Tard gets sassy

This morning, as all the kids were unpacking their things, I notices the old new kid was just sitting there, doing nothing. I said to him, "You need to unpack your backpack." His response to me- "You need to unpack your butt."

Tards not ready for upper level sports

Due to an assembly, the recess times had to be adjusted. Because of this, my class had to go out to recess with the upper grades.

My tards were not ready for this. They were getting beat badly in wall-ball and basketball. Brad got hit in the head and knocked over by the tetherball. He was playing against a kid twice his size. The kid served the ball and Brad went to swat at it. He missed and got clocked in the head instead. All the kids laughed.

Augusta and his bling-bling

Augusta comes to school with this huge, cheap, gawdy looking watch on. He was so proud of it, and would position his body in ways that best displayed the watch. He made a comment to a couple of kids in the hall way about his "bling-bling", while showcasing the watch. Word got out, and at the next recess, everyone was making fun of him, saying shit to him about his bling-bling, and about how his dad was probably wondering where his watch is.

At one point, a student grabbed at the watch. Augusta flipped out, threw his arm up over his head and started to shriek. He took the watch off and stuffed it in his coat pocket, warning others not to mess with his bling-bling. He then stormed into the office to call his mom so he could go home and shower.

Tards learn about different races

Ivan and the old new kid are both at the sink, washing their hands before they eat snack. Ivan is half Caucasian and half African-American. Evan's skin is, indeed, brown. The old new kid keeps telling Ivan to keep washing his hands, they are still brown and dirty. The old new kid truly knows no better then to make a comment of this sort, he is six years old and retarded.

Finally, after a good two minutes of the old new kid criticizing Evan's hand washing techniques, the old new kid screams out

"TEACHER, EVAN'S HANDS WON'T TURN NOT BROWN."

It was at that point that I read the class "Elmer the Elephant", a book about skin color differences. We discussed it afterward, I really think the majority of them caught the message.

Tard has problems with change

I assign classroom jobs to my kids. The jobs include titles such as: line leader, messengers, librarians, door holders, etc. I change these jobs every Monday.

Last week, the old new kid and another student were the messengers. This means that they both walk the attendance sheet down to the office in the morning. They were the messengers every morning last week.

This Monday morning, the old new kid could not handle the fact that he was no longer the messenger. He seriously thought I was fucking with him. I kept telling him that the jobs change every Monday, but he continued to argue.

Finally, he busts out loudly with, "It was Me. Me and that brown kid were the messengers." While saying this, he is also pointing at poor Evan. He then said again, "The brown kid and me are it." I cut him off at that, but it was damn funny.

Mom's math sucks

I have been having many problems getting the old new kid to complete and turn in his homework. Keep in mind that the only reason he gets homework is because he is too busy dinking around in class to get his work done. I have been sending unfinished work home in his homework folder, and it has not been coming back. Finally I decide to call home. I speak with his mother, who is younger then me. She seemed frightened by my call, and I am sure she was so nervous that she flushed everything she had. His mother assured me that the work was at home and it was completed. She would send it to school with her son the next day.

The next day the homework comes in. It is obvious that the mother did it, not her son. It was adult handwriting, which in no way resembles 6 year old tard writing. There is one part of the homework where you have to read short story problems and turn them into a numbers subtraction problem (i.e. Jamie has nine turtles, she gives four to Tom, how many turtles does Jamie now have? The answer would look like
                                                     9
                                                    -4
                                                     5
However, the mom had a different way of writing these problems out. This is exactly how she wrote them out:
        7                   5                     3                     4
     -11                  -9                    -7                   -11  

What a dumb ass. I hung the mom's work on our staff bulletin board, it is that good.

Student mismanages money

I am in a fifth grade classroom, observing one of my students while she participates in classroom activities. Lunchtime rolls around, and she begs me to stay and eat lunch with her, so I do.

About halfway into lunch, she starts furiously searching through her pockets for money that she had brought to school. In response to her frantic tantrum, one of the girls (who is not retarded) says, "You already lost your 31 dollars once today...and YESTERDAY!! You lost it yesterday, and Mrs. Bach told you yesterday to not bring that much money to school!!"

The tard gets upset, and starts up with a very annoying combination of crying and whining. She relocates to the corner of the room, curls up into a little ball, and pulls her hooded sweatshirt around her entire body. I slowly coax her out of it with some Starburst and old easter jelly beans.

I then focus on the girl who had claimed she had repeatedly lost her money. Her recount of the multiple losses killed me. She said that on Monday, 31 dollars had been found stuffed into the cracks of an upper cubby. The tard went all day without realizing she had lost it in the first place. By the end of the day, she figured it out and claimed her money. She also received a lecture from her regular classroom teacher about not bringing that much money to school.

On Tuesday, there was a wadded up 31 dollars on the floor by the overhead projector. The teacher put it up on the wipe board. Still, she goes all morning without noticing her 31 dollars is missing. When she realized it was hers and claimed it, she got another lecture from her teacher about money at school.

And then to top it off, the freak-out over the again, missing, 31 dollars.

Brian likes movies

Brian's parents are my age and they watch movies and let him watch too. This is all he fucking talks about--movies. Of course I think it is funny, but it has spiraled out of control to the point that I have to repeatedly tell him, "Brian, you are not on topic."

Monday he saw Goldmember. He kept saying, "Shmoke and a Pancake, Waffle and a cigar, Bong and a blintz." As he was saying this, he would extend a hand to me, as if he was offering me something. It was funny, but also disturbing.

As I was putting him on the bus on Friday he was telling me about the movie eight legged freaks and about how his mom spanks him really hard on the bottom everyday.

St. Paddy's Day:

he new kid came in today wearing a fucking black top hat and had a black plastic cauldron full of gold foiled chocolate coins. The cauldron hung from the front of his walker. He actually came to school as a leprechaun, although he never could verbalize that. He would just respond "yes" when asked by others if he was, indeed, a leprechaun. He gave goofy smiles, and kids would take a shitload of chocolate coins out of his bucket. They abused the "take one" privilege until the coins were all gone, at about 9:45 a.m.

We had a small St. Patrick's Day party in the afternoon. The new kids mother made each kid a shamrock cookie with green frosting. She also made green kool-aid, but it was pretty nasty. I think it might have been sugar-free or something.
The whole gesture was very nice of her. At the end of the party,  when I probed the kids to thank her, amongst many "Thank You's," I hear Augusta mutter, "Thanks for the Green Water."

Lewis becomes obsessed

Lewis is very intelligent, but he displays odd and compulsive behaviors. He is really funny though. He is very good at spelling, and even won his classroom spelling bee, which made him a participant in the school spelling bee. He practiced like an anorexic ballerina for the entire week before the school spelling bee. On the big day, he told me he could not be more ready.

There are about twenty contestants in the spelling bee. One of the students walks up to the microphone to spell, and Lewis gets up out of his chair and walks toward her, staring intently at her shoes.

The girl had the kind of shoes on that light up when you walk. Lewis is fixated on these shoes like I have never seen him fixate in anything before. He immediately gets up and walks over to her, gets on his hands and knees and stares, places his face about 8 inches from her shoes, and stares right at them. He is literally on his hands and knees, at the microphone, staring at this girls shoes. Snickering could be heard faintly throughout the gym.

The administrator of the spelling bee warned Lewis that he needed to return to his seat. He may have heard her, but he was not listening. He was asking the girl questions about her shoes, and she just stared at him in silent disbelief.

She warns him one more time to return to his seat, he pays no attention to her and is disqualified. He still will not leave the stage. I had to go up there and remove him. It was not pretty. I lied to him and told him that I had a pair of the light up sneakers in my classroom. This was the only reason he followed me off the stage.

New mother reads her Machiavelli:

The new kids mom has cleverly worked it so that her son is now the most popular kid in my class. She has extended her pattern of daily gift-giving beyond me.

She now brings in little surprises for the kids, and she MAKES her son pass them out. He has no clue about why she is there, and why he is struggling to hand out rice-krispy treats via his walker. But he does it, and this makes the kids like him. Sometimes he will even give into Augusta's greedy attempts to coerce him into giving him an extra treat, leaving himself without one.

This mother has entirely taken over the 15 minute period in our day that is referred to as "snack time". Fuck everyone else's nasty donations--on Thursday she brought in EGG ROLLS that she had made herself. They were so good that I would have fought Augusta for the last one.

Wednesday was the day she brought in the cake. This day has become legendary in our classroom. The kids refer to this day as "Bunny Cake Day". It was a cake, shaped like a bunny with colored coconut sprinkles on the frosting to form eyes, nose and mouth. It also had Jelly Beans along the outside.

When she brought her son in the morning, she set the cake on the front table. The kids admired the fucking thing throughout the morning, and were overjoyed when she returned at 11:00 a.m. to serve it. Along with little pint size chocolate milk cartons, of course.

It is so funny to see how many kids now will play with the new kid. Especially kids like Tyler, who will do anything he can to extort money from him. And Augusta!! He always sits next to the new kid at lunchtime. The new kid is easily talked out of anything in his lunchbox. The new kid often goes hungry.

