The First Day

Well, that was a fairly smooth first day. Aside from the fact that the students we had last year forgot the routine (not surprising, "normal" kids tend to do this too over the summer), things went pretty smooth. We got the three new students acclimated to the class, did the little "introductions" song and dance, and so on. Really, it was surprisingly smooth. I doubt it'll last... All told, we have 14 kids in our class this year. I'm not going to introduce them ALL in this post (that'd probably be incredibly boring) but allow me to introduce you to one student who entertained me today.

Shawn: Shawn is in our class primarily due to his social anxiety. He has extreme difficulty socializing, and when asked questions, will usually not answer. He'll just stare at you. If you continue to coax him, you might eventually get a one word answer. At times, though, he'll surprise me and come up with some strange things out of the blue. An example of this occurred during math time today. Shawn does really well with his math, and usually is the first one done. We didn't have long for math today anyhow, since everything on our schedule was a bit behind.

So we break out into our math groups and Shawn finishes first. I wasn't entirely surprised. Not having anything else to do, and with the teacher and other aides occupied, I just told Shawn to sit tight, and wait. He just stares blankly at me, as usual. About two minutes later, I'm watching the other student do their calculations, and suddenly Shawn just goes "Ba da ba ba ba, I'm loving it!"

That was about the most unexpected thing that could have happened... I wanted to laugh so hard, but I couldn't, because that'd probably discourage Shawn from future expression. Most of the time his outbursts aren't as crazy random as that one was. So instead I just looked at him and said, "You must be hungry!" He didn't respond. As usual.

So, take note, McDonald's marketers: Your slogan is working! In our classroom at least...