I came to work 15 minutes early and Jessica (my student
dealing with autism) was already there waiting for me. The bus that brings her to school each day
arrived about 25 minutes before the start of class. Although I saw her, I was not able to do
anything with her as I had to wait until the proper time to punch the clock and
begin work. I was a part time worker and
as such, it was forbidden for me to punch in before 7:45. My official start time was 8:50 which was the
same time that first period begun. I
found it interesting that I was expected to have Jessica in class at 8:50 for
the start of class when I officially start work at 8:50. This being said, I adjusted by punching in
for work at 7:45. Another interesting
thing about punching in for work was that teacher’s aides are paid by contract;
a certain amount of money per year and so it makes no difference if we punch in
early or punch out late. We cannot milk
the clock. Mrs. Bernard, the time clock Nazi, as I call her because she sat at her
desk just outside of the principal’s office and always looked at her computer
clock whenever someone clocked in or out for work. She told me that if I continued to clock in
before 7:45, I would get in trouble.
According to her, “if we were to get audited, it would show that we were
in violation of the contract.” So as a
part time teacher’s aide, I am supposed to start work at the same time first
period begun and I was supposed to clock out at the same time seventh period
ended. Knowing what I know about Special
Education and IEPs and state laws, if I did things exactly as I was supposed to
do, Jessica would get to first period 3 or 4 minutes late every day and she
would have to leave 7th period 10 minutes early so that I could
escort her to her locker and then to the door where she would catch her bus to
go home. This means that she would miss
nearly an hour of instructional time each week – a violation of state law. So it appeared to me that no matter what I
did, there was going to be someone’s law broken.
Today was hot. Opened windows and doors coalesced with
electric fans supplied by the teachers from their own bank accounts did not
work at all. I perspired just from
sitting. I didn’t even want to touch the
desk as it made my arms perspire. Most
all the children seemed sleepy, I was sure that their fatigue came from the
heat.
There was not much to happen today. Jessica tested out of Spanish One and was now
in Spanish Two, so her new schedule was waiting for me in my mailbox, just as
her councilor agreed to do. Yesterday, I
told the councilor that Jessica had tested out of Spanish One and she would
need a schedule change. I did this so
that we would not have to waist class time or lunch time today. It worked out well. Only the location of her second period class changed
nothing else. In Geometry, they worked
on more inductive reasoning activities where they drew figures and identified
patterns. Then they learned some
definitions of lines, line segments, planes, collinear, and distances between
points. It was termed by Mr. Carter, the
language of Geometry. I thought it was
interesting the way they learned the definitions. Mr. Carter did not present them a word or
draw a diagram on the board. He used the
Promethean board and some slides from the computer – all of this is a part of
the Agile Mind program. There were
images of building structures and bridges.
From the images the class was to come up with a collective definition of
the terms. This took the entire
period. I left thinking that it was nice
to appeal to the different learning strategies, but for me, it works just as
well if a teacher told me that a plan was a flat surface with at least three different
points that were not in a line.
Spanish class was a review of Spanish One; they played a
competitive vocabulary game divided in three groups of nine. Each group was given a white board and dry
erase marker to write down their answers.
When they did so, they were to hold up the board and the teacher would
choose who was first. The person with
the correct answer won points for his or her team.
After lunch, I spent time looking for Jessica, Ms. Yarbrough
took her to get a book for Civics class.
She arrived at English class five minutes after the bell. There, in English, she had a small uncomfortable
moment when she noticed the fire alarm on the wall. She became distracted and I noticed that she had
no focus. When she stood from her seat,
she walked to me and started to read the board in the corner of the room by the
exit. Then she told me that she noticed
the alarm and I knew that it was time to remove her to a quiet and semi
contained place before she had a tantrum. I did not know what to expect form a child who
dealt with autism. When people talk
about them, they only talk about the worst and I, having no training besides
You Tube, did not know that there was a long spectrum of autism and children
ranged from one end to the next. We walked out and around the corner. I told her that I understood why fire alarms could
be annoying. They are loud and they
catch you off guard. She said that she
did not like them and I said that I didn’t like them either. A student walked pass and asked me if we
would have football practice as she was uncertain because of the rain that was
to come. Outside of the window in the
grass we could see a flock of geese walking over the football practice
field. I told her that the birds were
not concerned for the rain and we should not be either. She said that the birds did not have to sit
on a wet bench – a good point. “But the
birds do not have towels to wipe the wet benches.” I said. She understood that excuses would not work so
then she walked away. The conversation
about birds and geese became a distraction for Jessica and she walked to the
window and we had a conversation about birds.
Eight minutes passed and I changed the conversation to the writing
assignment in English. I asked her which
of the three prompts she wrote about.
This led me to without notice transition her back to class.
What I expected from a
tantrum was loud and chaotic moans or screams.
I imagined Jessica holding her hands over her ears and walking in
circles. I thought that if anyone
touched her, she might hit them or violently attack them. The
YouTube videos taught me to anticipate tantrums and remove the child from
crowds to a small and contained area.
That was all I really knew at that time.
I thought it was best to simply try to use as much preventive measures
as possible. This later came to bight me
in the rear as I learned that Jessica was more of a teenage girl than some
space alien who had some strange mental issue.
It is too bad that for my job, there was no training or any concern from
one person who believed that it was important to train a person who would spend
more time with a student dealing with autism than her parents.
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