If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm a special-ed teacher and that I have several "collaboration" classrooms this year, in which I am installed as a "helper" of sorts in a regular-ed classroom.
One of these collabs is in a beginning algebra class, with a math teacher/coach chick who's a total gas to work with. She and I get along really well and try to find humor in untenable circumstances.
In this class is one particular SPED boy who's a real piece of work. He's obviously got some serious paranoid delusion disorder going on, and it's a recipe for disaster to put him into a regular ed classroom and expect the regular-ed kids NOT to make fun of him and pick on him. He's got serious psychiatric problems and has great difficulty relating and even being in the vicinity of other kids.
Yesterday, this kid (I'll call him J for short) was pretty wound up. We've already moved him to a separate table by himself just because he can't seem to cope with sitting next to anyone, but he's even having trouble in that situation. He was complaining about everyone around him stealing his belongings (a totally typical behavior for him), and finally stated loudly, "Everybody has to make fun of everything I say!!"
It was too easy. "Which means that you should probably stop talking, J," I said calmly.
"Oh," he said, and fell silent... but continued to leer at a row of girls nearby. One of them I could see had begun to scrutinize J's face very closely. After a long, pleasant silence lasting about thirty seconds, she (in complete seriousness) piped up, "You need yo eyebrows did."
The other teacher and I collapsed in helpless laughter.
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