PULL!

I was going through some old documents on my laptop and lo and behold, I saved 45 pages worth of the blog I originally kept on MySpace when I was teaching at the DarkSide. So for the next few posts, you get to read my original rants! Cut and pasted for your reading pleasure!

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Ok so, Senor Dog is lying on the floor in time-out after trying to bite the new principal's shoe. The kid's flapping around on the floor, screaming like a banshee; so what does the principal do, in his nice yellow dress shirt and pressed gray slacks? He lies down on the floor with him and starts flapping and screaming. If I had only had my phone on me you would all be witnessing it on streaming video right now.

Not ten minutes later, Senor Dog is again pitching a royal fit, trying to kick me out in the lobby where everyone who comes through the door can see the show. The principal comes up the stairs just as one of the supervisors is attempting to settle the kid down and get him back to time-out. The moment the principal steps in, Senor Dog starts grabbing at his knees trying to bite him. They finally get him to his feet and start to escort him down the hall when he reaches out and gets a good solid handful of the principal's precious cargo (if you know what I mean). So what do I do to help the situation? My usual. I point and laugh, then comment that I'm sure this kid is last on the list of people the principal wants grabbing him down under.

After lunch Senor Dog announced that he needed to go to the bathroom, but it's always a fight to get him to wash his hands. This time he came out with his hands behind his back, which of course tells me right away that he didn't wash them even though he's telling me, yes he did. I send him back in and I hear running water and copious amounts of splashing. I remind him quickly that he just needs to wash his hands, not take a bath. Finally after 5 more minutes of splashing, Senor Dog comes out dripping wet. Paper towels-ever heard of em? He goes back in to get paper towels but theres a fairly lengthy pause. Another student comes up behind me and looks into the bathroom. "Pull!" he says. Apparently Senor Dog had no idea how to work the paper towel dispenser. Who knew?

Can't sleep...

I can't sleep right now so I'm online, talking to people about this blog, my work, and of course the DarkSide. I used to come home with a different story everyday when I worked there but now that I've been away from it for three years, I'm starting to get this horrible feeling like I'm starting to forget some of them. So tonight at 12:41 am, I'm flipping through my good-bye book that the kids signed for me, reliving some of the small moments that I'm always so afraid to forget.

Chris's page in my good bye book has a picture on it. I'll give you three guesses what it is and the first two don't count. On the next page, one of my girls writes, "I'll always miss you and you'll always be my mom."

Another girl, Shawntelle writes, "I will miss you and I hope that you miss me too." I never really had much contact with her or much of a bond so really all I can remember is one of the other girls picking on Shawntelle after gym class, saying she smelled like a "hot whopper". Still not sure what that meant.

Mike reminds me of the ups and downs of having been their teacher and cautions me to look both ways when crossing the road. Carlos says, "Stay strong and remember you have made a change in my life."

And finally, tonight I found something that one of my boys must have slipped into my book without me noticing. It's a card addressed to "The Best Teacher in the World". It's from Isaiah and it says, "Thank you for talking to me when I was having very rough times. But this is the roughest time of them all. I will miss you. This is a heartbreaker. Please don't forget me."

Well, guys, while I don't expect that any of you will ever stumble upon this blog I'll still take a moment to say that I have not forgotten and will never forget any of you. In the past three years I haven't had a job that has touched me the way my time at the DarkSide did. I haven't met kids like any of you ever again and I don't expect to. I was lucky to have had my time with you all and I am a better person for having worked with you all. It was never easy, but it was the time of my life. Thank you all for letting me be "The Best Teacher in the World" for you!

Boot to the Head

I have a migraine this morning and yes, this reminds me of a story. I had one student, Ethan, who had been diagnosed very early on with bipolar, ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive, and a whole host of other maladies. His bipolar was so severe that he was actually diagnosed as a toddler when his mother first noticed his horrible rage blackouts and mood swings that were worse than a pregnant woman on crack. In spite of all this Ethan was one of my favorite kids because he was smart, he worked hard, and when he did flip out, you knew it wasn't personal.

