Tiny Things, All the Time

[This morning I copied all the posts (as an xml file) from this blog and exported them into my old blog, l'astronave -- https://gugeo.blogspot.com.  I miss having all my history in one place. I turned comments off, there. (But people can gmail me at frescadp.)]

I'll keep writing here, I think, and then reposting... a happy work-around for me.
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"Tiny Things, All the Time"

The sort of things I do at work:

One of the students was sad and upset toward the end of the day yesterday. He had ripped his classwork paper into tiny pieces and was pacing outside the classroom in the hallway.

The teacher asked me to go and stay with the student. I went and asked the student if he’d like to go for a walk around the halls.
He did want to.

We passed the room where the copier is, and I got an idea.
I went in and I got several pieces of printer paper, and I asked him if he would like to rip up some more paper.

One by one, he ripped up five pieces of blank paper. We went back to class, and he was okay, calmer until school bus time.

Then he said, "I need your help again", and held out his arm, bent at the elbow, to link with mine. We walked arm in arm to his bus.

"I'm sad you're sad," I said. "Some days are sad days. I hope your weekend is better."

And I hope your weekend, blog reader, is okay too, or that you have some paper to rip up if it's not.

Count to THREE

A student came up to me smiling yesterday and said, "THREE".
He, mostly non-speaking, had constructed his own way to ask me for a 3-second hug.

This student is lovely--appears childlike (loves Bob the Builder etc.)-- but is starting to experience teenage hormones, and his frequent hugs are getting longer, clingier, and sometimes “inappropriate" (with women), so some won't hug him anymore...

He doesn't understand that rejection and is visibly sad, so I came up with a game plan:
a 'count-to-three' hug--“one, two, three”--then a high-five, then a fist bump.
He seems very happy with that, and now asks for it.

I think I have good instincts for this work. Even though I don't know teaching tricks, especially those specific to neurodivergence, I can make up ones that often work.

Anyway, I'm shocked to see tactics some teachers who DO have training resort to. The other day (I might have mentioned), in annoyance, a teacher grabbed a student by the shoulders and moved them.
WUT?

I mean, this isn't "abuse", but it's a failure of communication and a breach of physical trust. I can see this student is wary of this teacher--so would I be!

I myself had actually grabbed a student by their backpack to redirect them when they were going the wrong way, in my first weeks.
The student was very angry--"Don't touch my backpack!"

I apologized sincerely.
"You're right," I said. "I apologize! I shouldn't have touched your backpack, and I promise I won't do it again."

I feel lucky that he accepted that and has seemed entirely fine and friendly with me since. In fact, he's the kid who picked up a pencil for me last week.

Some mistakes are repairable, hopefully, but you gotta repair them.
The teacher who grabbed the student by the shoulders didn't act as if she'd done anything wrong. And yet, imagine if a student did what she did. Shouldn’t we grown ups have the same standards for ourselves—or, rather, higher ones?
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Somewhat related--the idea of having another way to do things--I recently read this about skydiving:

After you jump out of the plane, you pull a cord to release the parachute. Then you look up to check that all the strings to the parachute are in the right place.

If even one string got caught over the top of the parachute, you have to cut yourself free. (There's a release toggle.)
Then you open your reserve parachute.
It's counter-intuitive because the parachute will seem to be functioning... but it will not land you right.

Grabbing a student might feel good at the moment––the kids can be frustrating and slow––but you're setting yourself up for failure at the end.
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Finally, before I go to work--
I have started to dress a little nicely for school. One teacher I admire dresses like a slob, so that works--but I see a couple other teachers I admire wear slightly dressy clothes (the male librarian wears jeans and a dress shirt & tie), and I like that.

For myself, I feel like the message I'd like to send is:
You students are worth it for me to bother dressing grown-up and nice for.

I just mean casual nice: sometimes wearing a top that's not a T-shirt!And this weekend I bought some silver earrings that look like the moon.
This is what I wore yesterday--here, in the staff bathroom:

Reboot Gather-Information Mode

I'm almost to my second month anniversary as a Special Ed Assistant with autistic high school students, and it's almost two more months from the end of the school year.

After a bit of reflection, I am resetting my intentions:
I am going to back off from Problem Solving Mode
and go into Wait & Watch Mode for a little while. (Maybe even until the end of the school year.)

