Montana Makes Me Cry

Okay, Montana didn't single-handedly break my heart. It was a little bit of everything.

Yesterday the principal said he wanted to meet with me. This is pretty normal because they meet with us randomly throughout the year for evaluations. I wasn't even worried about it. Until I got there and found out that he was giving me all 0's and 1's on my evaluation (similar to getting D's and C's on a report card) Mostly it was because he said he didn't have "evidence" of a lot of the things that teachers are evaluated on. A big reason for that is because I usually have 1 to 3 kids in my class at the time, they are usually working 1:1 with aides, and more frequently than that they are screaming and hurling furniture at the walls. I tried to explain this to the principal. It was like trying to explain something to... well, to a child who is hurling furniture at the walls. Nothing was getting through. He also complained that my room wasn't "welcoming" enough, and also that I had too many things out in the open that could be used by students as projectiles. So basically I am supposed to turn my room into an empty cell, with all the toys and books and art supplies under lock and key, while still making it look "welcoming."

I went back to my room with my proverbial tail between my legs, but I tried to get into a good state of mind because Montana and Ruddy were there, and we had an assembly to go to first thing in the morning. We try to go to those things when we can, and I'd been preparing them for over two weeks by talking about it every day during our daily Good Of The Order meetings.

The assembly went smoothly... both boys sat nicely through it. We went back to class, and started our school work. Then it was time for Montana to go to gym class. He usually looks forward to gym class, and today was no different. Miss Dragonfly always brings him to gym class and then stays with him until it is over. In the meantime, I did some one-on-one work with Ruddy.

All too soon, though, Montana burst through the door, followed closely by Miss Dragonfly. He quickly grabbed a chair and tossed it against the wall. As I hustled Ruddy into the next room with his work, Miss Dragonfly explained, "Gym class was cancelled due to the assembly."

The assembly. Of course. I hadn't put two and two together.

To make things worse, the special ed director happened to be there. She looked at me sharply and said, "He should have been told ahead of time about that."

Well, yeah... but...

Montana whipped through the room and tore it apart. He tore up books, tore the posters off the walls, tore up all of his school work, overturned every chair and table, even knocked the clock off the wall and smashed it on the leg of an overturned chair. It went on for an hour. As long as he wasn't actually injuring himself or anyone else, we had to just wait it out.

I was standing next to Miss Dragonfly and trying hard not to cry, feeling like the most awful teacher ever. I was literally holding back tears.

Of course by the end of the day things were a little better. But today Montana spent most of the day blowing up. At this point we have more broken furniture than whole furniture. Every chance she gets, the special ed director mentions what a crappy job I'm doing... no mention of the fact that I never asked to be, or claimed to be good at being, a behavior specialist.

I'm glad it is the weekend!