Van ride goes wrong

We had a field trip this week. One of the parents was kind enough to drive us. She had the nastiest mini-van I have ever seen. It had crumbs, dirt and assorted detritus all over it. It reeked, too. But she managed to top herself.

On the way back to school the mother stopped at the gas station to purchase gas. I kid you not about this: She seriously pumped 52 cents worth of gas into the van. I was dying inside. I wanted to call every single person I knew right then and tell them about what I had seen.

New New Kids mom going overboard

Gifts to me from new kids mom this week:

- bouquet of flowers

- photo album

- box of chocolate

- cigar from Niemann Marcus

- socks with monkeys on them

- an Atlanta Braves Baseball hat

Augusta's criminal activities move up in scope

Augusta's cousin works as a physical therapist for a local sports team. Often, Augusta gets to accompany his cousin to games, and meet the players. Augusta, as we know, is also somewhat of a kleptomaniac.
He recently came to school with a bunch of these tubes of glue. The packaging made the tubes appear to be syringes. Out at recess, one of the playground aides caught a large circle of boys that Augusta had rallied, all sniffing the Dermabond type stuff.

Augusta is nailed. He has succeeded in distributing inhalants to his peers at a public school. Him and all of the boys who were in the glue circle were summoned to the office. Many of the boys had, in their possession, a tube of the glue, given to them by Augusta.

Augusta's Dad claims that neither Augusta nor any of the boys were sniffing the glue. His blindness to this confuses me. It's not like Augusta had a model airplane out there with him. Augusta has been suspended for three days, and the other boys who were caught with the glue are suspended for one.

Augusta steals more food

Earlier this week, the new kid's mom brought him a meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. It contained more food then he could eat in an entire day. There were 3 pieces of chicken, a biscuit, mashed potatoes, pudding and a big ass soda pop.
She set everything up for him; buttered his roll, cut up bites of chicken, put spoons in his pudding and potatoes. She then left. Augusta swooped towards him like a vulture. I was temporarily distracted by questions from the bitchy lunch money lady, and dealt with her for about 5 minutes.


After I deal with her shit, I walk over to the new kid, and notice that his lunch, in its entirety, is gone. Even his soda pop, finished.


I ask him how he ate his lunch so fast. Tyler, who is sitting nearby, points at Augusta, and says, "No he didn't eat it, the Kentucky Fried Fat-Ass over there did."

Treat jar causes problems

Brad and Tom got into a huge fight about who, out of the two of them, would get to chose from the Friday treat jar first. The Friday treat jar is glass, and has a metal top on it.

The two of them were pulling at the jar, each trying to select a piece of candy first, when they dropped the treat jar on the tile floor, causing it to shatter. This causes mixed reactions amongst the tards.

Some immediately burst into tears, as they can not deal with loud, startling noises. Lewis freaks out, and stays as far away from the glass he can because "Glass has AIDS."  All Brian wants to do is pick up the little bits of glass. Because of this, he is removed from the classroom until the custodian comes down to sweep it all up. Augusta charges the remnants of the broken jar like a pinata had just been broken into. He completely ignores the glass aspect, and starts grabbing at the candy on the floor. He cuts his hand, but it still takes two aides to remove him and his bleeding hand from the candy.

I decide that it is too dangerous to have the tards in the room with broken glass all over, so I take them outside to play until it was all cleaned up.

Tyrell has problems with referees

First of all, I wish to dedicate the following event to all my friends, with the exception of DW, who continue to ridicule, harass, and talk shit to me for encouraging and participating in the extra-curricular activities of my students; both former and present.

Fuck you guys. All of you passed up what DW referred to as "Better than a fucking Lakers game."

So it begins, Thursday, four o'clock, I arrive at Tyler and Tyrell's residence to pick them both up. I honk my horn a multitude of times, but no one exits the house. Fuck. I pull up into a handicap parking spot, leave the car running, and run up to their door. After several punches to the door, no one comes. I let myself in.

The home smelled like cats and smoke. The combination of T.V. and CD player almost deafened me. Both boys are on the couch, staring at the set. Tyrell had to be at his basketball game an hour early to practice. I scare the shit out of them both when I walk into the TV room. I ask if they are ready to go, and they say yes. We leave--the TV and CD player remain on, and the girlfriend remains on the dads bed. She is out for the count.

We walk out to my car and there is a cheap-ass rent a cop by my car. He begins to bitch at me for parking in a handicap spot. I need not respond to him, as Tyrell busts out with "Me and my brother have to be in special reading classes." I laughed. Not exactly the response he was looking for.

We all get in the car, the rent-a-cop continues to talk to me. He is signaling at me to roll down my window. I ignore him and slam the car into reverse. We have a basketball game to attend.

We arrive at Tyrell's middle school and drop him off. Tyler and I go get McDonald's. We hit the drive-through, and I buy them both dinner. Tyler eats his in my NEW car, spilling shit all over the place. I ask him to be more careful. He says OK, and continues dropping french fries everywhere.

We then go pick up my friend DW, who has expressed great interest in attending one of the games. DW was a baller in High School, but I actually met him in college, where he continued to star on the court. Sadly, he relied way too much on his image, and not enough on the actual game, so his post-college career has been pathetic. But, at one time, he was quite a star, especially regionally.

Tyrell knew who he was, and it was going to be a surprise for him when we arrived at his game with DW.

So we arrive back at the school, it is 5:00, the game was to start at 5:30. I have DW take Tyrell his food. Tyrell was speechless, all he could muster up was "I saw you on TV." Tyrell then spouted out something about DW and I getting married and adopting him and his brother. This was too much for DW, he returns to the bleachers.

The next twenty minutes is filled with DW bitching at me, Tyler asking DW what it is like to be "really black", and Tyrell trying to show off on the court for DW.

The game finally starts, but Tyrell is not a starter. We could see him bitching to his coach about this, but could not make out any words. Tyrell then points to DW, the coach looks over, Tyrell jumps up and down in temper tantrum, and the one of the starters is pulled. Tyrell is in.

All is normal for a long ass time. Tyrell is on his best behavior, and is playing a great game. Half-time rolls around, and Tyler is throwing his Ju-Ju fruits on the court. He is aiming for the center. DW is encouraging this behavior. I do nothing to stop it, because it is funny. Finally it is announced on the microphone that "anyone throwing objects at or on the court will be asked to leave."

Second half begins, and immediately Tyrell is shoved by a kid on the other team. They talk shit to each other throughout the next 5 minutes of the game. Finally, after the kid makes a remark about his dad being in jail and his teacher having to take care of him, Tyrell's dam breaks.

In the angriest, loudest tone I have ever heard come out of that kids mouth, he screams "Don't make me cotton candy your ass, Mother Fucker!! I'll cotton candy that shit right now, Mother Fucker!" The referee blows his whistle, and throws Tyrell out of the game. Tyrell will not accept this. To the referee he says, "You want your ass cotton candied too mother fucker? Cuz I will cotton candy that shit, and with a capital K."

Yes, he said with a capital K. One of his spelling words last year was cotton. I am a poor teacher.

Everyone in the gym is angry, mothers are covering the ears of their children. DW stands up and shouts out "Cotton candy him kid. Candy dat ass!!"

DW is now ejected. Tyler then stands up to contest both ejections, when he is also ejected. He calls the ref a "Pansy ass mother fucker." DW then repeats it, except a lot louder.

At this point, everything is chaos. Tyrell is refusing to leave the court. All his teammates are cheering him on, as is DW. He is loving the attention. He then decides to drop his shorts, grab his penis, and tells the entire visiting side of the bleachers to "EAT THIS".

DW was barreled over laughing, headed toward Tyrell, I was in shock. DW actually goes out onto the court, and tryies to coax Tyrell off of it. Tyrell looks at DW, again grabs his penis, and suggests that DW "suck my twelve-year old cock."

DW looks up at me in the bleachers, gives me a seriously apologetic look, and signals for me to get down there. I grab my bag and Tyler, and we head down. Everyone is staring. I refuse to make eye contact with anyone.

Tyrell's coach is nearing him, when Tyrell announces " Coach get away from my cock!!!" I have never in my life seen a kid as out of control as Tyrell was at this point. I was truly amazed.

The coach warned Tyrell that the police had been called, when Tyrell decided to pull his pants up. He walks over to the bench, gives some of his teammates a high five, then exits the gym.

DW, Tyler and I follow him out. DW asks Turell him for an autograph. Tyrell agrees, we get to my car, and he scribbles his name on the McDonalds bag that was still in my car. He proudly hands it to DW. DW then says, "Kid, you have no idea how famous you really are."

I pull up to DW's house. Tyrell demands that DW kiss me goodnight. I about shot myself. I told Tyrell that this was inappropriate. He announced that his Dad's girlfriend kisses her friends all the time. DW laughs, kisses me on the cheek, and gets out.