On the whole, things are going well. But I feel myself getting frustrated with coworkers and systems that seem... inefficient or "under-performing".
Recently I found out that a couple coworkers have lost a parent in the past year and are themselves parents raising children. That explains some low energy.

Also, a couple other coworkers who'd seemed rather inexplicably hostile toward me are themselves autistic---what I read as coldness is simply their normal social behavior.
I wish I'd known this sooner.
I read my coworkers not-greeting me, for instance, as unwelcoming, but I now know that's not their intended message.
It's hard to switch out my initial interpretation, but I will set my intention.

It's a whole new set of social codes--very different than the thrift store!
My coworkers there were often  neurotypically socially skilled, emotive story tellers, who placed high value on humor. Mr Furniture once said, "The good thing about work is we're always laughing."
They were often older and Black, with Southern roots, coming from generational poverty...

I see a ton of humor at the high school, but my coworkers aren't the joshing type--even the neurotypicals.
That teacher I am most baffled by/complain most about would have an easier time (or, I’d have an easier time with her) if she enjoyed how funny the students are--sometimes unintentionally.

A student offered the interpretation, for instance, that Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" (paved paradise, put up a parking lot) was a protest against paying for parking!
OMG, I thought this was hilarious---and could have led to a good conversation--but the teacher let it pass and commented to me after class about how "wrong" the student was.

Another immediate difference is my white middle-class coworkers take a lot of sick days off.
NOBODY took sick days at the thrift store unless they were immobilized:
if you didn't show up for work, you didn't get paid.
In fact, people would judge others who took time off as weak, and not pulling their weight.
After six years of that, to me my new coworkers seemed like slackers!

So--I can see I am importing old interpretations into my new situation.
I intend to STOP judging and problem solving (mostly in my mind, but not only) and go back to Gather Information Mode.

A thing I've been doing that works nicely for me is to keep introducing myself to teachers on the floor where I mostly work--and throughout the school too.

I'd lent Foyle's War to the US History teacher, and on Friday I borrowed a book from an English teacher down the hall. He's teaching memoir, and he recommended to me The Pact, by three Black doctors who grew up in the ghetto of Newark and made a pact in high school to become doctors.
It's not interesting as literature, but it's very pertinent to high school students---get yourself up and out into an adult life.

Kids--all of them--face a lot of dangers---looking at them I think of baby sea turtles racing to get into the sea before they're picked off by sea gulls.
The most evident sea gulls are drugs--also depression and anxiety and other internal hazards, also external economics and politics....

ANYWAY, I will feel better if I stay in the hunt-and-gather, open minded "what am I seeing here?" mode, and drop some of the creeping "This is not best practice" interpretation.
Even if it's not--(and I'm sure some of it is not)--I need more information if I'm to be an effective counter-balance.

So. That's me launching myself this week.

Which reminds me--the Marzipan leaves today! in her very own little car, which she bought around her 33rd birthday earlier this month--a 2012 Toyota Yaris.
A coworker of hers drew her picture (based on a photo--those are trees reflected on her car surface) and made it into the cover of a notebook a going-away gift.

Go, go little turtle, already in the sea—again launching yourself beyond the breakers!

1st Hol(e)y Bear Cards!

“Bed Bear”

Success! bink helped me print my first linoleum block prints—the brayer + printing ink made all the difference for a clean print.

Love ❤️ love love these—they will get little adjustments cut, but I  can’t wait to share. Lettering (copied in reverse) from hand-lettering by student I work with (not the art student).

“Sidney Bearchet”

The bears featured are rescue bears--mostly from thrift store work-- bears that would have been thrown out because they were so dirty or damaged. They have holey holy powers.

Tiny Things Count

I had an unexpected Sewing Day yesterday. Julia had invited me to participate in Mend in Public Day, but even before that, my day started with an old pal texting me an invitation to join her--in half an hour-- at the public library for a morning Needlework meet-up.
She started this informal group a coupla years ago, and they meet twice a month.

Anything you can do with a needle in public, you are welcome to do with them.
One woman was constructing an intricate hat, another was crocheting an afghan, a couple sweaters were in process, and an amigurumi--those tiny cute/kawaii Japanese crocheted animals.

