I had a long chat with the leader of Special Education at T.C. Marsh and I feel like I better understand the situation and have more sympathy for Special Education teachers. I like the system less. A Special Education teacher explained to me that 20% of all children in the United States where in Special Education. Special Education teachers are well aware of how wrong-headed and self-defeating certain aspects of the system are. There also isn't much to be done to change the system. Schools like Special Education because it funnels money into the school. Parents like Special Education because:

• Kids pass and progress from grade to grade.
  
• They stay eligible for sports.
  
• The parents often receive money for their child's disability.
  

Teachers all know how sad and disgusting some aspects of Special Education can be. They also know that a third of kids who start Special Education will not graduate and that almost none of these kids will go to college. Kids hate Special Education and learn to hate school quickly once in the program. The kids in the program often have behavioral problems because of their frustration with school. They feel powerless to help themselves and act out by being disruptive, violent, and or disobedient. As they fall further behind they get worse. Teachers are often harried and so stressed out that they send troublesome students to Special Education rather than deal with the child's behavioral problems. It is easier to make the child disappear from your class than it is to repair years of frustration and unlearned school work.
Should your child ever be put in a special education program, he is doomed. The immediate goal should be to get him out immediately. However a lot of the damage is already done by the time the kid gets out of the third grade. Teachers can tell you who will do well in life and who will not by that point in the child's school career. What I learned is that there are children on whom and education is wasted. These children will most likely grow up to be the person who mows your yard, cleans your house, bags your groceries, serves you food or builds your machines. These kids are screwed.

The teacher I am substituting for is coming back early! I am elated. I feel a little guilty, but I see my current teaching position as a bit oif a trap for teachers and students. The DISD Special Education program is a catch-all program designed to be a repository for students performing well below grade level. For the most part these children are bright and have no apparent mental defects that keep them from performing well (I have no access to their grades and IQ scores so even the brightest and sharpest looking students could possible severely deficient according to the recorded evidence). They do have significant behavioral defects. When scattered among relatively well-behaved students they are innocuous and easily managed. When gathered together with other students with similar problems, keeping them in line is a major feat of classroom management.
I failed miserably at classroom management today. Nearly every student in my third period class was out of my control and most of the boys received referrals for playing a schoolyard game called "Licks" at the back of the class. (Combatants in "Licks" roll up their sleeves and take turns pounding each other's upper arms. The winner is the one who can still move his arms when the game is finished.) The rest were lucky to have been seated when an exasperated teacher walked in on the classroom. I could only look on, helpless to control them. The teacher visited again to demand another referral for a young girl in my fourth period. I hate writing referrals and especially for these kids because they exist on the very fringes of educabilty (I have no idea whether "educability" is actually a word or not but I like it). New referrals for many of these kids put them in alternative schools and if alternative school is anything like Special Ed then they are doomed. The only glimmer of hope I see for college success for any of these children is that they are relatively far away from college. They have five or six years to change their ways. The problem is they are operating on fourth grade learning levels and are in the seventh and eigth grade. How they are to recover from that I don't know. Even with extremely intelligent children (and I know these kids are smart), I don't see how there would be enough time to learn all the things they are missing by not being in regular classrooms.
My mistake today was in not keeping them busy enough. Busy students don't act up and the ones who give me the least trouble are the ones who work through the period. Paradoxically, these are also the least remarkable kids. They struggle to finish the assignments in the time alloted but work steadily to get all the work done. The other kids who breezes through the work or just refuse to do the work are the more troublesome ones, even though they usually seem to have the most mental potential.
My mental block with classroom discipline is that threats don't seem to have any effects on these kids. They respond to action, drastic action. In past assignments I have responded to this by randomly choosing a sacrifical lamb from the many offenders so that the others would beware. I felt this was unjust and a deterrent born from anger - an uncharitable emotion that I don't like to give in to around the kids. However, It does yield fewer referrals overall. Tomorrow I am giving a test and I'll attempt to keep the kids busy for the rest of the class period. Maybe I'll avoid handing out referrals tomorrow. I hate Special Ed.

Why can't I make you laugh? Other people do...

I could really use one of these. Anyone who has seen my scraggly beard will tell you.

