Week One

I've finished my first week with this new class and, oh my! Do I have a cast of characters for this year!

Basic stats - 16 total, 9 boys and 7 girls. Two with asthma, two who have already been dx with ADD/ADHD, one who has mild mental retardation and needs to be in special ed (working on that!), one that came to me from the special ed preschool but doesn't score low enough to stay in special ed, one that cries until she pukes when Mom drops her off in the morning, and one who has anger management issues (to put it mildly!). There is a huge age variance in this group - 1/4 of them will be 6 before October, over 1/2 of them have birthdays in April, May and June.

Today I want to introduce my friend with anger management issues. Let's call him Van Gogh. Why? Well, he's unstable, easily irritated, prone to outrageous fits of screaming and throwing things, but also a very talented artist who is most at peace when drawing or creating.

Van Gogh came through our preschool program, which means Kindergarten is his second year in the public school system. Thank God for his wonderful, patient, and firm preschool teacher because she weathered the worst of his behavioral storms. In preschool he was known for throwing screaming, kicking, writhing tantrums and had to be removed from the classroom on several occasions because he could not pull it back together. On the last day of preschool, angry that he was missing a few minutes of recess as punishment for some bad behavior, he removed his glasses, snapped them in 1/2, threw them on the ground, and stomped on them. Yes, a delightful child indeed!

Van Gogh is a walking reminder of how self centered a 5 year old child truly is. More than once this week I would call on him to answer a question, listen to and validate his answer, then call on someone else to answer the next question only to have him whine and cry because HE didn't get called on again. At then end of centers time the first day he actually threw a crayon at me because he didn't want to stop working on the picture he was making. But yesterday, the Friday of the first week, we saw our first all out fit.

Van Gogh was in his second favorite center, building a large blocks tower with his only friend. I had issued several warnings that is was almost clean up time (mostly for Van Gogh's benefit, he needs 5, 2 and 1 minute warnings so that he can shift gears without melting down) then flicked the lights off and on in our established "clean up now" signal. Van Gogh yelled across the room for me to come see the tower he and his friend had built. Before I could get there one of my other little guys ran over and kicked the tower, knocking it to the ground. To put it mildly, Van Gogh lost his f'ing mind! Threw himself on the fallen tower, screaming incoherently at the top of his lungs, tears pouring down his face. The boy who had kicked the tower froze, hands clamped over his ears, and stared at Van Gogh in panicked disbelief. I crouched down, put one hand on the kicker's leg to keep him there, and started rubbing Van Gogh's back while loudly saying his name. After about 30 ear splitting seconds he paused for a breath and I quickly interjected "Van Gogh! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but his preschool teacher had assured me it was the best way to get him to stop screaming long enough to get him to talk/listen to you. Van Gogh shifted from screams to more moderate sobbing and kept saying "But I wanted to show it to you and HE kicked it!" I assured him I understood his frustration, had the other boy apologize and help Van Gogh clean up the mess, and was just starting to stand up when a hand fell on my shoulder.

Remember that I have christened my assistant principal Mrs. Pop for her lovely habit of popping in when least expected or wanted? Guess who's hand that was? You got it, there stands an appalled looking Mrs. Pop, asking if I needed any help. Apparently the office had buzzed down on the intercom to tell me something, heard Van Gogh in full tantrum, tracked down Mrs. Pop from where ever she happened to be, and sent her to my room at a run. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the support and I am sure there will be times this year that Van Gogh will need to have a heart-to-heart with Mrs. Pop, but at this moment all I could think was "I JUST got him calmed down and if he sees you he is going to freak out again!" Sure enough, as soon as Van Gogh saw her standing there he started to cry again, just cry thank God not scream his head off, and she took him to a quiet part of the room for a little talk. Whatever she said to him must have worked, because the tears dried up *likethat* and he docilely went back to cleaning up the blocks.

So we add Van Gogh to the list of interesting characters populating my classroom this year. And I add his real name to the increasingly lengthy list of things I will never name a child of my own!