One afternoon however, Ethan was rather angry with me, though I can't honestly remember why. It had been a long day and I was really glad to see him go back down to the unit. I was leaving early-ish that day to get to class as I had just started my Masters, so I got all my stuff together, threw, on my coat, and was just locking my door when A SNEAKER hit me across the face. Let me tell you how much fun it is to actually FEEL your nose shatter... And as I'm about to reach up to see if my nicely broken nose is bleeding, I catch a fist across the side of the head and that's it...I'm out. Literally. I blacked out.

Apparently one of the staff members in the unit thought it would be hilarious to leave Ethan behind. They realized he was in a lousy mood and figured it'd be more fun to let the school staff deal with him because they felt we always got off easy by sending them down to the unit where they acted out all night. So Ethan came back up to the school all by himself which was a big no no, wandered upstairs, saw me leaving for the day, and decided that it was all my fault he was in a lousy mood. He picked up a track sneaker (not just a regular old sneaker mind you, a track sneaker which is ten times heavier) and jumped me from behind with it.

When I came to a minute or so later, two of the male staff had ahold of Ethan and they were asking me what I wanted them to do with him.

"What the hell do you think I want you to do? Haul him to time out!" No, I'm sorry. I want you to make sure he's comfortable, maybe get him a cup of coffee. He just knocked me out for the love of God!

I stood up best I could and weaved down the hall after them like a drunken dock worker, following them to time out. Ethan had started to struggle so a third staff member, Brian, was now with us. I came around the corner into time out and leaned against the wall to keep from falling over when Ethan started to scream at me.

"You need to go to the nurse! Get the fuck out of here! I broke your nose! I hurt you! You can't stay here! I hate you! You need to go get ice! Get out, get out, get out! Go away! You have to leave!"

Oh really kid... "Listen, Ethan, one thing you should know by now: if you start with me, you're going to finish with me. In other words, I'm not going anywhere until you're ready to process with me. Got it?"

Of course that just pissed him off more. He started yelling and screaming, completely unintelligible gibberish. He just wanted me gone but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction even though I could feel myself literally drifting back and forth on the edge of consciousness. I stayed with him in time out for an hour and a half while he screamed and bared his teeth. Finally he started to process through but that was when I just couldn't take it anymore. I sat down on floor with my head between my legs, begging one of my staffers, Dan, to just please drive me to the hospital for pain killers.

When I got to the emergency room, the nurse asked me what happened, eyeing Dan warily, like I was a victim of domestic abuse. I laughed and said, "No it wasn't him. Actually, I got knocked out by a 13 year old."

Merry Christmas the Paste Way

A Little Reminiscing

I went to visit at the Dark Side again, just because I promised the kids I would come by before Christmas and I always keep my promises to them. I figure there are enough people in their lives who break promises on a regular basis that I don't need to be yet another one.

Of course Nick's initial reaction when I showed up was, once again, "Oh God. It's her again." These kids try so damned hard to act like they don't care that I'm there but in reality, I could see the smile starting while Nick pretended to be ignoring me. His mom and two brothers were visiting, doing the whole Christmas present thing, and I noticed that he was showing his younger brother how to work a Rubix Cube.

"So Nick. Do you remember the time you tried to solve one of those in the classroom?"

"I did?"

"Yeah you did. You solved it by smashing it to pieces and throwing it in the trash can."

"Oh yeah! I remember that!"

*****

An hour later, Nick and I walked down to the basement to see one of my former TA's who is now an outreach worker (so damned proud of her). Nick leans against a doorway and says, "Do you remember the time I threw Mike across the room and he landed in a cabinet?"

"Yeah I remember that."

*****

Ten minutes later, sitting in the lunch room, Nick puts down his fork and says, "Hey do you remember the time I went on the run for three days and then just randomly showed back up in Science class, all dirty and shit?"

"Yeah. I remember that."

*****

"Hey, do you remember the time the Department of Education was here and we were making up all kinds of different names for them like the Department of Assholes and the Department of Dirty Hippies?"

"Yeah Nick. I remember that."

"Yeah. I remember you had to shut the door because we all got a little inappropriate but you were laughing too hard to yell at us."

"Yeah. I remember that."

*****

And his parting shot today? "Yeah? I got enough game to bag you!"

Story of my life kid.