The boys then fight over who will sit in the front seat. They begin punching each other. I stop the car, remove my seatbelt and turn around--just in time to see Tyrell clock Tyler so hard that his mouth starts to bleed. All over the back seat of my new car. I scold Tyrell and give Tyler my jacket to soak up the blood that is now gushing from his mouth. I did about ninety all the way back to their home. Luckily, his mouth stopped bleeding. I then turned them over to the care of the 20 year old girlfriend who asked me if I "had a smoke she could bum." I told her I didn't smoke. She asks "What do you smoke?"

I said goodnight and got the hell out of there. Next Tuesday I take them to see their dad in jail.

Tom loses it

Tom came to school today in full form. He was kicking other kids on the playground even before school started. When he came into the classroom, he refused to unpack his backpack, hang up his coat, pick up his reading notebook, etc.

About ten minutes into reading group, he is kicking me under the table, and it hurt. Imagine getting kicked in the shins repeatedly by a hyperactive tard on 45 mg of Dexedrine. I am used to this sort of kicking, but then he started to kick the other kids. One of them cried, but most kicked back at him.

My aide removed him from the room, and into the hallway. He was going nuts--kicking, wailing his arms around, spitting. She had to literally hold him in a bear hug type restraint. He was resisting as best he could. He got one of his legs free and kicked a non-retarded girl in the stomach as she was walking by. And he kicked her HARD. She buckled over in pain, crying, was short of breath.

My aide asked him if he wanted to have a good day that day, and earn all his points. Right then, a fifth grade class was walking by on their way to music. She kept asking him if he was going to improve his behavior, when he yelled out loudly "NO YA ASSHOLE!"

The fifth grade class of course thinks this is the funniest thing they had ever witnessed, and all twenty seven of them bust up laughing. Tom assumed they were making fun of him and begins kicking like crazy. A second aide was needed to hold him down. Tom continued with "NO FAT ASSHOLE!"

He was carried up to the office by the two aides, screaming at them the entire way up. His mom was called, and he was put into a small conference room while we waited for her. He destroyed the room and broke the fax machine. Mom was presented with a ninety dollar bill when she got there.

The new, new kid

I got a new kid this week. The circumstances behind his arrival at my school are funny.

I am at Bally's on the treadmill. I am also on my phone--talking loud, swearing, laughing loudly, saying highly inappropriate things. Everyone around me is glaring at me. Except for one lady, who moves from the bike to the treadmill next to me. I continue my conversation, and end it with "Fuck You Lorrie, call me later."

The woman starts laughing uncontrollably, looks at me, and laughs louder. She then says, "If that's how you talk to your friends, I'd hate to see how you talk to your enemies!"

I am not OK with this comment. She had been listening to my conversation, and is now trying to talk to me. This sort of thing annoys me. I mutter "yeah" to her, pull my hat down a little further, and flip open my magazine. This is no deterring this woman. She says "Oh, I read Newsweek too. Isn't it a great magazine?" This was quite possibly the dumbest thing anyone had ever said to me.

I look up at her with my best "what the fuck?" look. This does not silence her. She holds out her hand and says "Oh, I am Pam by the way." I automatically assume she is a lesbian. Fifty thousand things I could say to her are going through my head. "Riti" I say to her and held out my hand.

"You are cracking me up," she says. "What do you do?"
I act like I am reading my magazine and mutter "I'm a teacher."
"Oh, thats so great!! Wow, what a tough job you have."
I give her a half ass smile.
"What do you teach?"
"Special Education."
"No way!! My son is in special Ed classes. He has muscular dystrophy and Autism."
At this comment, I exhausted myself trying to hold in my laughter.
She continues, "I am looking for a really good school to place him in. What school are you at?"
I answer her, reluctantly, as she is obviously fucked in the head.
"Oh, I know where that is. Do you have a good program there?"
"Yes"
"Do you accept out of district transfers?"
"If there is room, yes."
"Do you have any space right now?"
"I just lost two, so yes, I do. It is nice with not as many kids."
"Well, I just think you are fabulous! I am going to see about transferring my son to your class."

At this point I hit the stop button on the treadmill. I am waiting for an "I'm kidding" to come out of her blabbering mouth. I continue to wait as she plays twenty questions with me. Finally I have had it. I give her a card and tell her to call the school to check on the specifics of a transfer.

Nine days later she calls me at work. "Guess Who...?" she said.

Oh, Fuck, I got kids snorting pixie sticks over here, I don't have time for this shit.

She is calling to tell me her son will start in my class on Monday. I tell her how happy I am to hear that, or some bullshit, and hang up.

I completely forget that this new kid will be coming until Sunday. He shows up on Monday, but I am not there. His mother calls my house repeatedly.

Tuesday I finally meet the kid. He is eight years old, blonde hair, blotchy red skin. He should not be in my class. He has severe problems, far beyond anything my class is equipped to deal with. He uses a walker, is pigeon toed, has a hearing aid, drools uncontrollably, and the poor kid has progeria. He is is bad shape. He can do nothing by himself. He loses balance when transferring from his walker to a chair. He falls over like ten times a day.

The worst part is that his mother dresses him like he is Prince Harry. He comes to school everyday in deck shoes, polo sweaters, khaki pants, suede jackets, etc. He is like the retarded Armani poster child.

This combination was the most alarming thing I had ever seen.

It is difficult to watch him eat. All those nice clothes get covered with shit. And he eats tapioca pudding every single day. This disturbs me to no end.

He has NO academic capabilities. None. He can barely talk. He can't even comprehend holding up three fingers.

But possibly the worst part is that every morning his mother walks him in and brings me something. Tuesday it was a latte and a muffin. Wednesday she brought me stationary. Thursday a desk calendar. But Friday is the kicker, she shows up with A FUCKING TURTLE. MY GOD WOMAN, I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE.

As for a husband? He committed suicide six years ago.

I can't help this kid. He needs physical therapy, not school. And he is exposed to the behavior problem kids that I have. He doesn't understand their funniness, but still, he doesn't need to be around them.

Augusta steals, again

I was out on Monday. I get a phone call at about 10:30 Monday morning. The caller ID says it is my work calling. Great, I couldn't wait to see what the hell had happened. I decided not to answer it, that if it was important enough, a message would be left. I wait, hoping not to hear the beep that signals a new message. The phone beeps. Dammit.

This is the exact message: "Good Morning (Riti), its Juanita from school. There was a little incident here this morning, and I wanted to give you a heads-up on the situation. All the kids are fine, so don't worry...... Just give us a call when you get a chance. I hope you are feeling better."

Never before had I received a call like this. The hesitation in Juanita's voice was almost eerie.

Do I call? No. Do I drink? Yes.

The next morning I unlock my classroom door. The room was completely dark, the aquarium light was turned off. I have a tortoise named Homer in my classroom, it is the "class pet", and the aquarium light is left on at night. This is a specific instruction in my sub plans. I assumed the sub was stupid, and felt bad that Homer had to spend the night in darkness.

I flipped the lights on and walked over to the aquarium. Homer was not there. I looked around for a bit, thinking he was crawling around on the floor or something--he wasn't. I am immediately drawn into one of those "what the fuck" mind states that seem to haunt my classroom.

I walk to my desk and flip on my computer. On my desk is a stack of pictures drawn by the kids. Each picture is of Homer. In some of the pictures Homer is crying, some have hearts around Homer, the best ones have a person crying while standing next to Homer.

There could be only one reason for this: SOMEONE KILLED HOMER.

I bolt to my table and read through the substitute's notes. She started off with the usual "I hope you are feeling better" and "Today was a disaster", which then led into "Jamel dropped the tortoise, killing it." I am angry now. In the sub plans, in bold letters, it says "The kids are not to handle the tortoise."

So the notes she left describe how Jamel insisted that on Mondays they get to hold the tortoise, how all the kids held him, and how Jamel was the last one to hold him. While he was holding Homer, he peed on his hand. So Jamel dropped him on the tile floor, cracking open his shell and killing him.

Jamel insisted that Homer was taking a nap, and all his peers believed him. He then demanded Homer go back in the aquarium to nap, because I would be mad if he napped anywhere else.

The sub then summoned the principal. He came down and assured her that I was going to be very upset. The custodian then came down and disposed of the poor turtle.

I see Jamel a little later, and he requests that I get a guinea pig for the new class pet. I wanted to strangle him.

Augusta steals, again

I don't lock my classroom door during the day. My purse is locked in my cabinet, and there isn't much anyone would want to steal. Except for one kid and one item. Augusta AND food.

I had gone up to the staff lounge to eat lunch, the kids were out at recess. They are not to enter the building until recess is over. This is a rule they are familiar with. I had to come back down to my room because I had left my diet coke there. I walk in the room, flip on the lights, and find Augusta digging furiously through the kids lunches, gobbling up their food.

"What do you think you are doing?" I ask him.
"I was seeing if I forgot my lunch," he responds.

This is bullshit. The kid buys lunch everyday. And he has powdered sugar all over his face and shirt.

I scold him for awhile, then drag him up to the office, where he gets to tell the principal what he did, call his mother and tell her what he did, and then write letters of apology to all the kids whose lunches he ate.