I repaired a couple holes in my Star Trek wallet. I've carry it in my back pocket since Annette gave it to me maybe 15 years ago.
I cut a sunflower out of a carrier for a reusable bag--a replacement eye for Spock:

Then I met up with Julia to sew at Marz's workplace. It was Marz's last work shift--tomorrow she heads off to a WWOOFing gig where she will shear sheep!
More needlework connections---the farm sells roving as well as raw wool.

Julia and I used to sew--usually mending--in public a lot, and people often stopped and asked what we were doing. J has been talking about making a mending zine---I love the idea of attaching a darning needle and a twist of embroidery thread to the cover, and carrying it with me when I'm sewing out and about to give away.

Art & Attention

I'm at a coffee shop across from my cat-sitting gig this Saturday morning.
I've been looking online for projects for the student I attend art class with. The art teacher is a great person--he creates a welcoming classroom. But he seemingly has no knowledge of autism, and he's not researching for this new student in his class... so I will.

Fair enough, I guess? I don't know. Is it my job as an assistant to teach the subject to the autistic students in gen-ed classes? Maybe not, but I expect it's quite common that it turns out that way.

I. "Think Different" is not just a slogan

I have to think differently with this student-- not so much in words & ideas.
These abstract concepts the teacher uses might be fine for some of the autistic students--every autistic person is different--but my student doesn't respond at all to talk about things such as negative space and complementary colors.

Luckily I am more than happy to mess around with art.
I love it, and I was sad that this week the student said  that he wants to drop art (he keeps trying and rejecting different classes in this time slot). The lead special-ed teacher told him that he has to stay, though--the school year runs only 8 more weeks.

I'm happy to be in Art, and naturally I want the student to be happy in some way too. What is that for him?

Below, here's some student art.
LEFT: The art student randomly carved a linoleum-block, reluctantly pulled one print (this one), and then said, "I'm done."
OK, then.
I think it's gorgeous, but he showed no interest in it.

Above RIGHT: The name of my bear for a print--Sidney Bearchet--hand-lettered at my request by a different student--the one who made me the birthday card with googly eyes.
I LOVE this kid's handwriting!!!
It is genius graphic design--he doesn't think about words as units the way I do--he breaks them up,  runs them together, and varies letter size and capitalization according to his own rubric.

On Monday I'm going to see if my art student likes mixing food coloring into glue. I looked up how, since he likes squeezing the glue out. He can try painting that way.

Yesterday he was very mad and sad.
He asked in another class if we could watch Inside Out --the Pixar movie about emotions depicted as characters.  I've said that we watch too many movies, but this student choice was brilliant! He talked about it the whole way through and felt much better afterward.
And I liked the movie too--I'd seen it when it came out (2015) and hadn't been personally moved, but watching it with young teens? BINGO!

The emotion characters, Joy, Sadness, Anger, etc. all have colors--and are sometimes simply depicted as balls. I'll suggest the student paint them in glue colors....

 

A teachers' discussion board helped me think about How To THINK about art-making with autistic students:
proteacher.net/discussions/threads/art-activities-for-autistic-children.5524

Most helpful idea:
separate the process and the product.

Plan on two levels:
for the student's experience--their free expression,
and, separately, for the experience of the viewer--that is, you, the neurotypical students, and other adults (parents, teachers):

And, excellent advice:
work for small amounts of time, and give regular breaks.
I've figured out the student is happier if we work for the first half of class and take a walk outside for the second half.

II. Stay Golden

Also, people in the art-discussion board kept saying:
you're making a difference/helping, even if it doesn't seem so.
I choose to believe this is so. After all, with any teenager, you might not get much positive feedback.
I'm not looking to them for emotional validation. I do watch for signs that what I'm doing is working (or not--failures are clearer).

It's more like going on Faith. I sense that the students need Love as much as (or more than) anything.
I don't mean a soupy goop of emotion, I mean paying attention to them, and showing you believe in them--believe that they are good, and capable, even if (especially if?) that's not obvious.

Example from this week:

One of the snarkiest teenage girls in special-ed English class (she's not autistic, I don't know what her diagnosis is) mentioned that she is a Taurus. She is one of my favorites--smart and funny and struggling with being regularly "emotionally dysregulated".
The teacher is always coming down on her know for being out of line, which I don't think is helping.

