SHOW ME YOUR WRIST

Date: Winter 2010

Age/Gender:  4 1/2 year-old, little boy

Locale: West Side (Brown room---off site location)

Alias: K

In order to qualify for Special Education services, a child's developmental skills (all of those in question) must be assessed using various testing/observation methods.  One of those methods is called "Standardized Testing."  Testing results must indicate that the child either has mild/moderate/significant global delays (three or more areas of development are at least mild/moderately delayed), or a moderate delay in at least two areas, OR a very significant/severe delay in at least one area of development.  The same applies to testing a child out of special education, only in reversal; their developmental skills must fall within average/acceptable range.   

We recently tested a little guy from the west side, out of special education services.  Upon entering our program, he was found to only qualify for speech/language services.  The classification for this particular delay is "Speech/Language Impairment."  As mentioned above, in order to test this little guy out, we had to consider several factors and forms of assessment to determine either ongoing eligibility or that the child was no longer eligible.  On this particular day, the Speech/Language Pathologist (SLP) was conducting a standardized language test with our little man, "K."

The SLP was working through the various test items with K and came to the "body part" section.  She asked him where various parts of his body were and he correctly touched each and every one.  She then asked him where his "wrist" was.  K got a confused, stunned, "you've got to be kidding me" look on his face.  He stared at the SLP for a few seconds and then suddenly flopped, like a wet fish on dry land, out of his chair and onto the floor.  The SLP and parapro's who were in the room looked at one another with shocked fascination.  They couldn't understand what on earth had provoked such behavior.  K then curled into the fetal position, tucked both hands under his cheek, and started SNORING!

The dumbfounded adults couldn't figure out what in the heck had just happened, until they rethought the question that had been asked just prior to the *odd* display of behavior.

"CLEARLY," our little man K had to thoughtfully think through the process of how he might go about showing these "crazy" women his "rest!"

LOLing . . . . !!!

Date: 2009/2010 School Year

Gender/Age: 4-year-old little girl

Locale:  West Side (our school district includes a number of small towns; the west side is about a 25 minute drive to the west from the school I work out of). 

The following is a quick story that was emailed to me from one of my paraprofessionals that provide services for the kiddos on the "West Side."

From Miss T:

One day we had a book of animal pictures and I was asking wh questions about some of the pictures.  I asked her about the one below.  I asked her what it was and she said, "A mouse."  I asked her, "What is he doing?"  This was the wrong question to ask the wrong child.  She said, "Pooping!!!"

F Words

Date: 3/11/2010

Gender/Age: 4 year old little girl; long blond hair; walks around with perma-grin on her face

Locale: Speech Room

Alias:  H

Our school is divided into two "teams."  Each team consists of a Special Education teacher (myself and Miss A are each responsible for a team), the shared speech/language pathologist (SLP), one SLP assistant, and classroom teachers (paraprofessionals [teaching assistants]).  

Our students who qualify for special education services based on articulation delays (as well as those who qualify for this service in additional to their other needs) are pulled from class each day to receive approximately 15 minutes of speech/language services in the speech room.

Under the direction of the SLP, her assistants work on particular phonemes, or "sounds," that each child needs to correctly produce and then generalize into words . . . followed by sentences and finally pronounce correctly during conversational speech. 

On this particular day, the SLP assistant for my team (Miss M [we have lots of teacher names starting with M in our building--lol]) was working on the sound "F" with a handful of students.  They all worked through the lesson with varied success and at the conclusion, Miss M handed out their homework and told them to keep working really hard on their "F Words" at home.

H's eyes grew as big as saucers and her permanent-happy-go-lucky-grin faded into a look of extreme seriousness, and absolute worry, as she said, "Oh . . . . NO!  We aren't supposed to say 'F Words' at our house!!!"

Teachers' House

Date: March 4, 2010

Gender: 4 1/2 year old little boy

Locale: Brown Room

Alias:  A

Many of our kiddos come to us with some pretty significant language delays.  When conversing with our little people, the teachers in our program ask as many open-ended, "wh" questions as we can (who, what, when, where, why, how).  Open ended questions require a thoughtful answer and most often generate more than a one word response; as opposed to closed questions, which typically generate yes/no answers or simple, rote, regurgitated responses.

This past Thursday, the SLP pulled a little guy out of the red room in order to work on his language goals.  They were sitting at the table and she was working on "wh" questions with him, i.e., "What is your name?"  "How did you get to school?"  

