oh, the joys...

When people hear that I am a middle school special education teacher, they often say something like, "you must have a lot of patience," or, "I could never do that." And while it does have its difficulties, it does have its perks. And those perks typically come in funny stories to share. Now keep in mind, that this is my reality. Some people may read this and think I should not laugh at these situations, but laughter is sometimes all that I have to hold onto when I work with kids who are working 2-3 grades below their level and for the most part, completely lack all understanding of social clues. Anyway, on to the story from today.

I have a very large and rather angry sixth grader who can hardly read or write and probably ranks the lowest on most every teacher's favorite list (yes, teachers do have favorites). However, J, as we will call him, has come to take a special place in my heart as I have gotten to know him and learned how to handle him. He's improved a lot and has come a long way. Well, today I intercepted a note being passed between him and another student, E. Here is what the note said:

J writes: "i joined a gang where we beat the s*** out of pepol." (he actually wrote the stars in there).
E responds: "im going to a moove with m girfend this weknd"

That is all the note said. Nothing more, nothing less. I sat for a minute trying to decide if I should be worried about J's writing, but I quickly dismissed it because of how well I know him. Then I got to thinking about how odd of an exchange it was! I shared this story with some other teachers who know J and they cracked up. One teacher brought up a good point: if the kid really did join a gang, he probably wouldn't be so concerned with censoring his note with stars to cover up a curse word! Oh, the joys...I thought you might enjoy a quick peek into my everyday life!