Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Teacher's Chair

Today was day three in the opportunity class.

The instructional aide (IA) has a nice office chair. Cushioned. With wheels. So, of course when the IA is out of the room (she works part time), all the kiddos want to sit in it.

Sean had claimed the chair. As he was working peacefully (a rare occurrence), I let him be. But Sean has a roaming problem, so after a while he got up to do something.

Santiago decided it was his turn to be in the chair. Sean returned. He wanted his spot back. Since Sean had been working so well, I told Santiago to go back to his seat. Unfortunately, Santiago has not been following my directions very well.

A battle followed. Santiago wouldn't get up. He wheeled the chair out the door. Sean pushed him back inside. With prejudice.

Oh, did I mention that there's a small step between the doorway and the outside?

There are five wheels on the chair. Only one broke. It snapped off when the chair hit the step. The chair almost toppled over. And both boys knew that they had gone way too far.

The boys scrambled to find glue, tape, or anything to fix the chair. In the end there was nothing they could do.

I got the task of explaining to the IA what happened to her chair. Luckily, the custodian was able to fix it, but only after the incident had been reported to the office.

At least this mellowed Sean and Santiago. For a little while.

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