The Secret Life.

Okay, there's nothing secret about my life... but that IS what's on my television right now. Yep, I admit it: sometimes I watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager. But only sometimes.

This morning I experienced my first Monday at the special education facility where I'm doing my service learning for a summer class. The fact that it was a Monday is significant because the students have had a weekend of regression. Children with special needs demand a highly structured environment, and a lot of our students don't get that at home. Honestly, I can see why. These children need a lot of patience, and sometimes just saying, "Fine, whatever." is an alluring trap to fall into. So today was a little... chaotic.

The student we'll call "Jamal" has hydrocephalus. I don't know if I've mentioned that before, but it means that his skull is enlarged and fluid collects around his brain. He has a shunt in his head where it can be drained from time to time. As you can imagine, head injury can be very dangerous for Jamal... and today, Jamal fell out of his chair and hit his head on the marker tray beneath the blackboard. I think all of our hearts stopped for an instant as we watched for Jamal's reaction. Like any typical six year old, he ran to the teacher with his arms out and sobbed into her stomach. As he wailed, another student ("Grace," who is often violent) ran up to him and slapped him... then laughed (people, this was horror movie creepy-- think 'Orphan'). We called the nurse to the room, and it turns out that Jamal was fine, but it was terrifying.

Later the speech therapist came to the classroom, which was just comically disastrous. This therapist wore an expression that let us all know she'd rather be anywhere else in the world, and she let the kids talk over her just to get her book read and get out of there. Jamal talked constantly and pouted when he didn't get his way, Aaron raised his hand constantly like the kid in 'Welcome Back, Mr. Kotter,' Trent (who is non-verbal) grunted and flapped his arms without stop, and Grace shoved Trent down. All the while, the speech therapist carried on, one sigh after another.

Aaron told me I was cute and picked a flower for me, so that was the one redeeming factor of my first (and last) Monday in Special Ed.