed off. Apparently the Grand Poobah does this on a regular basis.
So we decided to cancel the class tonight and reschedule it to begin next week instead. This was pretty much o.k. with me, as for some reason I’m beyond tired today.
Besides, flexible is my middle name.
Cancelling also allowed me to get the report written that I need for 7.45 tomorrow morning. Another one of my procrastination episodes. For some reason though, once I got home, put on comfortable clothes and sat down to write it went pretty quickly.
That’s one of those things that takes me a while to get back into the swing of doing. I have to write on the average 15 full-blown diagnostic reports and 30 educational plans each year, but the first one of the year is always tough. It’s as if I totally forget the format and the jargon over the summer. And of course the fact that I hate writing them is of no help at all.
But it’s done, and all I’ll have to do is print it when I get to school in the morning. (MY printer here is broken, and I’m too cheap to replace it.)
The meeting itself is something to dread. The parents are argumentative and ask for things that aren’t appropriate for this boy. They keep insisting that he can’t read and should have a private school placement. It may be true that his reading skills are about six months behind where they should be, but he is by no means that disabled. These parents threaten litigation constantly, but the system is willing to fight this one. Sometimes the system will cave in, but this isn’t one of these times. Nor should it be.
I got a letter today from one of the kids I had in class three years ago. Ashley and I bonded (in a way that I haven’t done with many kids) the year she was in fifth grade. Ashley has issues that place her on the autism spectrum, and I thought she might be the kid who would put me over the edge, but instead I fell in love.
We had a really rocky start to the school year that year, as Ashley would have almost daily "meltdowns". She would start crying and screaming when she was faced with something new. She has a serious anxiety disorder and she would literally HOWL:
"I don’t WANT to be in fifth grade….I WANT TO GO BACK to FOURTH GRADE!!!!!!!!"
I was forever having to take her out of the room and get her calmed down enough to be able to return to class.
Ashely was also one of the most stubborn kids I’d ever met, and she was determined to get her own way.
She pretty much had.
Until she met me.
I believed in setting limits that she needed to adhere to, and this was something we were constantly butting heads over. One of our limits was "The rule of two." She was only allowed to have two extra journal type notebooks (writing in journals and reading about real people was one of her obsessions), or two reading books, or two Beanie Babies (and they had to stay out of sight).
It was actually the Beanie Babies that led to our biggest breakthrough.
Children with autistic tendencies have difficulty reading social situations, and interpreting other people’s emotions, and don’t always see how their behavior can be inappropriate. This was true of Ashley who would often begin conversational tangents when we were in the middle of something else.
Ashley was still very much a little girl, loving frilly dresses, stuffed animals and all things pink. (She once "got up at 6.07a.m." to steal a can of pink frosting from the cupboard and put it in her backpack so she could have it for snack. She knew her mother would kill her if she found out.)
The Beanie Baby Breakthrough happened on a day when she had two new toys with her and refused to put them in her desk or locker. I had told her to get them out of sight and she kept refusing. So instead of grabbing them and leading to a sure meltdown – I said "fine then I’m not willing to help you at all. I’ll go work with Amanda and you can do the reading by yourself." So I walked away, but kept shooting her my "teacher" looks.
This went on for almost an hour, until we were having snack and she came up to the co-teacher and myself and said, "I’m sorry for my behavior".
The teacher and I cried. This was one of the most enormous steps she could have taken.
The day before she was getting out of school for the year she bolted. I was in a panic and the entire staff was on the lookout for her. We finally found her huddled in a corner of the girl’s room, crying her eyes out.
She didn’t want to leave us.
Her mother has made sure that Ashley and I are able to stay in touch. She makes a point of bringing her to school so she can see me, and I take her out for ice cream a couple of times a year (at least).
I just love this child.
The reason for the letter I received was because I’d sent her a package last week (priority mail) that was filled with the Teeny Beanie Babies I’d collected over the summer, a Lisa Frank assignment book, a gel pen, and a photo album. So this was a thankyou.
The biggest news was that she’d been asked out "on a date" by Joseph, who is another one of our autistic spectrum kids. They’ve been friends since pre-school and have this alternative world that they inhabit when they’re together. It’s a very active fantasy world that they go to together. It’s very odd to listen to their conversations.
He’s asked her to go to the Children’s Museum on New Year’s Eve. The Boston Children’s Museum is celebrating New Year’s Even on Greenwich Mean Time, so they are having their big bash at 7p.m. I think that’s a great idea.
So Ashley is going on a date.
This kid totally warms my heart, and I’ll never find another kid like her!
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