Tards send themselves cards

In order to assist the kids in writing out their Valentines, I sent home a list containing the names of every kid in the class. Basically, I photocopies my attendance sheet.

The funniest part of this is that almost every kid had addressed a valentine to themselves! (To: Brad  From: Brad)

None of them had any clue that they had done this either. As they were distributing their cards, they would read out loud who it was to. They didn't even think twice when reading that they had given themselves a valentine.

Valentines Day Party

We had a Valentines day party. The activity was frosting and decorating heart shaped sugar cookies. It was awesome! We had like 10 different kinds of candy to decorate with, and the kids absolutely loved it! They had a ball decorating their cookies. The problem arose when the kids had to take turns going to the "decorating table".

I had set up a table in back with the cookies, frosting, plates and all the little decorating candies. There was only enough room for three kids at a time to be there. I chose three kids at a time to go back, and made my selections based on behavior, so they decorated in an order of best to worst behaved kids. The order started with Lindsay, Peter and The New Kid and would end with Brad, Jamal and Augusta.

This freaked Augusta, causing him to assume there would be slim pickings on the candy. He was pissed off. He was so pissed off and concerned about the candy usage, that he took it upon himself to monitor, from his desk, each students decorating job.

None of the other kids in my class would ever think this way. They would be pissed because they had to wait so long to make their cookie, but never would it occur to them to be pissed at the depletion of candy. There was heaps and mounds of candy on that back table. Ten plates full of different candy; we weren't going to run out if there had been fifteen Augustas decorating cookies.

I knew this, but Augusta didn't. He watched each kids cookies like a greedy hawk, constantly commenting about using too much candy. It was pissing me off because they kids were having a good time doing a special activity.

I had warned him to pipe down a few different times before he called Tom a "fat pig" for using lots of candy on his cookie, and eating some while he decorated. I sent him out to sit in the hall. Right before it would have been his turn to make a cookie, the office buzzed my room, informing me that Augusta's mother was in the office to pick him up early, and I was to send him down ready to go home.

This made my day. All his worrying had been done in vain, and in the end, he would have no cookie to eat.

I went out to the hall to tell him to get his stuff and go down to the office, his mother was here to get him. He refuses to go. I went back in the room and packed all his stuff up for him. I then went out to the hall to give it to him. He refused to take it, so I put it on the floor next to him. He refused to get up, to walk down the office, etc.

I wanted him out of there. He was being rude and disobedient. He wouldn't go. This is when Riti Sped forms a brilliant plan.
I remember that Augusta had really enjoyed the play Hansel and Gretel that we had seen two weeks earlier. I gave my aide a bag of Hershey Kisses. She went out to the hall and laid them out in a scattered trail, leading to the office. I give Augusta a paper sack, and tell him there is a trail of treats laid out that will lead him to a prize. He jumps up and snatches the bag out of my hand. I had never before seen him move his big ass so fast.

He begins furiously picking up the chocolates. He was like a police dog searching for drugs. My aide followed Augusta out and all the way to the office. I needed her there in the end, as I knew he would be upset and accuse me of lying. He gets to the office where his mom is waiting. He completely ignores her, and inquires about the location of his prize. "Well it is your mom Augusta, she is your special prize!" my aide happily announces to him.

He does not like this one bit. He starts bitching out his mom in front of the entire office staff. He was saying things like she was to buy him a bag of cookies, and that she ruined his plan for his cookie.

He finally calmed down when his mom agreed to buy him his OWN ice cream pie from Baskin Robbins that he would not have to share with anybody.

Eye and ear test produces surprising results

We had the school nurse do an annual vision and hearing screening today. Every year one is done with each kid in the school, including my tards.

This year, the results SHOCKED ME: only 2 of my kids had sufficient seeing abilities and only 6 could hear properly.

HOLY SHIT!! Think of what they could accomplish if they could see and hear!!

Lindsay is observant

Lindsay is such a sweet little girl. She is generally quiet, compliant, and composed. This is why what happened today is so funny.

At the end of reading group Augusta stands up. Lindsay is sitting right behind him. She looks at his pants, which were exceptionally tight today, and says very loudly, but to no one in particular, "Oh My God!!!! Augusta just keeps getting fatter and fatter!!"

Show and tell

Monday during sharing time The New Kid brings in something I have not yet seen a kid do. Instead of the usual doll or truck, this kid had gone through all of the Sunday newspaper's sale ads, and picked out all the things he wanted.

He brought the actual ads to school, giving a lengthy commentary on each item and why he wanted it. Most items were DVD's, Playstation 2 games, and food. He also held up each picture and showed it to the class just like I show them the pictures when reading them a story--it was killing me:

"The next picture is Lucky Charms. They are two for five dollars right now at Safeway, the offer is good until 2-24. I like the marshmallows, and they are good. That's why I want them."

Comedy like this makes it all worth while.

New kid might have problems

The new kid hasn't made any friends. I can't understand this. He is possibly my favorite tard right now. He is cute, funny, energetic, imaginative, and his family is fucked up. He also likes to talk about the fam (see e.g., 1/15: New Kid has interesting background).

I have noticed that he plays alone at recess. He also plays weird things, like tracking imaginary dinosaurs, killing aliens, pretending to be an invisible mystery man, Inspector Gadget, etc. It really breaks my heart to see him play alone. If I had nothing better to do I would go play with him.

I voiced this concern to him the other day. He responded thus: "I don't need friends, I've got em' in my head."

Augusta doesn't like this tard birthday

We celebrated a tard's birthday today. She turned eleven. She had brought cupcakes from Safeway. They were not home made. In preparation for the celebration and cupcakes, I make them all wash their hands.

Augusta has never felt that the classroom washing facilities were adequate, so he always washes in the restroom. This also allows him to avoid waiting in line to wash his hands, and he can take all the time he wants.

The girl passes out the cupcakes, we sing happy birthday to her, and Augusta still had not come back. As the kids begin eating, he finally returns. (note: the cupcakes looked nasty, as they had bright red frosting. But they were made at a bakery, so I did not complain.)

Augusta walks in and sits down at the table. He takes one look at the cupcake and gets so angry that he turns it over and smears it all over the table. He looks at the kid next to him and says "I can't believe you can eat that, it looks like abortion."

I could not help but laugh. It was quite a vivid metaphor.

Then I sent him to the office.

Augusta caught in a lie

Tuesday morning the office gets a call. It is Augusta's dad. Augusta had told him that it was "Take your son to work day," but he had heard nothing about it. He was calling to see if this was true.

The secretary checked, and no, this was not true. Augusta had lied and had gotten caught.

He showed up a little later with his surgical mask on. I questioned his lie to his dad, but he whispers to me that he can't talk, he had lost his voice.

Lunch lady gets the smack down

The lunch lady at our school is a bitch. Not the cook lady, but the lady who takes the money. She doesn't realize that the reason she is there is to ensure that all the kids get a lunch. She is such a had-nosed bitch that if a kid doesn't have enough money for a lunch, she will give them an office pass to go call home for money. The obvious solution, at least to those ofus who actually care about the kids getting food, is to just allow their account to go negative for a while, until the parents are contacted.

This lady doesn't think so. She caused one of my better tards to completely lose it today.

Lindsay's account was 35 cents short of a lunch. Thirty-five fucking pennies. The lunch lady throws an office pass her way and tells her to go call home.

This incenses me. NO ONE talks to MY tards in such a rude manner, especially not some bitch-ass low-rent money counter.

I snatch the office pass from Lindsay and hand it back to the lady, telling her "Lindsay will get her lunch now, and we will call home later."

She says no, that the balance must be paid right then. Lindsay is in tears at this point. She is hugging me, hysterically crying. She looks at the lunch lady and, in between crying fits, tells her that her mom spent her last ten dollars on scratch tickets, and none of them were winners.

The fact that the bitch-ass lunch lady had made Lindsay say this, in front of everyone, was my breaking point. Riti Sped loses it.

I take off one of my shoes, and slam it down on her little table. I tell her that she may keep my shoe until I am able to retrieve 35 cents from my classroom.

All my tards are staring at me, completely silent. Lindsay has stopped crying and is staring at me. I tell her to go get her lunch, that it was OK.

All the tards, for possibly the first time ever, are completely silent.

Lindsay continues through the line, and the lunch lady rings up all my kids. She then looks at me and says that if the 35 cents wasn't in her hand by 1:00, that I would have to wait and get my shoe back the next day. I rolled my eyes at her and muttered the usual "Oh, please."

We get back to the room, and the kids can't stop questioning me about my shoe. You'd think I was William Wallace the way they were dancing around me, recounting the incident.

I call for the principal and tell him  what had just occurred. I tell him that her behavior is not OK with me. He agrees, and I ask if he would take her the 35 cents, and bring me back my shoe. He does, and also has a little talk with her.

No one fucks with Riti Sped or her tards.

Tard birthdays are non-traditional

Monday was Robert's Birthday. His mom brings in eighty chicken McNuggets straight from McDonallds. Augusta so excited he started jumping around the classroom.