I had a really sad situation in class today. I was hearing reports of a student in my class who certainly looked male enough being called a girl. Convinced that it was a simple case of schoolhouse bullying, I called the student to my desk and demanded to know who were the perpetrators. THe student promptly broke down in tears under my questioning and refused to tell who the tormentors were. The student refused to go to the next period class so I offered to walk the student to class. A female teacher immediately recognized the student and asked what the matter was. I explained and the student wept again. THe teacher immediately moved to comfort the child and said she would handle it. When she came back, I asked what the matter was and she explained. The child was a girl and was dressed as a boy and had a shaved head. The parents had recently decided that she should live as a boy and had begun dressing her as a boy and demanding that the school change its documentation to reflect their choice. The school adamantly refused insisting that the child remain a girl. So my student is stuck in the middle left to the tender mercies of her gleeful classmates.

I used to think that Manute Bol was a cheap shameless self-promoter, but a paragraph in this article made it all clear to me. He is a freedom fighter. Really...

I was thinking about this the earlie and I have something to say. Democrats lost and will continue to lose until they unlearn their contempt for George Bush as evidenced by pieces like this. Michael Kinsley and his liberal brethren think so little of George Bush that they find it inconceivable that the public should like and respect the man, and that he would be able to engineer their defeat at the polls. Yet he did. Regardless of whether he is run by his advisers or not, I would hate to deride an opponent as stupid endlessly and then be defeated by said opponent. What would that make me? When you underestimate people you allow them to take advantage of your lowered expectations and you and not they end up looking the fool.
Democrats didn't get it during this past election and still don't get it. They are allowing their vision to be clouded by one man the same way Republicans allowed Bill Clinton to occupy their every waking moment for eight years. George Bush is shaping up to be the Republican version of Bill Clinton. He and Clinton are almost polar opposites, which is appropriate since Bush is a Republican and Clinton a Democrat. Their main similarity is that each is a polarizing figure. Neither one won their first elections by large margins and both had to deal with a fair amount of controversy. Bill Clinton defeated a weak opponent his second term and George Bush appears to be faced with several weak Democratic candidates going into 2004, although it is still to early to speculate about who will run and be nominated yet. The main thrust of my argument is that the Democrats are allowing themselves to be distracted by one man just like the Republicans did. The Democrats still have the opportunity to not become obsessed with defeating Bush. If it ever gets to that point they will lose and lose badly.

This is a great idea...

I thought this was funny. Some Democrats are running a "switch" campaign simialr to Apple's urging three liberal Republican Senators to switch or become and independent and vote with the Democratic caucus. I thought it would be even funnier if I turned it on it's head. This is the text of the email that I sent in place of the drivel they had in the form:

Dear Senator X:

I am writing to urge you to not join Senator Jeffords by becoming an
independent and voting with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. You did
not run for office by promising to drill in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, to support extremist judges to lifetime appointments, or
restrict reproductive choice but switching now would only make you a spoil
sport. I realize that Trent Lott can be an arrogant brute, but if you
consider moving, others will consider joining you - you would be
defeating the will of the people. Do you think it is an accident that the
American public has reversed their normal pattern of dividing the
government by putting the Senate and Congress in Republican hands? I think not!

Please let me know what you intend to do on this urgent matter. Time is
short and the stakes are very high.

Sincerely,
Idahosa Edokpayi
10011 Woodlake Dr.
Dallas, TX 75243
stealth_ninja.geo@yahoo.com

I forgot to mention the story I heard yesterday in the Special Education Department meeting. One of the teachers knew a special education teacher with cerebral palsy. Special ed students tend to be older and larger and he was small and weak in his limbs so the students had a clear strength advantage. Every so often, his large and mischievous students would stuff the hapless Mr. Winkler in the dryer or the oven. The guidance counselor could often be heard ordering the students to "Get Mr. Winkler out of the dryer right now!".

To start my dayt today I had a little footrace with a DART bus. We called it a tie when I boarded the bus. Nothing like a full out sprint in a tie and dress shoes with a messenger bag bouncing on your buttocks to ensure complete alertness in the morning.
I started a two week assignment teaching a special education math class for two weeks yesterday. I had a lot of apprehension going into about teaching kids who were "slow". My fears were unfounded. The kids are bright, alert and intelligent. In fact, I think that very few of them really belong in "special ed". Somehow they've fallen behind and gotten themselves into serious acadamic trouble, but there is nothing wrong with them mentally. What is wrong is the attitude of the teachers toward the kids. The condescension is so thick you could slice it with a butter knife. The teachers seem to truly believe that almost every child in the class is damaged. I can handle two weeks of the kids, but two weeks of the teachers talking about the kids might be too much for me.
In other news, how about those Mavericks? The Mavs have dominated every team they've played right out of the gate. I am waiting for the national sports news to start showing some real respect.

I am very frustrated about not going out. Staying home keeps peace with the folks, but I am bored out of my mind.