The Fountain Incident

I thought I'd try to share a little humor in the midst of deep sadness..

I had a bit of a fountain incident with my extremely challenging student at school on Thursday. When I say a bit of an incident, I mean more like a total disaster. I have been working with our new student pretty much everyday, and sometimes all day because most of my peers in my classroom team are lazy or idiots who don't know how to communicate with kids with disabilities. (Rude of me, but true). Anyway, so I have been developing a very productive and patient teacher-student relationship with this student... She generally listens to me very well. And walking by the fountain the first 2 times she did a decent job avoiding the temptation of jumping in. (Water is pretty much her favorite thing. Ever. Besides chocolate pudding). I worked on my agility skills while she tried to bulldoze past me into the oasis.

Third time's the charm. We were returning to class and the temptation was just too much for both of us. She was more determined than ever, and I thought we were successful the first couple times passing, so I let my guard down. She is a keen girl and seized the opportunity to do what resembled a reverse whale dive past me and into the fountain. It basically was a back flop over the two foot edge. I think my heart stopped as I foresaw her cracking her head open on the concrete floor beneath the water. The special education gods thankfully somehow allowed her head to not smash into the bottom of the fountain. I don't know how because there was probably only six inches of water in there.

Anyway, she was having the time of her life. A- because she loves water. And B- because she knew how pissed I was that she was in there. She loovvves negative attention. Try keeping a neutral attitude in that situation. I tried my best. Plenty of other staff walked by and gave me sympathetic looks, had to turn their heads to laugh, or offered help. Eventually it took about 5 of us to pull her out of the water. We finally made it inside with her pulling my hair and hitting me off and on throughout our entire walk, her disintegrating diaper leaving a cotton trail behind us. It took us about 30 minutes to walk a total of about 50 yards tops. There are plenty of sights to be seen at my school, but this was a pretty good one. I don't mind her ridiculous behavior. It's better than having a boring job. And despite her little fountain victory I know I am great at my job. Plus, at the end of the day, when they are on the bus, ahhh the feeling is so satisfying!

Stay Tuned..