What the hell happened to juice and cookies?

Tyler's nose candy

When Tyler arrives at school today, he is very excited about that snack that he brought. He kept asking me if he could tell me something. I respond with the usual "Does it have to do with the work we are doing right now?" He answers with the usual "No," and we proceed with the days lesson.
Snack time rolls around, the kids who brought their snack get it out of their backpack. I hand out goldfish crackers to the rest. My phone then rings, it is our speech-language pathologist, and it is regarding some important shit. I am on the phone with her for one and a half minutes. I then hang up the phone, and turn back to the tards.

I can't believe what I see: Tyler is snorting Pixie Stick sugar.

He had opened up three little Pixie Sticks (which he knows he is not supposed to bring for snack), had lined up rails of sugar, and was using the paper pixie stick tube to snort the shit with!

I run over to him and snatch the pixie stick from his hand. He says "Hey, what do you think you are doing??" I told him we do not out things in our nose.

He said "I tried to tell you earlier, but you wouldn't let me."

I ask him what he had wanted to tell me. He says, "My dad always snorts stuff, he calls it nose candy. Before he went to jail, he gave me a bunch of my own nose candies, and told me I was allowed to have them at school."

I referred Tyler to our counselor, who will conduct some sort of drug intervention program with him.

Book Order Day

Book Orders were due today. Only a few of the kids' parents allow them to buy any books, so it is a major deal. One of my girls really wanted some shit from the book order flyer, and her family is very poor. She didn't want books, she wanted stuff like kits to make jewelry, stickers and art sets. She brings her book order in a sealed envelope with her name on it (this is good, as she had followed directions).
Later on that night, I am going through my nightly grading and assessing routine at home, when I come across the girls book order. I open it and inside is her checksheet of what she wants and a check. The check was filled out with pencil in obvious tard writing, and was not signed.

Hmmm.......I wonder who did this?? The check was fucking hilarious!! Poorly scribbled on and ripped at the top. I had to keep the check, just to laugh at it.

So get this: I bought her, with my money, all the shit she had wanted. The items totaled $26.85.

 The check had been made out for $13.30. I need to work on her math.

The Tyrell Lap

go to another of Tyrell's basketball games. Why? HIS DAD IS IN JAIL AND HE NEEDED A RIDE!!! (He is serving ninety days for three DUI'S. This is the same dad who got his ass kicked my Mexicans and mooned a basketball game).

Tyler and Tyrell are currently under the care of their dad's girlfriend, who I met when I arrived to pick them up at their low-income housing complex. She appeared to be around 20 years old.

There was nothing but mayhem in the parking lot--kids running around, hitting each other, adults having conversations with each other from 50 yards away, a police car. I was honestly scared to get out of my car. I thought the presence of the police car would ease the fear, but there was no officer around. Someone who lived there could have stolen the police car from all I could gather.
I pull myself together and walk up to their apartment. Out comes Tyler, Tyrell, AND THE GIRLFRIEND! She didn't have a drivers license, and wanted a ride to the game. Whatever, I didn't care that she would be in my car, except that she reeked of wet cigarette smoke.

Once we arrive at the game, the girlfriend disappears, and is not seen again. Tyler and I watch the game together, people stare at me, probably thinking I was the dad's girlfriend. Things are going well, Tyrell is playing a great game, and I bought Tyler soda pop and candy. Everything was actually very normal, until the third quarter, when Tyrell's SBD kicks in.

The ref makes a call against him, and the damn breaks. Tyrell yells out "You're a stupid fucker!" He is immediately ejected. Not just ejected but aactually thrown out of the gym. The ref orders him to the locker room.

He is SO angry that he ignores the ref and removes his jersey and lays it flat in the center of the court. Instead of heading to the locker room, he jogs a full lap around the boundary line of the court. While he is doing this he is throwing his arms up and down screaming "RRaaaahhh" with occasional obscenities. He has the scariest look on his face that I have ever seen. Upon completion of the lap he exits the building. He doesn't even get his stuff from the locker room. His jersey was still in the middle of the court. Nobody in the entire gym had any idea how to react.

I calmly surpress my laughter and react in my usual manner: I just leave, taking Tyler with me, of course.

Tyrell is outside next to my car waiting. I ask him if he has seen the girlfriend. He hadn't, so we just leave.

On the way home I drive through Dairy Queen and buy them both a Blizzard. Tyrell deserved it, as the "Tyrell Lap" was possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen.

We pull into the parking lot of their complex. Still, at 8:30 p.m., there are kids running all over the place. The police car is still there. I walk them up to the door, not knowing what to do with them. Luckily, the girlfriend is there--WITH SOME FUCKING GUY!!!!! She tells me that she had gotten a ride back with a friend. Her hair looked like sex.

Sadly, I said goodbye to the boys. I was truly worried about the girlfriends ability to adequately care for them.

I called Child Protective Services the next day. My third call to them in the past month. The staff there knows me by name.

Lindsay's OCD causes problems

Lindsay is a very sweet girl. She has OCD and is always very anxious. Unfortunately, I am forced to take away many of her recesses because she often refuses to do her work during class time.

She has recently developed a new way of dealing with her anger towards me: she chews away at her fingernails. She bites them down to little stubs, and will not stop until they bleed profusely. This only has started recently, but has escalated quickly in severity.

Her hand are always bloody. If she is irritated at all, she gnaws at her fingers like they are pork spareribs. It is disgusting. Her mom will not discuss this with me. Again, Child Protective Services (CPS) has heard from me.

I have programmed CPS into my phone's speed dial. Seeing as how I am calling them so much, it just seemed practical.

Tards go to play, all hell breaks loose

A few weeks ago I received an invitation from the local Children's Theater inviting my class and me to a performance of Hansel and Gretel.

For taking tards out in public, there is almost nothing worse than a play. Whenever there is a calm moment in my class, I say this: "If I wanted to be busy I'd go see a play." But the kids were excited, so I decided to go ahead and get my yearly play punishment out of the way.

I send home permission slips two weeks prior to the play date. [FYI: Normal classroom teachers send home permission slips ONE week prior. Plus I realize that acquiring the entire $5.50 to cover the cost of the trip may require some serious re-budgeting.] The day prior to the play I only have 3 slips turned in.

Being a good little Riti Sped, I call the homes of the 10+ kids that had not turned theirs in. Amongst the litany of unbelievable conversations I have with whoever answers on the other line, my favorite is this:

An answering machine that says "You have reached the Mercer family. We are unable to come to the phone at this time because Lola is shopping, Mark is watching football, Antoni is nowhere to be found and Tom is picking his nose."

The above is a true, unabridged greeting on the voicemail of one of my tard families. Normally I would have thought this was lame, but that my tard Tom does constantly pick his nose, so this is funny.

Surprisingly, all but 2 of my tards get their permission slips on the morning of the trip. The other two will have to spend the day in the preschool tard class. Nice.

The bus ride there was actually quite calm. I think that adjusting to the size of a regular school bus was a bit much for them. I can only imagine the thought processing in their little heads, something like, "Wow. A long bus and seats without restraint equipment--what is this strange new world??"

Our bus arrives at the auditorium, and there are tons of kids all over the place. At least a couple thousand. If one of my tards gets loose, the shit will hit the fan. This worries me, so I assign each tard a buddy to hold hands with and to be "in charge of." This proves to be a good idea, as they argue with each other over who is actually in charge, squeeze the crap out of each others hands, and kick at each other.

The best part are the other kids. Imagine being a normal kid, say sixth grade or so, and seeing a line-up of tards holding hands, stomping through the crowds. The kids were snickering, joking, I heard "look at that" plenty of times. Tons of kids are staring, but my tards are LOVING IT!! They are waving and smiling, still holding hands, basking in the attention.

Since my group is disabled, I am able to reap the rewards of "special needs check in." We are all escorted in, and given the front row of seats to the left of the stage, next to the crying room, coincidentally.

All of the ruckus of the crowds coming in, the noise, etc. causes Lindsay to cry. She wants to sit on my lap. I let her. Soon after this, she has to go to the bathroom, and one of my aides takes her. Things seem to be going smoothly, so I pull out The Tucker Max Saga Continues...E-mail #20 from my purse and begin to read it.

I am about one minute into it, laughing hysterically, when I realize that there are a bunch of kids behind me, peering over my shoulder. I put the papers back in the purse, and hear one kid tell another one that the paper I had said "vagina." Immediately they begin to laugh. I chuckle to myself, as it is kind of funny.

While waiting for the production to begin, nothing that great happens, although Tyler does say "Let's get this bitch on the road."

In preparation for the story of Hansel and Gretel, I read the story to the kids nine times prior to the play. NINE TIMES. We also talked about how it is only a story, and that witches who eat kids are not real, parents don't really lose their kids in the woods, etc.

I am confident that nine times had been enough, and that the kids will understand the play. I was wrong. The witch scares all of the little kids.

Emmy and Brian are crying and screaming. Now I realize the strategic seating arrangement. I take them both to the crying room. But they can still hear the play through speakers in the crying room. So we sing songs and look away from the stage.

