Special, Part I

I have just officially finished my 19th year of teaching, but my first year teaching Kindergarten. It was so much fun! We spent all fall singing songs, learning how to graph all different kinds of things, having show and tell for our letter of the week, cooking on Fridays and having Fun Friday centers. It was fun, fun, fun. Until Thanksgiving. The first day back after Thanksgiving, I came to realize very quickly that I should've been oh, so much more grateful, because my life was about to change drastically.



It started with a knock at the door. The guidance counselor was at the door with two new students and their mother. The acquisition of a new student always causes an adjustment in the flow of things. There is a certain rhythm to the management of a roomful of youngsters and the introduction of a new personality to the mix always changes things, no matter what that new little personality is like. I think I can safely speak for most teachers when I say that upon the realization that the "knock at the door" is accompanied by a new student, there's always a split second of "aw, shoot" in the back of the teacher's mind. Once that split second passes, then the teacher puts on a bright smile, reassures the parent, and exclaims loudly to the rest of the class that "we are soooooo lucky to have a new friend!" My heart always hurts a little for the parent and child. New beginnings are tough and its never easy to be the one interrupting the flow.



Knock, knock, knock. I open the door to discover a mom and her two children, a boy and a girl. The girl looked to be a 3rd or 4th grader so my focus immediately shifts to the boy, who was about the size of a 1st grader. Aw, shoot. A new student. Bright smile! Hmmm...he's kinda tall...must be a repeater....got my work cut out for me.


"Good morning, Mrs. Grandma Sandy, we've got a new student for you. Her name is......." At that point my brain quit processing the counselor's words. It stopped at the word her.


Her, her, did she say her?? There must be some kind of mix-up. Isn't he my new student? There is no possible way that she is in Kindergarten.


"She'll be riding the bus this afternoon. Thank you, Mrs. Grandma Sandy."


And through the door she walks.



The kid was almost as tall as me. I'm not even kidding. I immediately checked her birthdate on her paperwork. Yep. She's five years old, due to turn 6 in just a few weeks. How is that possible??? (I later discovered that she is the exact same height as my 9 year old daughter who is in the 4th grade.) Hmm.....ok. It is what it is. I settle her into her chair and introduce her to her tablemates who are eating breakfast and doing their morning work. I go back to my desk to finish taking attendance, check homework folders, etc. From across the room, I notice a small flurry of activity out of the corner of my eye. I glance up to see a few students staring under their table with looks of shock and confusion on their faces. I tilt my head to see who must have spilled their milk when I notice my new student crouched under the table in a tight ball, arms wrapped around her knees. Let it be noted that this was an impressive feat in and of itself. The kid is freaking huge but somehow she managed to crawl under the tiny Kindergarten table without turning it over. Let it also be noted that when a new student has been in your classroom for less than 10 minutes and is suddenly crouched in a ball under a table with a look of utter terror on her face, you're dealing with a heck of a lot more than 1st day jitters. I knew at that moment that I was dealing with something "special."


Over the past 19 years I've taught 1st, 2nd and now K in several different school districts in 3 different states. I've taught inner city children who have been victims of generational poverty, a 1st grader who had been sexually abused by her uncle and a 2nd grader who had been sexually abused by his father's friend. The father actually held the bathroom door closed while his friend raped his son. I taught a 1st grader in a rural area whose hair stayed infested with lice, whose arms were scarred from lit cigarettes, and who was starved on most weekends. I've had students who have never met their fathers or whose parents are in jail (both a given in many areas), and students who would walk three miles to school if they missed the bus because school was such a better place to be than home. I've had students that were OCD, oppositional defiant, and bipolar. I had one 2nd grader who I recently learned was hospitalized this school year (as a 7th grader) for drinking an entire bottle of Germ-X and for being a self-mutilater. As a 2nd grader she would pick the skin on her arms until she caused sores that would bleed. I'm in tears as I type this, reflecting on the children I've known over the years and the violence, hurt and chaos they've had to experience in their young lives.


These children are usually not easy to deal with in the classroom and not always easy to love. They are often defensive, combative, aggressive, and defiant. The enormous emotional stress that these kids deal with from the hours of 3:30pm when they leave school until 8am when they return is staggering. They will act out at school because school is a safe place to release the anger and hurt they are too young to process or to name. And sometimes they are so broken, so emotionally splintered even at the age of 6 or 7, that they sit and stare. It can be very frustrating to deal with these students because in the heat of the moment, when they are being so rude and disrespectful to you or their classmates, it can be really hard to look past the behavior and to recognize their hurt. But the hurt has to be recognized and validated or the behavior will never improve and its not an easy process. It takes a looooong time to improve behavior even a little.


So as I sat there, staring at Special who is crouched under the table looking terrified but also shooting glares of hatred toward me, my first thought is well shoot. (actually thats not exactly what I was thinking, but close enough, ha ha) I force myself to stop mid-thought and switch gears.

Ok, here we go. Better dig in my heels and take a deep breath cuz I've got my work cut out for me on this one.

Lord Jesus, this is your child, help me to see her as a child with a story instead of one with a problem. Help me to love her the way You would have me to and to love her mother, too. And thank You, thank You, thank You that its November and not August!!!!!

To be continued.........