For the "where" question, she asked him, "Where do you go to school 'A'?"  His response:  "At the Teachers' House!"

I loved this response.  Fellow teachers will likely appreciate this sentiment more than others, as we all know that our students think we "live" at school.  It is beyond their comprehension that we have families, lives, and homes outside of the school building; hence the confused, "What in the Holy Crap are you doing HERE?" expression we get from our kiddos when we run into one at the grocery store, Wal-Mart, or local fast food joint.

Pokey Fun!

Date:  Fall 2009

Gender: Just-turned-four-years-old little guy

Locale:  Green Room

Alias: N

This story was emailed to me today from one of the teachers in the Green Room!  Thanks girl!  I'm just going to copy and paste (though changing any identifying information):

We were sitting at the tables playing with the playdoh.  We're always supposed to be getting language out of them so I asked the kids at my table what they had for dinner the night before.  N spoke up and began telling me a story about how his mom made him porcupine the night before.  (This was at the beginning of school and I didn't know that he was the son of [an affluent member of the community]).  I'm sitting there thinking, Holy Cow, could he really have eaten porcupine last night? LOL..)   I asked him where she got it from and he says, "The back yard."  I said, "How did she kill it?" and he says "She shot it with her gun."  (I'm thinking Holy Cow, I have Annie Okleys son in my class! LOL) I asked him how she cooked it, and he says, "In a frying pan on the stove."   I said, "Isn't porcupine kind of pokey, didn't it hurt your mouth?" His reply, "Nah, she used a knife to scrape the pokeys off."  I asked him if it was good and he says, "Yup! Sure was!"  
 

This whole story was told with extremely expressive face and hand gestures.

Mel's note:  Some of these kids come up with the WILDEST ideas and stories!  We truly wonder sometimes how they come up with such things.  We get the awesome-est giggles out of working and talking with these little people . . . they never cease to amaze me!

 

Setting "Miss Mel" Straight!

Date:  One cold, snowy winter day . . . 2010

Gender: Barely 5-year-old, round-faced, blue-eyed little boy

Locale:  Red Room

Alias:  W

During the winter season, we get a lot of snow in our small town.  Unlike school districts in the Eastern U.S., schools in our state (especially our county) rarely close for snow storms . . . not even for the big ones. 

In our preschool program, we Special Education teachers act as related service providers and support within the "regular" classrooms.  We are now considered to be the "team leaders" of a group (set of classrooms) rather than individual classroom teachers.  This is all new to us.  Two years ago, we were lead classroom teachers (as was our SLP).  However, as the number of children who qualified for Special Education services increased and needed to be filtered into other classrooms, we found that we were stretched too thin and unable to serve all of the special education children throughout the building.  Thus, we were pulled out of an individual classroom and now serve children within several classrooms.

With this new role, also came new responsibilities.  Two of us Special Education teachers, along with the SLP (and her assistants) are now responsible to help get all of the children off of the buses and send them down the hall to their classrooms.  On one particular day this winter, we got blasted with a big dumping of snow; about 18 inches in a 12 hour time frame.  Several of our preschool buses were late bringing the kids to school that day, and if I remember correctly, one didn't show at all.

After we brought in all of the kids from the buses, I proceeded to one of the classrooms that I work in.  I was surprised to see W sitting at a table across the room . . . as he ALWAYS rides a bus to school and I had not helped him off of his that day.  Standing at the far end of the room from where he was sitting, I stated to another teacher:  "Ahhhhh, W DID make it to school today.  I thought he was absent."  The other teacher informed me that his mother had brought him to school.  I said, "Oh!  I'm guessing he missed the bus---since so many of them were running late in this ugly weather."

Little did I know that the little ears were listening big . . . as we so often have to repeat what we say to him in order to know that he heard and processed what was said.  No sooner had the words left my mouth (normal tone of voice) from all the way across the room, than W piped up and yelled in an offended and animated tone of voice, "I.   D.I.D.   N.O.T.   M.I.S.S.   T.H.E.   B.U.S.!!!!    T.H.E.   B.U.S.   M.I.S.S.E.D.   M.E.E.E.E.E.E.E.E.E (his little thumb pointing in toward his own chest as he informed me of the true, exasperating situation)!!!"

