My second day of substitute teaching was in another special ed. class but these students were a mixture of ones confined to wheelchairs, those with Down's Syndrome and others who were autistic and able to get around on foot.

I arrived early as usual and after I picked up the key from the secretary I found C9 unlocked and met two of the adult aides inside, H and T. They were talking about an "Irish Bomb," a type of potent concoction of various spirits mixed together in one brew. Apparently the night before one or the other or both had been celebrating an early St. Patrick's Day, a day not even noticed on the calendar in Ireland.

Compared to a similar group of students in Ohio where I substituted for a time, this class was pretty rowdy. I think it was because the class in Ohio did not have any ambulatory ones if I remember correctly. The few ambulatory ones that were not really interested in what was going on were more often headed toward the open classroom door than not unless they were on the computer. In the afternoon the students were engaged in cooking either Shepherd's pie, a uniquely American sandwich called "slide burger" ( a flattened meatball with onions and melted cheese on top served in a square roll), and a "Reuben roll" (a Mexican version of another American sandwich, the Reuben, consisting of sliced corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut rolled up in a flour tortilla smeared with mayonnaise). The passageway between the two classrooms served as a kitchen and there was no ventilation, so the door was kept open to let out the fumes from the onions being fried in a skillet. K, who is autistic, successfully got outside the classroom cell block and I was reminded of Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" when a student who happened to be passing by at the time announced in a loud voice"We got a runner, we got a runner!" Public school buildings are designed so much like prisons that I didn't blame him for bolting, though he was soon enough cajoled to return.

The day began with picking up the students from the school buses. Two buses had those lifts that lower the wheel-chaired student to the ground. One student was wailing inside the bus. I could see her arms above her head silhouetted against the bright glare of the cloud filled sky threatening rain. I met the first ambulatory one who extended his arm parallel to the ground offered as a greeting with the word "fysh," perhaps a contracted form of "high five," though his arm was not raised up with palm facing out towards me in the usual high-five manner. He was tall and dressed in black and had very clear blue eyes in a look of astonishment. I did not lightly jab his fist with mine, which was how I later leaned was the appropriate response. Twice I observed him in class, sitting at his table with a crumpled piece of paper he held close to his left eye. T was pushing a red haired boy in a wheelchair. I think he was the one referred to by T and H2 as "Stinker butt." They had been talking about his behavior when he apparently recently tried to eat his shoe. I think he was my favorite. He sat most of the time by himself, looking into the center of the classroom. He liked to laugh, and his mischievous grin was his sole means of communication along with grabbing you from behind in a bear hug if you had your back to him close enough for him to reach you from his seat. I was hugged once, and he was mildly reprimanded for it, though I did not mind. He also enjoyed playing footsie with one of the female student aides who were coming in and out throughout the day. There was usually five or six of them at any one time. I should mention that Stinker Butt was not the only one who attacked from the rear. I wandered into the adjoining classroom where certain of the wheel-chaired students would retire to stretch out for a session of lying on their stomachs. One of the adult aides, an Asian woman, was being held in a hold by T. They both seemed to be enjoying it, though I know that Asians more often laugh when they are in an uncomfortable position than how an American woman would react. Obviously, at least from my point of view of having lived with an Asian woman for almost twenty years, T, who is American, misconstrued her laughter for pleasure. He would not have gotten away with it from an American woman.  

Once all thirteen students were in the classroom the day began with an exercise session of Tae Bo with Billy Blanks in a YouTube video that was projected on a Smartboard. Tae Bo is a kind of aerobics that incorporates kicking and boxing. I was pretty tired after about forty-five minutes of it. The students enjoyed it, those who participated. The morning was also spent cooking, but it was omelettes. I was amazed at how some of the students were allowed to wield knives cut up the ingredients for the omelette, which included green bell peppers. One of the student aides gave most of the instructions and commands on how to cook an omelette in an electric griddle. She was the only student aide who was interested and curious enough to talk to me, though it was mostly complaining about a particular teacher she had that wouldn't allow her to take an exam early and about how she was put off by an employer for a potential summer job as a life guard. She was born in La Jolla and I got the feeling she did not like living in a small town. She was very talkative and did not hang back with any of the other student aides. She seemed to be very independent.

I almost forgot the most unusual student, an ambulatory one who I met at the bus. I immediately took a disliking to her. She was very "in-your-face." However, she got the most attention from the student aides because they were amused by her more than anything else. She really had no social skills whatsoever and she liked to shout in your face. Her favorite expressions were "shut the hell up" and "good-bye kids." Most of the time she spoke in one word utterances that were like barks of frustrated expressions of anger. She never smiled or laughed. She repeated the word "church" a few times when I first met her at the buses in the morning. I got the impression that she thought going to school was like going to church. She also kept calling me "Dad," even though I told her I was not her Dad. For all I know she could have been asking me if I were a father, but I had no idea as she never ever formed a coherent sentence. She seemed to be more frustrated than anything else and seemed to be constantly trying to coerce others. Sometimes it was difficult for the student aides to make her sit down. She had clear green eyes and curly dark blonde hair that was the envy of at least one of the female student aides. She was medium height and did not have any shape to her body. But she had beautiful skin. I felt sorry for her and did not appreciate the student aides subtly making fun of her. I got fed up when towards the end of the day she got in my face and was shouting "doctor," repeatedly despite my saying I was not a doctor. However, I got the uncanny notion in my head that she could read my mind. I felt uncomfortable being there because I was a doctor with a PhD. On my last assignment one of the adult teacher's aides said I was over-qualified. Finally, she did make a full sentence, a command, "Look at my feet." I looked her in the eye and said, "I am looking at your feet."

The day ended with karaoke. Th was in his glory because he could do air guitar with enthusiasm. The highest score for accuracy was a 72%. Th had the most unusual irises, a very light blue that made his pupils very piercing looking in their almost pin hole diameter.  

Today was my first day substitute teaching in the Ramona Unified Schools District. Ramona is about an hour's drive north of Chula Vista, in the mountains, whose boulders along a certain stretch approaching the 100,000 population town on 67 reminded me of old Old West films. My assignment was for a teacher labelled as "Resource Specialist," which I had no idea of pertaining to what besides, perhaps, taking care of teachers' resources, whatever they may be. However, I found myself with thirteen special education students "in transition," meaning they were to be trained for "life skills," one of which was counting change, though they would never be put into such a situation of even going through a cashier's line with the kind of skills they had, adding and subtracting single digit numbers which they worked on all morning on worksheets corrected by the two aides in the classroom.

One of the aides decided they would practice this skill. She gave each of them twenty-five dollars in play money notes that looked like American dollars. Some of them failed miserably in getting the correct change back and so spending more then the price of the items on the table, which consisted of mostly plastic figures such as one of Johnny Neutron, a horny toad, a car, a CD, a book, etc., which ranged in price from 25 cents to five dollars. One girl in particular struggled even with adding up the prices of the items she had chosen to purchase and making the connection with the play notes she had. She calculated three items at three dollars each as costing three dollars rather than nine. She was the exception though. I felt that the derision exhibited by the aide when a student gave more than the total price humiliating and defeatist. I could only consider her motive: by dastardly getting "tips" from the erring student it would teach the student a lesson; it's bad to give more money than the total price of the items, even though the aide was happy with the windfall. I thought it would have been better to put the student into the position of counting change after the aide purchased items from the student. That would have been practical, rather than resulting in the almost pained expressions of the students trying to do the mental arithmetic many of them could not do on their feet. I told one of the brighter ones that it was simply a matter of addition. He didn't have to do subtraction at all. He could merely keep two figures in mind, the amount of what the aide would give him and the total purchase price and then start counting out the change from the amount of the purchase price until he arrived at the amount the aid had given him. This is a little more complicated than that, for he would have to know, for example, how many quarters there are in a dollar. But if the two amounts were whole numbers it would be relatively easy compared to the mental arithmetic of subtraction.

I felt very sorry for these students, the youngest of whom was eighteen and the oldest twenty-two.