Then they fight over who will sit on my lap. Then, and this fucking kills me, they want to hear the story if Hansel and Gretel. I had not of course brought the book with me. But I did have Email #20. I quickly stop this line of thought.

We remain in the crying room for the entire duration of the play. The rest of the tards did such a good job of watching and tying in the ideas from the book to the play. I was so proud of them!! I almost cried on the bus when they told me how much they loved it.

We got back to school, and, aside from Tyler repeatedly telling everyone that he "Would of schooled that witch bitch," all goes well. I give them all granola dipp bars. They fight over who gets rocky road and who gets peanut butter.

Poetic justice is sweet

 Poetic justice is sweet:
This story is almost enough turn to make me question my atheist principles.

Tyler's father came into the school today. Tyrell had been out sick for three days, and the end of the third day his father showed up to get his work to make up. I was not pleased with this for several reasons:

1. I do not like. He is not a good person (see above story).

2. He had not called to tell me he was going to do this. Therefore, I am unprepared with a tard make-up work packet.

3. He smelled like a fucking dumpster.

4. Someone had obviously kicked his ass. BOTH of his eyes were black, he had various cuts on his face, open wounds on his arms, bloody knuckles, and his hand was wrapped with medical tape. Did I mention he stank?

Merely looking at him obligated me to question his well-being. I didn't want to, but it really was inevitable. I am hoping that he will tell me that his tard kicked his ass.

Unfortunately this is not the case. The dad tells me that he was at the drive-thru of Taco Bell when he is cut-off by a car full of Mexicans, making him lose his rightful place in the line-up. (Note: he uses the word Mexicans this time only, after this he just says 'cans') Words are exchanged, birds are flipped. The 'can' driver then gets out and pulls him out of his car. He throws him on the ground, and begins kicking him. Then, the other 'cans' get out and help the driver 'can' to whoop his ass.

And, from a first-hand perspective, I can verify that they did, indeed, whoop his ass.

I asked him if he had gone to the hospital. He said "No, I'm okay." He is not okay, but I don't say it. I tell him that I don't have the make-up work prepared, but would send it home with a sibling the next day. He says OK, and turns to leave. I tell him that I hope his son gets better soon, and that his own injuries healed soon, yada yada yada. He then stops, turns to me and says "Yeah, well ya fuck with one bean and ya get the whole burrito."

I guess sometimes everything does come out in the wash.

Tyler's father is the retarded one

Remember Tyler's father, the one who mooned a junior high basketball game? He might be the worst parent ever. His son Tyler is a tard, and thus very impressionable, but his father is impressing very bad things on him. Two examples:

Tyler was sent home Thursday around noon for this: we were doing a unit on Martin Luther King Jr. He announces to the whole class that his Dad said "What is black and yellow and makes you laugh?"  "A bus full of black people rolling over a cliff."

On MLK Jr. Day, my school has the day off, but I ran up to the school to get some papers I need to correct. There were some kids riding their bikes around the parking lot, and one of them is Tyler. I asked him if he was enjoying his day off. This is exactly what he said:

"My dad said that we don't celebrate that troublemakers birthday."

It is almost enough to make my jaded soul sad.

More Tyrell stories

Tyrell was in my class last year. Dumb he was, but not really retarded. He did have major behavior problems though. He was nothing but trouble. Some of the Tyrell highlights from last year:

- One morning he is late to school, I ask him why, he responds that "My dad couldn't find his drugs."

- He brought marijuana to school.

- He brought a steak knife wrapped in a towel to school. He took it out on the playground to threaten a kid who had been making fun of him. Told the kid that "If you mess with me you'll have to mess with this. And I'll be rapping at your eulogy baby."

- Made these bombs and brought them to school. He made them out of his dad's gun powder. The kid is crazy, the next Una-bomber. He used household items (Carmex container, mechanical pencil lead container) to assemble bombs. He even put heavy duty wicks on them. I took them home, ya know, in case I ever need to blow anything up.

Sub is not welcomed

As is life, I was so sick on Sunday night that I had to call a sub for the following day. My sub plans included writing words on the kids small chalkboards. Because I was gone, and the kids can't adjust to this, they all were bad.

The sub left the worst feedback I had ever seen. She also asked that I not call on her again. This is what Tom (rice box boy, and above story) wrote on his chalkboard. She was so angry that she left it for me to see.

I was proud of him, it was all spelled correctly and the "I" was capitalized. If he had included a period at the end, I might have let him chose from the prize box.

Tom gets upset

Tim refuses to accept the fact that we only use a capital letter at the beginning of our name. He wants to just throw in random capital letters. I will not allow this.

One day he kept making capital letters and arguing with me about it, so I took away his writing journal and his pencil. Needless to say, he got violently angry. He threw shit all over the place while calling me a "crack head bitch."

Guest Contributor: What it's like in Riti's clas

Ed. Note: This is written by a guest contributor, who is friends with Riti and once visited her classroom:

I met Riti Sped during a spring break a few years ago. She let me come to her class one time to check out the kids.

They were all terrible. Some loud, some mute, some shat in pants, some pissed, some spit, swore, some wrote things like "Fuck" on the tables, some scribbled over anything. This list of their transgressions is nearly endless. Despite all the entertaining behavior, the funniest thing was how Riti dealt with the tards. I will never forget this incident:

Riti was quizzing the tards on their ABC's with flashcards. She is going from tard to tard, and as she held up a card with a letter on it, they would say what letter it was. She gets to one girl, and the letter is a "T." Riti didn't know it, but the card was upside down.

The tard looked at it and said "What the fuck is that?" This alone makes me explode. But then Riti says "Oh, I am sorry [name of kid] I don't think I said it is time to use bad words." The girl then said "That's a weird fucking letter," to which Riti said something like, "Excuse me [name of girl] if you would like to use bad words, we can do this during our recess time. The rest of us would like to finish up here," and left it like that.

Later on I asked her why she didn't send the girl out. She said something like, "If  I send out every kid that swore I would have no kids here to teach."

Though this was funny, the capstone to the trip was this:

I laughed at this one huge fat kid because he all the sudden started smelling like shit. He had literally shit his pants, right there in the classroom. Riti hits the intercom button.

The response is some lady who says "Yes, office?"
Riti says this only "We have a code brown."
The lady says "I will send down the principal and the janitor."

I no longer was able to contain my laughter. THEY HAD A SYSTEM SET UP TO DEAL WITH THE SHITTY FAT KID! I started to laugh uncontrollably loud.

At this, the fat retard becomes mad and charges me, knocks me into a bookcase and the bookcase falls over and all the books fall out, and he lands on top of me, in the middle of all these books all over the floor. He was so huge that the impact of him landing on me knocks the breath out of me and breaks my hand. NO SHIT--BROKE MY FUCKING HAND!

Now I am not a small man, nor a wimp, and at 6'4, 200 lbs, I figured I was safe around the tards. But the kid was so big that he broke my hand and scratched up my neck and side.

Mentally picture this image: bookshelf down, little tard books scattered everywhere, me in the middle of them with a fat tard on top of me, the principal and janitor are at the door, AND RITI CONTINUES TEACHING! AS IF NOTHING AT ALL HAD HAPPENED!!

Finally I throw the tard off of me, and I see the diarrhea all over the ass of his huge, tent-size sweatpants. That image, combined with the intense shit smell, caused me to vomit on the floor.

Later, I am sitting in a tiny little chair, made for someone 1/4 my size, with my hand throbbing and the taste of vomit in my mouth. All Riti does is look at me and say, "I knew you couldn't handle this. Real good AJ, real good," and then continues to teach. Her and all of the kids acted as if nothing had happened, with me sitting in my midget chair, nursing my broken hand, faintly smelling of tard crap, and feeling like the biggest tard in the room.

My roommates had a great 6 weeks of making fun of me until the cast came off. They all signed it with stupid shit, like, "Beware of Fat Tards."

Riti signed it "Real good, AJ".

And if I recall correctly, Riti has a picture of me with the cast on later that evening. She had no pity for me at all.

Tard parents makes ass out of himself, literally

I go to a basketball game at the junior high. I do this because a current student of mine, Mark, has a brother, Dave, playing. He is a former student of mine. I agree to go to the game, but I take a friend with me.

When I get there I see Mark, who introduces me to his father. His father appears to be my age, and will not let go of my hand when I shake it. He is also wearing a jersey. I hate this shit. I automatically label him as poor white trash. His behavior this night will prove this.

The game starts, and Dave is playing is playing well. He is a good athlete. Almost every call that the ref makes against Dave's team receives a loud "LOOOSER" comment from the dad. Dave fouls someone and the dad disagrees. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WATCHING, REF? OPEN YOUR EYES." Other parents are staring. My friend and I are about to die from trying to hold in our laughter.

A penalty is later called against one of Dave's teammates. "THAT IS BULLSHIT," the dad calls out. At this point he is approached by the coach about his behavior, and asked to calm down and stop making these remarks.