Anyway, this day the student was calling herself the bad things associated with the sign of Taurus--stubborn.

I said, "Well, that's one way of looking at it. I'd say you are STRONG! Tauruses are strong. Also, maybe you don't know, but Tauruses love BEAUTY, and I see that in you."

"How?" she said, looking at me all hostile-like . . . and eager to hear.

"You show it," I said. "Like, those beautiful gold hoop earrings you're wearing today."

"I gotta have my jewelry", she said.

"There ya go," I said. "That's Taurus!"

I don't know if jewelry is specifically Taurus (beauty is)--but astrology works as a conveyor of attention, seeing... Love.

And Love creates space, openings, and you gotta have space if you want to learn or teach. There has to be some receptivity, some chinks in the wall, not a slick, closed surface.
Look for where the light shines through... or doesn't.
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I heard the saying that students don't learn from teachers they don't like.
I'm seeing how that can go. It's like some students have the superpower to BLOCK a teacher in person as effectively as if they'd blocked her on social media.

I was helping a student analyze some song lyrics. They were supposed to compare them to something, so I suggested they compare the girl singing about love to Juliet.

"Who's Juliet?" they asked.

"You know, the girl in Romeo and Juliet that we just read" (for FIVE long weeks).

"I never want to hear that name again," the student said.

Yeah, honestly, me neither.

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For myself, this weekend I'm going to try printing at home my first two Bear Holy Cards lino-cuts. The class is printing theirs with acrylic paint, and I am not getting good results. (Neither are most of the students, but that's what's available.)

A bottle of printing ink came with the lino kit I bought last year--I'll try that.
I want these cards to work---I enjoy cutting the lino, and I love the idea of reproducible art that is not digital.
Keep Trying, Ponyboy!

Change It Up

What are the teachers I work with thinking?
Yesterday the students were to choose a song to analyze for the Poetry unit. But, Teacher said, "It has to be school appropriate".

Of course half of the students don't listen to school appropriate music--the songs they chose were full of sex and drugs and violence and racial terms...
"But that's what I listen to!" they said.

So, there was a classroom full of unhappy students who felt shut down. I felt put on the spot, enforcing a half-baked rule.
This teacher seems to lesson plan day-by-day, on the fly... and I am not included. I'd say, let them analyze whatever they are listening to--OR, the teacher could pre-choose acceptable songs from contemporary music--Beyonce does some.
Nothing I can do about that.
Jeepers!

[UPDATE: I found and texted to the teacher a site full of Beyoncé lyrics that are empowering for women. Still not exactly squeaky “clean”, but I think they’re fine.]

In my morning classes, I can change things up, and I took steps to do that yesterday.
I talked to the lead teacher about how I'd like to be more useful.  Sometimes I'm a fifth wheel. Literally, occasionally there'll be five grown-ups and five kids in a classroom.
It's great to be well staffed, but this is ridiculous.

(Also, I'm aware that regular folks pay for my work out of their own pockets. There's not even enough: the school budget is getting cut for next year.)

And, when lead teacher isn't there (the first half of the day), often we're watching a movie... THREE times this week. Full-length movies, like Kung-Fu Panda or a National Geographic nature documentary. So we're all sitting around in the dark. I bring something to do--sewing (I sit by a window for light), or this week, my linoleum block from the student's art class.

First Holy Bear Card in progress---BED BEAR. (I reversed the image--of course I am carving the letters backwards, to print.)

So now, when this happens, I'm to work one-on-one with a student-- go to the library ("media center") and work on special projects, etc.
Yay!

The lead teachers is half-time, and she said, "I hope the class isn't usually watching movies three times a week."

She trusts her staff, but yeah, they're defaulting to showing movies.
I didn't say so. I said, "Well, this week it's been raining."
True--we'd normally watch two movies this week---still two too many, I think.
Kids watch a lot of media at home, it's clear. We could be playing games, doing work, making birdhouses... I don't know! A million things.

Speaking of art class... I ran into an old pal yesterday and I got talking about the found-pencil project. The other day for the first time, a student picked up a pencil and handed it to me! Time is different with the students, and I count that a big success.

This old pal showed me some sculptures he'd seen and photographed in the Oregon airport that incorporate pencil ends as decoration, art by Hilary Pfeifer, of Eugene Oregon: