The Windows Lock for a Reason...

One of the biggest challenges in Special Education is teaching to multiple ability levels in one classroom. What makes that even harder is when you get kids who you know have the ability but somehow lack the interest.

Nick was one of those kids. In looking at his file I learned that he had a near genius IQ and a vocabulary that could rival the selection in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Of course Nick was obviously in residential treatment for a reason.

He always took the seat by the window and he typically pulled his hood over his head and slept for most of my class. Once I got used to him and his behaviors, I started getting a little more "in your face" with him. I'd start moving around the room while reading and pull his hood off his head as I walked by. On my next trip around the room I'd poke him in the shoulder hard enough to jerk him awake. Finally I began making him take his sweatshirt off before he even came in the room, a rule he fought me on tooth and nail but of course, I was the one who doled out the points at the end of the class so he had no choice but to concede.

Continuing to take the seat by the window, Nick decided if he was going to be awake during class, he was going to be the center of attention. I passed out the grammar text books that even I detested and asked the boys to open up. I started reading as I walked back up the aisles toward the board when I heard an enormous thump from the corner of the room, though when I turned around I couldn't see anything amiss. Then I realized Nick no longer had a book on his desk.

"Nick, where praytell did your book go?"

"Nowhere." He grinned and looked up at the ceiling, pretending to whistle. "I don't know what you're talking about Miss Kate."

Ok. What the hell was this kid up to? I had heard a thump so the book had to go somewh.... Oh shit. I ran over to the window next to which he was sitting and looked down to see his textbook- spread out on the hood of the principal's red Lincoln Navigator!!! Along with his pencil, a milk crate, and a pile of yellow lined paper.

"Nick! For the love of Christ! That's THE PRINCIPAL'S CAR!"

"Yeah, I know."

Over the weekend the principal sent the janitors to put locks on the windows so that they could only open four or five inches, figuring that would cure the throwing of items onto the principal's car. However, Nick was not to be thwarted. Ten minutes into class I look up from the textbook to see that Nick has cut a face-shaped hole in the newly installed screen and he has turned his head sideways, jammed it under the window, and is spitting on the Lincoln.

A few months after I left the DarkSide I went back to visit. As I was walking down the hall I could see Nick coming at me in the other direction, hooded sweatshirt in his hand. I waved, he waved. I said hello, he yelled, "Miss Kate! What the FUCK are you doing here?"