He is basically calm for the rest of the game, until the last 2 minutes, when Dave fouls out. At this, the dad stands up, yells "KISS THIS REF" and moons the entire court and everyone on the bleachers. He is then ejected from the game. I can not contain myself. Mark is crying because he doesn't want to leave the court. The gym is virtually chaotic with the commotion.

The game over, everyone start filing out of the gym into the parking lot, parents, kids, teachers, coaches, etc. Dave's dad is in the parking lot yelling at Dave for his on court performance. Everyone is staring.

The family gets into their mini-van, and all of them are fighting. They pull out of the parking lot, when the dad slams on the brakes, screeching the tires and to bring the van to an abrupt stop. The door flies open and out tumble Dave and Mark. The dad pulls off, not even bothering to close the van door, leaving the brothers to walk home. Mark and Dave are beating the shit out of each other on the sidewalk as we all watch. At least 50 parents/kids are watching this. They are swearing at each other and fighting ruthlessly.

My friend and I get in my car and begin to drive out of the parking lot. We get about a quarter mile down the road from the school when we pass Mark and Dave, still kicking the shit out of each other as they walk home.

As we drove by I honked like ten times and my friend gives a loud "Yeeee-haaaaaaah".

New kid has interesting background

New kid Brian tells me, while standing in line waiting for computer lab that:

"My grandpa was in jail cuz he busted up a lot of computers."

No shit?? I am instantly drawn in to the conversation. I allow him to continue:

"He's dead now. Because he died at the doctors office. He went up there now (he points up)"

Later that night, there was a family night at school. My friend Jason who eats lunch with Jamel on Wednesdays is there with me. I had told him about what Brian had said to me earlier, but of course I think it would be best if Brian told him.

I spot Brian without his parents. I go up to him and say "Hi Brian, is your grandpa here?" He then rambles on about his grandpa being dead, going to jail for busting computers, died at the doctors office, etc. He then throws this one in:

"He was in jail a long time ago because he killed a policeman."

HOLY SHIT!!! This is better then I could of ever expected. And my friend is there to witness it!!!!!

Brian's dad rushes over and says "Brian, what tales are you telling?" He seemed nervous and hurried. He then said "Come over here with me, I have someone I want you to meet," and then wisks Brian away.

Augusta won't touch mail either

Augusta is in the office, waiting to go home because he was touched. It happened during PE, when they were having relay races and he was shoved. [For a complete understanding of Augusta's problem, see 12/10: Meet Augusta, but don't touch him] I call up to the office from my classroom and ask them to assign Augusta some task to work on while he waits.

So they have Augusta put the mail away in the teachers boxes. And we all know how many people touch mail. He was freaking out. Scared even.

The secretary told me that she left him in the mailroom to put away a huge bin of mail. She checked on him 5 minutes later. He was moving at the pace of a one-hundred year old woman, cautiously picking up each letter with either one finger from each hand or with his sweatshirt pulled over his hand. He treated each piece of mail like he was handling weapons grade plutonium.

She went in and asked him why he wasn't moving along. He said that he didn't really like to put away mail. She offered him some rubber gloves. He accepted, and the bin of mail was put away in ten minutes.

Tards contribute snacks

Augusta comes to school today with snacks that he was donating to the class. A regular size ziploc sandwich bag stuffed so full of nuts that it would barely close. It was weird. I put them aside, and later when the kids are at music I look more carefully at the nuts. There are 2 kinds of nuts in the bag. Hazelnuts and Brazil nuts. Both of which are nasty. They were also salted.

I was puzzled, so I asked Augusta about the odd donation. He told me that his family has a huge 5 pound can of mixed nuts at home, and that they liked all of the nuts except these two kinds. Super. I am very excited about feeding the rejected nuts from Augusta's family to my class.

Other donations:  - Lindsay: Scooby-Doo fruit snacks
                          - Brad: peanut butter Rice Krispy treats
                          - Tom: cheese mini-Ritz bits

I know what I will be giving Augusta for his snack for a long, long time.

Riti teaches the tards about sex

 have to teach them about sex, in a series called "Family Life." I can hardly stand it. Primarily, because I still laugh at words like "uterus" and "fallopian tubes." Especially if there are other people laughing hysterically, it is hard for me to contain myself. I was trying so hard not to laugh throughout the entire 25 minute duration of "Family Life".

I had to show a diagram of the female reproductive system, point out the parts, and describe their functions. Also, I have both males and females in my group, unlike the other classes, where they split the classes into male/female groups

I started the unit on Friday. I am also obligated, by state law, to take questions from the tards and answer them honestly.

The very first (and only) question I received was this, from AUGUSTA, "What does sex feel like?"

Fucking-A. I am now in the worst situation possible. How do I answer this to a group of tards? I definitely do not want to imply that I have ever had sex. I think about it for a bit, and finally say "Well, I guess it feels good, otherwise people wouldn't do it." They all seemed to accept this answer. Thank God that Family Life time was over before someone asked me another question.

I am dreading Monday. I am convinced that they will verbally attack me, and force me to answer questions about my sex life. Plus I still can't help but laugh during the entire lesson.

Somebody shoot me, please.

Retardism runs in Family

Trevor is in third grade. He was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and as a result if very slow. He is also very bad at reading. He guesses at words, and doesn't even know his sounds. The most frustrating part is that he doesn't care. It doesn't seem to bother him that, in his reading group are 3 kindergarteners, retarded ones no les, and him.

Last year I had Trevor's  brother in my class. He has since moved on to high school. He was scary. I guarantee he will be on America's Most Wanted in like 10 years. Him and I fought just about every day last year because he always wore bandanas to school, which is against school rules. He would always try to compromise with me regarding the bandana ("if I finish all my typing, can I wear it out to recess", etc.)

The most annoying thing he would do was to constantly repeat song lyrics. At least fifteen times a day he would, out of nowhere, bust out with "Jiggah-Jiggah Slim Shady". I wanted to beat him. Near the end of last year he had changed it to "Notorious B-I-G- baby baby". This wasn't nearly as bad as "Jiggah-Jiggah Slim Shady" but was still annoying.

Trevor has replicated this annoying habit. It is as if his brother and him concocted a New Years resolution to piss me off. Trevor was sent to the principal's office, then eventually home because he could not stop saying "Forty degrees when I tell that bitch please." This was his answer to anything and everything. During reading group I asked him to read one sentence from the book. The fucker puts his finger on the sentence, and says, while pretending to be reading, "Forty degrees when I tell that bitch please."

Luckily, the kindergarteners are too young and retarded to comprehend this. Trevor is then sent to the principal's office after doing the same thing three more times.

Today Trevor returns, and his new phrase is "Young and dangerous, ain't nobody can hang with us." This one isn't as bad, but it pisses me off because he is saying ain't. I don't want my kids to hear this, because they will be prone to repeating it.

After several warnings, the behavior continues, so he goes back to the office. The principal asks him if he needs to call his mom to come get him.

Trevor's response (I kid you not), "Nigga Please."

He went home shortly after that.

Lewis is funny

Lewis (from 12/20: Every student is funny in their own way) approaches me and says, "Are you affected by Global Warming?"

Me  "Sure, are you?"
Him "Well, in what way?"
Me  "Is your skin more suseptable to sunburn due to the increase in UV ray penetration and a boost in the albedo effect?"
Him  "I would assume so," he says, "I will have to do some research on the internet, and then I will let you know."

This is a classic example of a highly functioning autistic nutcase. Later on that same day he asks me "What is the difference between raw sewage and cooked sewage?"

An average day in Riti's life:

From Tucker Max: I asked Riti to keep a running journal of just one day in her life. This is it:

- Emmy got so excited when I was looking at a book with her that she kicked me in the knee really hard, huge bruise already.

- I was so angry that for nap time I put on Wheelz of Steel by Outkast instead of the usual "Betterman" by Pearl Jam. The tards were whining and crying. I was laughing.

- Zach peed his pants. Second time this week.

- I got pulled over for speeding in a school zone. I had to pull into the school parking lot to deal with the cop. He left his lights flashing, and everyone was staring. The short busses pull in, my kids wave at me, see the police lights, and think I am getting in big trouble. One tard refuses to get off the bus. Apparently he has learned from incidents with his parents that flashing lights mean daddy is going away for awhile.

- Kids learned a new song in music. I go to pick them up. The music teacher tells them to sing me the song. They all had forgotten it.

- Ivan brought food coloring from home, and then eats it.

- I tell Zach to stop picking his nose. He tells me his mom says it is OK to pick your nose, just not OK to eat the boogies.

- I am reading "Red Racer" to the kids. It is about a girl who tries to ruin her bike so her parents will buy her a new one. One page describes the sound as her bike goes over a cliff like this "bong, bong, bong." Ivan raised his hand and said his dad has a bong

- Got a new kid today. He can't sit still for the life of him. I told him to put his coat in the coat closet and he started to bitch right off the bat. "Work is too hard, I hate working." Hopefully he will pee in his pants or masturbate or something good.

