What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

Last Thursday all the third grade classes had a Christmas program for parents and the community. There was quite a turnout and everyone enjoyed it. I will try to post some pictures my class website soon.

I was a little concerned about the performance. My little darlings weren’t really giving it their all. Put an audience in front of those kids and watch out. Each of the five third grade classes sang songs independently and then all the classes came together to sing several pieces together. By that point I finally started to relax a little bit. That was until a parent behind me leaned over to me and whispered, “I think you have a child on the front row who is in trouble.”

Knowing that my class was on the front row I quickly scanned the front row to see what the parent was talking about. Sure enough there was Charles (name changed) front and center singing and doing the pee pee dance. I’m sure that you are familiar with the pee pee dance. When children, or adults for that matter, really need to go they clinch their legs together and kinda sway back and forth. Charles was a dancin’ and from the rate of sway, it looked like he was in trouble.

Before I continue with the story there are a few things that you need to know about Charles. He is only mainstreamed to my room for about 20% of the school day. Charles tends to be rather obsessive about time and schedules. If his schedule falls apart, so does he, literally. Socially and academically, Charles is on about a kindergarten level. This year has been very good for him. He can read and spell very simple sight words, and yesterday he was successfully sounding out words he didn’t know. There was a party after school. He is can be very single minded about things. During rehearsal for the concert, the music teacher moved Charles’s position on the risers and he was upset about that for three days. Last year he was so obsessed with Halloween, he insisted that his birthday was in October. I am very careful to do things the same way when he is in the room and if there is a change I sit down with him and let him know what is going to happen step by step until he feels comfortable with it.

At that very instant in the concert, Charles was aware that he needed to go to the bathroom but he still had to sing two more songs. Nothing could interrupt that sequence of events, not even needing to pee.

Now back to the story … (look Jared, I treated the ellipse like a word.) I managed to get his attention and motioned to him to come to me. Not surprisingly he shook his head no. Meanwhile, someone in the audience decided to get involved and forcefully give me their opinion, “Just go get him for cryin’ out loud!” The concerned audience member of course didn’t realize the chain of events that would have occurred if I had gotten him which would have included screaming, crying, lose of bladder control, kicking, and one upset Charles. I tried one more time to get him to come to me. This time he shook his head no until it almost fell off, he was determined. The concerned audience member continued their urging, I decided to sit back and enjoy the rest of the concert, ignoring the audience member and hoping that Charles had his bladder under control.

There was still a problem. Charles now thought he was in trouble because he refused to come to me. Once every minute he would look over to me to make sure I wasn’t coming to get him. I tried to let him know that he wasn’t in trouble by smiling and waving to him. He smiled and waved back. He smiled, waved, sang, and danced for the remainder of the two songs and would repeat the sequence about every minute.

As soon as the last song was over I sprang into action, went to Charles and asked if he needed to go to the bathroom. “I gotta go pee!” he replied. “Let’s go.” Yet another crisis averted.

Whenever warn other teachers about Charles they think he is a behavior problem and nothing could be further from the truth. He was one of the most loving, biggest hearted kids I have had in class. His charm makes a person fall in love with him immediately. I have tons of Charles stories, now of I could just remember them all to share with you …