Friday was my first discouraging day of my school year. On the tenth day of our new school year a new student came to my class. He is 15. He suffered traumatic brain injury when he was a baby. He uses a wheel chair. He rapidly curses and laughs loudly every 3-5 minutes. At the same time he knocks anything near him down, hits, pinches, scratches and given the opportunity will bite. He cannot be left alone for longer than a minute and a half. He has a short attention span and his comprehension is very limited. He needs help eating. He frequently cries though not from pain but if he cannot get his own way. He frequently recites bad behavior that was not allowed in his previous school, all of which he did in my classroom.
In 7 short hours I went through everything I have learned to reach students like him that I have gained from 12 years of teaching, 4 years of undergraduate school, 15 months of grad school and 100 hours of seminars. Nothing even calmed him down and no learning occurred. My 4 staff members and I had to primarily focus on this student totally shutting down the teaching of my 7 other students.
He has put my staff and students in danger even though I was able to keep my class safe as I am trained to do. We have a much smaller classroom than we should have due to space limits at our school. He makes the potential for minor and major injury in my class very likely. We have to be careful of moving him through the halls because he hits and curses anyone near him suddenly and hard. As he is a new student we are waiting for his paper work to arrive at our school. After only one day in my class he came across a teacher who sets limits and tries not to reward bad behavior, it seems as if he is not use to limits in his environment.
This is one of 4 times in my career when I have wondered if public education is the best placement for all students. This goes against everything I believe in. With few exceptions everyone benefits from being in public schools no matter how mentally challenged they are. This weekend I have lost sleep trying to understand what I can do to help this child and have come up empty.
I have reached the conclusion that our goal should be for all children to go to public school if their families want them to, however I am thinking that not all children are ready for public school and some would benefit from an alternate placement. I am open for an exchange of ideas.
If my staff and I have to work with this child with out additional support this year, we are short changing my other students. As a group we will no longer feel safe to work for the school.
I am accustomed to being hit, bitten and scratched as part of my career. It's part of my job and I am good with this, but most of the time the behaviors don't continue for more than 2 hours. This child manifested his behaviors for 5+ hours. I am OK with being hit because I know that these are behaviors that need to be changed in the students. I can almost always find what leads to negative behaviors and what rewards work. It doesn't take long for the negative behaviors to begin to change. I have a track record of helping students change these behaviors. This is what frustrates me the most and quite frankly really discourages me. After 7 hours of working with this child I could not even begin to find out what makes him exhibit the socially unacceptable behaviors. I usually have familes advise me of how to approach their child. This grand parent lead me to believe that the child never exhibited these behaviors and was well behaved. .As much as I am committed to going after windmills when the windmills turn deadly it's time to cut and run.
My First Question Ever. "Are some students not ready to be in public schools?" "Should all children be allowed to go to public schools even if they put students and staff at the public schools in danger?"
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Comments: 20 ( 1 removed by Kevin E. )
But I would also give him another chance to see if he will at least try to conform.
Why am I put in mind of "Hannible Lector?"
I have a question, I am sure you have tried and even know about soothing techniques, but have you tried a weight vest, brushing or even deep pressure? I worked in a home with clients who were severly handicapped and some of these techniques worked well.
I know that in MIchigan, there are grants available to parents for special education needs- they cover things like the PS spec. ed class, as well as private tutors if a child can not be in a school setting.
http://friendsofdanh.gather.com.
Our goal is to help you further your exposure and to support other gather members.
That sound a lot more reasonable than having the child totally disrupt a classroom of other students, don't you think?
Frankly, I think we need, as a society, to recognize that the same thing doesn't work for everyone. One size does not fit all! And some students would do better with some kind of special education. Mainstreaming everyone had a noble ring to it but is really not feasible. Both the impaired student and the rest of the students loose in some situations where this is attempted, in my humble opinion.
At one time, Doctors were recommending parents send ADHD kids to parochial schools, where it was thought they would benefit from discipline and routine. Being small and underfunded, parochial schools had no resources for these special needs students who disturbed the other students and slowed class progress.
I think James has a valid point in saying that the impaired student and the others are hurt in these situations. There needs to be a very careful, case by case evalution, I think.
Suzi
I think this child's Grandmother is possibly hiding his behavior out of fear of embarrassment or out of denial or just plain delusional. I imagine if she truly ignores this behavior at home, that may be reinforcing his social problems.
So how is he doing now?
At this point and I'd still love an update, though it's the following year, it would probably be better for him to have one-on-one teaching, maybe at home? Much might be able to be accomplished, both in his own home (familiar surroundings, plus the educator can observe how he acts in his own environment too), and the other children in your class can still get their education as well. There are never any easy answers here.
Marilyn