*giggles*

A LITERAL EXPLICATIVE

Date: Spring 2009

Gender: 4 1/2-year-old little guy; he had some behavior concerns that we were just getting on top of.

Locale: Red Room

Alias: M

M is a little guy we had in our program last year.  His behavior was, at times, very difficult to manage (non-compliance with adult requests topping our frustration list).  He always seemed to have his own agenda and as a result, was a very independent little guy.

The classrooms in our school are set up, or divided, into different "areas."  During the "Work Time" piece of our daily routine, the children are able to "work" in the different areas within the classroom.  For example, we have an Art Area, House Area, Big Toys, Small Toys, Block Area, etc., etc.

One afternoon, all of the kids were working away as one of the teachers glanced up from working with a child in the Art Area.  She noticed that M was standing in the House Area, with his back turned toward the large mirror on the wall.  He had pulled his pants and underwear down far enough to expose his little bum cheeks.  M pulled his pants and underwear out far enough from his little rear so that he could see down inside of them.  With a twisted frown on his face, he suddenly yelled, "OH, THAT DAMN DIARRHEA!"  Without saying another word, he let go of his pants and ran as fast as he could (with his pants still hanging between his legs) through the classroom, across the hall, and into the bathroom . . . slamming the stall door behind him so loud that the vibrations echoed back into the classroom.

M took care of his business, washed his hands and returned to the classroom.  A few minutes later, a teacher spied him, once again, standing in front of the mirror, in the same stance, bare bum cheeks turned to the mirror, pants dropped and pulled out far enough for him to glare down into his underwear.  Only one word escaped his mouth this time:  "SHIT!"  I don't know if he realized the explicative was, in fact, a literal translation of his current situation . . . but his point was clearly made to the rest of us.     

At this point, one of the teachers intervened, found M's extra set of spare clothing (we always keep an extra set for each child--in case of circumstances such as this), and sent him into the restroom to take care of "business" again, and to change into fresh clothing as well.

I think one of the more shocking things to hear escape a child's mouth is an explicative.  Why we adults tend to find humor in it is beyond me.  Regardless, it's DANG funny at times.  Our kids are truly like little sponges; they soak up anything and everything from their environments . . . given time and the appropriate circumstances, we often learn that they've soaked up some things we'd rather they hadn't.  LOL!

"D" "D" "D" "Duh . . . "

Date:  February 2010

Gender:  5-year-old little girl

Locale:  Red Room

Alias:  L

Miss J conducts Greeting Time at the beginning of every school session.  The children all sit on the shape rug, listen to a book, learn who has a "job," are informed of any schedule changes, and figure out "who is at school today."

On THIS particular day, Miss J wrote each child's first initial on the board and asked the children whose name began with each of the letters.  On the board, amongst the other letters, were two letter "Ds."  

The following is what took place:

Miss J:  We have TWO kids whose names start with the letter D.  D-D-D-Donald  AND  D-D-D-Daffy (pronouncing the "D" sound several times before saying each name).

L: (who had been sitting so quietly and paying great attention)  Suddenly throws her arm into the air, as high as she can reach, as she says, "Guess what?"

Miss J:  What, L?

L: (the long pigtails on each side of her head swing animatedly) I just D-D-D-DON'T CARE!

Now . . . show me an adult on the planet who wouldn't have unintentionally reinforced that snooty little comment with a fit of giggles.  All three teachers in the room did just that.  Not to mention---we were tickled that L was able to generalize the "D" sound to another situation so appropriately!  *giggles*

Kiss my owie!

Approx Date:  Fall 2009

Gender: 4 year old, strong willed (yet completely lovable), little boy

Locale:  Yellow Room

Alias:  B

During "Work Time (free time)" at school one morning, Miss R was seated at one of the tables, working with one of her students.  B walked up to her and whined/complained that he had an owie.  He then proceeded to turn around with his back to her and suddenly dropped his pants AND underwear in one fell swoop.  He then pointed to a spot on his "cheek" and in all seriousness (whining tone of voice) told her, "Kiss it!"  In a mild panic, Miss R quickly said, "OH No!  B!  Pull your pants back up!"  B, being the insistent, persistent child he is, again insisted, "KISS IT MISS R!"  She quickly explained that it was not OK to have his pants down in front of other people, that she was sorry he had an owie, but that he needed to hurry and pull his pants back up!