Downing them jaded pills

One school year down (well, technically 4/5 of a year). It seems like an eternity since I started working as a teaching assistant at the middle school. I came in bright-eyed and bushy tailed, eager to tackle the challenges of meeting the needs of pubescent kids. For almost half a year, I was able to keep a positive attitude and earnestly believe that they could change for the better.
Unfortunately a person can only give so much of himself with little to no positive reinforcement before he seriously questions his idealism. I hit that will after Christmas break, which is when the kids start ramping up into "I don't care about anything" mode. It's really sad when you learn about their home situations, as 90% of them come from broken homes and burdened with its baggage. Many times it's painfully obvious where much of their mentality and personalities come from when we end up talking to their guardians. Like they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Long story short, I went through a really tough last couple months at work. Many days I would flirt with the idea of quitting, but kept reminding myself that this was a job that God provided for me, and I needed to stick it out. I'm definitely really thankful for my experiences. Seriously. I think I am so much more equipped for dealing with classroom management now after working with all those punks. =) Even outside of the things I picked up firsthand teaching, I got to rub shoulders with some teachers who really inspire me to want to be like them. You hear in the news all the bad educators who sleep with their students or are incompetent, but you never hear anything about the inspirational ones that give you hope for our future. Trust me, there are some great ones out there who give 100% and daily give everything they have to see each child succeed. Props to them for the unrecognized work they do.

Below is the only picture I was able to take on my last day (it was filled with assemblies and packing/cleaning). If you're wondering, yes, that is, indeed, the famous Round Rock Donut. I had been raving about it to them the entire year, and as a reward/ celebration for surviving, I got each class one. Hahaha, their reactions were amazing, I wish I could have video recorded it. But yeah, I'm definitely going to remember this past year, and hope I continue to grow a greater heart for my future students.

Always be Prepared

Old cliched sayings actually have truth behind them. A couple months ago I was forced to attend 7 hours of SAMA (Satori Alternatives to Managing Aggression) training. Essentially this taught us how to deescalate a potentially explosive situation by identifying with and finding a "win-win" situation with the student. Most of the verbal training was pretty common sense crap, but learning how to take down a dangerous student was pretty exhilarating, if not a bit awkward to practice.

I was in a class full of middle-aged men and women and these techniques required a lot of very in-your-face grabbing and throw downs. When I had to come from behind and slide down a woman's arms to grab her wrist, I just prayed I didn't do anything inappropriate or hurt her. At the time, I never really thought I would realistically use any of these strategies in school, so I ignored the trainer's recommendation to keep practicing the strategies every couple weeks.

A couple days ago, one of our quieter students refused to enter school when his mom dropped him off. my 2 co-workers were checking in students while I was watching the classroom with some other students. Over the radio I heard one of them say that they were "containing" the student in the hallway. Apparently he had been trying to run away and escape, but when the teachers were physically escorting him back to our class he began kicking my coworker's shins and struggling.

After 5 or so minutes, an Administrator got radioed to provide backup and documentation and the student was brought into our class. We rushed the other 2 students in the room to the other room so they would be safe. I was told to take my co-teacher's glasses, walkie, watch, and various other objects and put it in a safe area. He then motioned me over to get the student's feet to assist in the containment since the student was ramming himself into the door and resumed kicking my co-worker's shins. I grabbed the blue padded mat from the wall and set it up next to the student and then my mind went blank.

I couldn't remember whether to grab the kid's shins or his feet. After a couple seconds of deliberation, I grabbed his shins and waited. My co-teacher looked over and told me to grab the ankles, not the shins. I silently called myself an idiot for forgetting; especially with my assistant principal documenting what we were doing. As I steeled myself for my very first real-life containment, I felt a rush of adrenaline but also a sense of fear because my memory was still incredibly fuzzy on the positioning.

We ended up taking the student down quickly but gently and I had the kid's legs in a loose bear hug. For such a little 6th grader, the kid was surprisingly strong. I actually had to use a decent amount of pressure to keep his feet still, and I got rewarded with a jab to my jaw when an unexpected leg jerk caused my elbow to hit myself.

The first 5 minutes were fine because my blood was pumping and any pain was masked by adrenaline. Unfortunately since one of my arms was resting under his legs, there was some crazy blood-constriction going on and I was soon finding myself shifting positions to try and keep from losing circulation. After 20 minutes, my coworker took a break from talking w/ the student and looked at me. He let me know that the proper positioning was having both hands on top of his legs cupping his bottom knee. Once again, I was exposed in my lack of knowledge. I sheepishly thanked him and did what he said.

Well, that position was a bit better, but the pain was no longer caused by blood loss, but cramping in the shoulders and upper back. I had to keep pressure, but make sure to keep loose enough to prevent the student from hurting himself from my weight so my arms were partly lifted to provide room to breath. Altogether, we spent 40 some minutes talking him down until he was calm enough to take his carrel.

The experience left me with the realization that no matter how unlikely we feel like we'll need to show our proficiency in something, if it's even a chance of happening, we need to keep sharp by preparing and honing our skills. That day I felt like the event really challenged me to re-evaluate even how ready I am to share my faith with people. Am I so close w/ him at this moment that I can share with conviction and relevance or is my faith the faded and almost-forgotten faith of the past?

Lightning

There’s something awe-inspiring about lightning. The sheer brilliance of that split second of bright light followed by the ear-cracking boom is something that will never cease to amaze me. The past two days, we have been experiencing some of the most insane lightning strikes I’ve ever seen in my life. I was walking home from the gym with Matt last night (Wed) and the sky lit up so brightly it was like someone took a picture with a giant camera. Almost instantly, the crack of thunder hit, causing everyone on the street to shout out in alarm. I’m not even kidding, a car’s alarm started going off because the boom was so intense.

This afternoon and all throughout the night (Thursday), it’s been thunderstorming (apparently they’re pretty bad down in TX) and caused our internet to cut out until now (Friday). But yeah, it’s actually been an interesting experience not having internet to distract you from thinking…

Forgive me if this metaphor seems like a stretch, it’s 2 AM right now and I can’t sleep, so I decided to jot down some of my thoughts before I forget. Most of the time, we live our lives in a mostly pleasant fog of our day-to-day life. Sometime days are good, some worse, and others, mediocre. A lot of times, we’re carrying mental baggage and chains that are tying us up from living fully joy-filled lives; but hey, no one can really see them, cuz for the most part, the dark hides it well. That’s true until those “lightning flash” moments illuminate all the ugliness and pain around you. All that crap you’ve been trying to dig away and hide is revealed in all the nastiness, and you can see the hurt on people around you. It’s a really peculiar phenomena to go through.

In many ways, those brief flashes serve to keep me humble, and remind me to stop being so focused on my own life. Everyone, no matter how put together they appear- everyone has their own baggage that is tying them down. What’s funny is that I can still see the mental image of the neighborhood when the lightning struck 2 nights ago. That picture just burned itself into my brain, and I hope it stays imprinted.