Riti's class makes stuff for Tucker

My class forgot everything they had learned prior to Christmas break, so we will spend the week reviewing. We made cards for Tucker today. I pulled out the old scrap box, and let them have at it. I even made a sample card to show them. I told them to decorate the outside and to draw pictures of things they liked on the inside. 

My favorite card is cut in the shape of Florida, with fish and boats around it. They actually did an OK job. They forget everything important, but can still make funny ass cards. I guess I should dwell on the positive. 

My kids are so sweet, as they elected to give their class necklace to Tucker. They earn beads when they are well-behaved for their music and p.e. teachers. These beads go into their bead jar, and every Friday the beads are strung onto their class necklace. It has become quite large. 

They wanted to know if my friend Tucker got to play with kids. I said no, he never gets to be around kids, and that is why we are making cards for him. Sweet little Lindsey suggested that Tucker get the necklace because if you want to have friends you need to give them stuff. Hmmm, mom must have taught her that one. 

And the mom who tried to kill herself, the one with the deer costume, well, it seems as if she and her kids moved over break. No one really knows for sure, but neither child is present, and it is rumored that they just up and moved. The sad part about this is that Emmy would have made the best card for Tucker. She scribbles and stabs papers with pens and pencils.

Augusta's fear of germs goes to a new level

ugusta has spent every recess inside with me this week, due to his candycane theft before break (see Archive 12/30: Augusta the thief).

He hates it. I hate it more. Augusta smells like a hot litterbox. This is peculiar, as I never noticed it prior to 2003. I honestly think that he is making himself reek in order to keep others away, lessening the chance that someone will touch him. I know, it sounds exaggerated to those of you not in daily contact with tards, but I know my naughty little reetees and I think this is the case.

On Monday he spent all three recesses with me, in my classroom, with his head down. He fucking stank. Happy New Year To Me.

Tuesday he spent the two fifteen minute recesses with me. During the lunch recess (thirty minutes) I let him listen to a booktape at the listening station. I did this strategically, as the listening station is furthest from my desk. I didn't want my lunch to taste like the Augusta.

So here comes Wednesday, when Augusta proceeds to horrify me almost beyond belief.

It is approximately 10:30 a.m. when Augusta asks to go to the bathroom. I allow it, and set the timer. (They have 2 minutes to get back before they lose behavior points.) The timer goes off, Augusta is not back. Because he is a large child, I give him another 2 minutes. He still is not back. (The bathroom is directly next door to my classroom.) I send an aide out to get him. She comes back a minute later without Augusta. This is exactley what she told me:

" I yelled in and said 'Augusta, what are you doing in there?' In a deep, low mans voice, he says 'Go away, no one is in here.'"

Now Augusta is fucking with us. Being retarded and mentally disturbed, I do not find it odd that he is trying to play ghost in the bathroom with us. Now I am going to have to walk into the boys bathroom and haul his ass out. I walk to the door of the bathroom, which is always left open and say, "Augusta you get out here right now."

Augusta doesn't have a lot left to lose if he chooses to not follow directions. His behavior chart is already full of negative comments. He is already in at recess, with no snack, and I have told him already that he will earn no stickers for the entire week. I could revoke PE and Music privileges, but he hates them anyway.

"Do I have to come in and get you? Are you gonna be a baby?" (he is 11). Augusta doesn't respond. I brace myself and enter, only to see the most vile scene possible. This is the best way I can describe it:

The garbage can is in the middle of the floor. Augusta is squatting over it, completely naked from the waste down, one leg on each side of the trash can. His shoes, socks, pants and underwear are in a pile by the sink. His back is to me, his arms are straight out in front of him, and he is taking a dump.

I immediately turn and exit. I feel absolutely violated, like I had popped a few rohypnol, chugged a beer and laid myself on the couch at Phi Delts for all to have at. I then do what I do when I can't deal with what is going on, and push the alert principal button.

He comes down and goes into the bathroom. Augusta has dressed himself, and is washing his hands furiously. There is a pile of shit in the garbage can. The principal escorts him up to the office, where Augusta has a little one-on-one with the school nurse. My aide takes the bag of shit out to the dumpster.
Augusta's mom comes and takes him home, but not before a meeting with the principal. He said she was completely embarrassed.

The school nurse came down later in the day to talk with me. Apparently, Augusta doesn't want to sit on the school toilet seat because he is afraid of getting "butt germs". He used those two words! He will go pee at school, but will not sit down. I can only wonder how many other times this year he has had to take a crap....

Augusta's fear of germs goes to a new level

ugusta has spent every recess inside with me this week, due to his candycane theft before break (see Archive 12/30: Augusta the thief).

He hates it. I hate it more. Augusta smells like a hot litterbox. This is peculiar, as I never noticed it prior to 2003. I honestly think that he is making himself reek in order to keep others away, lessening the chance that someone will touch him. I know, it sounds exaggerated to those of you not in daily contact with tards, but I know my naughty little reetees and I think this is the case.

On Monday he spent all three recesses with me, in my classroom, with his head down. He fucking stank. Happy New Year To Me.

Tuesday he spent the two fifteen minute recesses with me. During the lunch recess (thirty minutes) I let him listen to a booktape at the listening station. I did this strategically, as the listening station is furthest from my desk. I didn't want my lunch to taste like the Augusta.

So here comes Wednesday, when Augusta proceeds to horrify me almost beyond belief.

It is approximately 10:30 a.m. when Augusta asks to go to the bathroom. I allow it, and set the timer. (They have 2 minutes to get back before they lose behavior points.) The timer goes off, Augusta is not back. Because he is a large child, I give him another 2 minutes. He still is not back. (The bathroom is directly next door to my classroom.) I send an aide out to get him. She comes back a minute later without Augusta. This is exactley what she told me:

" I yelled in and said 'Augusta, what are you doing in there?' In a deep, low mans voice, he says 'Go away, no one is in here.'"

Now Augusta is fucking with us. Being retarded and mentally disturbed, I do not find it odd that he is trying to play ghost in the bathroom with us. Now I am going to have to walk into the boys bathroom and haul his ass out. I walk to the door of the bathroom, which is always left open and say, "Augusta you get out here right now."

Augusta doesn't have a lot left to lose if he chooses to not follow directions. His behavior chart is already full of negative comments. He is already in at recess, with no snack, and I have told him already that he will earn no stickers for the entire week. I could revoke PE and Music privileges, but he hates them anyway.

"Do I have to come in and get you? Are you gonna be a baby?" (he is 11). Augusta doesn't respond. I brace myself and enter, only to see the most vile scene possible. This is the best way I can describe it:

The garbage can is in the middle of the floor. Augusta is squatting over it, completely naked from the waste down, one leg on each side of the trash can. His shoes, socks, pants and underwear are in a pile by the sink. His back is to me, his arms are straight out in front of him, and he is taking a dump.

I immediately turn and exit. I feel absolutely violated, like I had popped a few rohypnol, chugged a beer and laid myself on the couch at Phi Delts for all to have at. I then do what I do when I can't deal with what is going on, and push the alert principal button.

He comes down and goes into the bathroom. Augusta has dressed himself, and is washing his hands furiously. There is a pile of shit in the garbage can. The principal escorts him up to the office, where Augusta has a little one-on-one with the school nurse. My aide takes the bag of shit out to the dumpster.
Augusta's mom comes and takes him home, but not before a meeting with the principal. He said she was completely embarrassed.

The school nurse came down later in the day to talk with me. Apparently, Augusta doesn't want to sit on the school toilet seat because he is afraid of getting "butt germs". He used those two words! He will go pee at school, but will not sit down. I can only wonder how many other times this year he has had to take a crap....

Jamel likes Riti's friends

My best friend Jason is awesome. He is so fucking funny. My students (tards) love Jason for this reason: He is 6'8". He volunteers once a week at my school to be a "lunch buddy" with Jamel, the Sudanese kid.

Jamel's world is similar to Tucker Max's in this respect: He is the most self-absorbed little fuck ever. Unless it concerns him, Jamel is completely uninterested. 

A few days ago Jason showed up to eat lunch with Jamel. He then went out to recess with Jamel. At one point, I go out on the playground to talk to him. We are talking shit about the retards when Jamel runs up, hugs Jared's leg, and yells,

"Your cool AND funny AND you're my friend!" 

Jason's immediate response: "What do you mean I'm funny?"

I know exactly where he is going with this, I am loving it immediately. 

"What do mean, you mean the way I talk?" Jamel realizes I am laughing my ass off and laughs with me, even though he has has no idea why I am laughing 

"Funny how? I mean what's so funny about me?" I am still laughing, and Jamel is too, and he is still oblivious to why either of us are laughing 

"Let me understand this cause, I don't know kid, maybe it's me, I'm a little messed up maybe, but I'm funny how? Like I'm a clown? I amuse you. I make you laugh...I'm here to amuse you. What do you mean funny how? How am I SO FUNNY?" 

At this point, another mature (read: old and lame) teacher is walking toward us. Jason stops with the Goodfellas imitation, and Jamel screams to the teacher, "My friend is cool and funny and he eats lunch with me and no one else if I am good on Wednesday!!"