On Friday, December 14th, I hopped into my car with a smile on my face. It was time for me to go to my afternoon shift at the Elementary school, where I work as a Teachers Aide. That day, we were making Christmas ornaments. I turn on the radio and the first thing I hear is "there is a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school". As I continue to drive, my smile fades... Before I head into the school, I turn off the radio and sit in silence for a few moments realizing what was happening...What has happened...what will probably happen again...
For those of you who dont know, I work in something called a "learning center classroom" with children in first and second grade at my school. Much to my dismay, I seriously misunderstood what this meant in the job discription and had no idea what I would soon be facing. On my first day of work, I was asked by the teacher to read a story to the children in front of the class. I pulled out a cute little book called "the pigeon wants to drive the bus" and began to read. Out of no where,(and for no apparent reason) one of the children stood up, grabbed their desk, screamed, and threw the desk to the ground. I stood there wide eyed and shocked as the teacher instructed me to take the students into the hallway and read a story. For the next 2 hours, that student completely destroyed the classroom while I read stories in the hallway to the other students. In days that followed, the same student did this 3-5 days a week. I began to question "why"? What would cause such a thing? Is it the parenting? Is it the environment? What do we blame? After a discussion with the teacher, I was given a broader idea of who was in this classroom. Three of the nine children have some form of aspergers or high functioning autism, five of them having something called "other health impaired"(OHI), otherwise knowing as "emotionally disturbed". In a million years, you would never know there was anything slightly "different" about these children on the surface. But being in our classroom essentially means that they have serious enough behavior issues that they cannot be in another classroom. This is NOT a "functional skills" classroom. This is a class for children who cannot control their anger or behavior. Today, one of the children who is OHI, completely destroyed the classroom, pushed other children, kicked teachers and students, ran outside of the school, and threw chairs and desks. For some reason, children with this diagnosis seem to have amazing strength and he was even able to take a giant horse shoe table, and flip it upside down (it took another teacher and myself to flip it right side up after the storm settled). This happens in my classroom on a regular basis. Below, is a picture of my classroom on a day where I snapped a picture from the "evidence" file on the ipad we have in our class.
The thing is, I have thought about quitting this job. But the truth is? I love these kids. When they are in check, they are the sweetest, most loving kids on earth. And believe it or not, they actually WANT to do well. But they cannot control themselves sometimes. Not only would it be hard for me to leave, it would be hard for the classroom because the changes would mean even more behavior issues and possibly even "over stimulate" the kids. Bringing someone new into this kind of classroom is not an easy thing to do...We cannot have subs, we end up subbing for each other. Unless you deal with these kids, you just dont know.
So, the other day as I drove in to work, not only did I worry about the possibility of the kids in my classroom being hurt by someone like this, I worried about the possibilities of their future...
One of my co-workers and fellow teachers aide in my classroom (there are 3 of us plus the teacher) has worked there for over 18 years now...She has told me that most of the children who end up in our classroom, end up in jail. Today, as I sat there watching this student destroy the class(I am no longer shocked, nor do I even jump when this happens now) I couldnt help but think about the shooting that happened in Conneticut on Friday. I think that everyone looks at this situation and wants to say "take away guns" or "give out more guns". I dont think this is an issue of gun control. I think this is an issue of mental illness...
Now, does this mean these people should not be held accountable? Of course not. But that being said, I also think that there needs to be something to better the control or "watch care" program for those who have serious mental illness in our country..Something to monitor these people. I can see the children in my classroom, and I think about how they hurt teachers and other students now. What happens when they get bigger? It breaks my heart. And it is so easy to blame the parents. But I have stopped doing that.
I work with another woman at my school who is the epitome of "perfect mom". She is gentle, loving, creative, amazing with kids, and just all around a great person. She many successful children, but one of them out of the many, is child who has such horrible schitzophrenia that the child has pulled a knife on her and her husband before...I dont believe that it is ALWAYS the parents fault. I think we need to stop blaming the parents for every single thing a child does.
So, what do we do?
I am not sure, exactly...I just know that people need to better understand mental illness. We need to not judge. We need to just pray, and hope, and do whatever we can to love everyone out there. Im not sure if there is a fool-proof way from stopping this sort of thing from happening again...I wish there was...I hope there will be some day...but in the mean time, I pray for every single for family in this shooting...I mourn for each and every one of them... I pray that those who do have mental illness, will get more help, more support, and more monitoring...And I pray that people will learn to not judge so quickly...because we never know...we just dont...
