Some parents need...
You can't fix crazy. I know, and yet for some reason I keep on trying. Here was my 7th hour, despite having a wonderful day:
CS comes waltzing in the room yelling and hollering. He wasn't mad, wasn't cursing, just babbling words super loudly. Upon entry and after getting halfway across the room, I turned to him and said, "C, that is not a good way to enter the room. Please stop. Get your binder and have a seat."
"What you gunna do about it?" Seriously? Nothing. I can honestly do nothing. Please don't take you attitude out me though child. I ignored this comment and moved on. The teacher I share the room with has animals everywhere and the guinea pigs just had babies so a few kids had trouble finding their seats. After 2 reminders, I asked how many times I needed to ask them to get their binders and sit down. His response, "You need to tell me 50 times." I looked at him and said, "Consider this your 50th."
The whole period went on with the challenges that I simply disregarded. Once he started calling people, "faggot", my hit and run cards were being issued. Each kid essentially gets 6 cards, 3 reminders and 3 warnings. After that, the student is removed from my class. With the BIPs involved in my classes, they need to leave after 3 official warnings anyway; one of my better ideas.
About 10 minutes into class, I still cannot get through a thought because of CS's comments. I looked at him and personally invited him to stop. These were my words: "We cannot move on because you cannot get on task. Right now, I am essentially getting paid to stand here. I don't want to just stand here, that is not my job. I want to teach, if I wanted to just stand around, I would have taken on a different job. Please stop."
His response was that I stop being so rude and then asked me, "what I was going to about it?" and then proceeded to call me a bitch. Straight up in front of the class. I completely ignored it and the other kids were startled. I told them to let it go and I would take care of it later. I also gave C his 2nd warning card. At this point I looked at him and said, "You are being very rude. There is no reason you need to speak to people like that. Even if you get a job at McDonald's, you cannot talk to them like them. They won't hire someone with that language or will fire you for talking like that. You cannot talk to people like that, it is not okay." C started playing with his phone then and I asked him to put it away, this is a technology free room. He kept it out and I said, "Please finish texting your mom and put your phone away." After the 3rd time I asked, he tossed it on the table and asked me again, "What you gunna do about it." I then told him to get his things and leave. When his escort came back, she told me he was recording me... Which is against the law as I had not given him permission.
When I called his mom after school, she did not see things my way at all. In fact, she told me it was my fault he called me a bitch. She questioned whether I had ever worked with IEPs and ever read a BIP before. Told me I needed to stop power struggling (I'm not aware I was), I had to let him record lectures per his IEP (this was not a lecture), and finally that I had scarred him for life by telling he would never get a job. I told her she was misconstruing my words, I had told him he could not talk to people like that, if he did he would lose his job. Seriously, what job can have and call people a bitch? I mean, a phone sex operator? A Dom?? Even CEO's cannot call their employees a bitch. By the way, it's not part of his IEP to record anything.
My job as a teacher is to prepare kids for life. My job is to teach to every job. If a 15 year old has no tools or realizations about the real world, how is it unprofessional of me to explain how language used is an integral part of life? I consider it part of my job. Sometimes, when you're a teacher, you do things that are hard. Sometimes, as a teacher, you need to tell people hard truths. If I was doing something very wrong, i would want someone to point it out so I can do things better. I just cannot wrap my head around why you want to disable your child so much they cannot function in the real world... Suggestions?
EDIT: On a side note, all's well that ends well.... At least so far. My administration and my SPED co-workers are all so wonderfully supportive and have told me to keep truckin' along. This makes me extraordinarily happy and I'm glad to be where I am.