Friday, May 30, 2008

Time out

This poem was written due to an actual event that happened to one of my sons in his classroom, in Elementary School. He was doing what kids with ADHD, OCD, and Tourettes do sometimes in class,(they still refused to give my kid an I.E.P., they didn't have the funds and to much red tape, translation , it cuts into their bonus plans) and the teacher asked him to pick up his work and go to the class next class over, when Rand gathered his things and got up to leave the entire class applauded. Well needless to say I only heard about this the next day from his twin brother who was in the same class as Rand. He told me what happened when Rand said he didn't feel good and didn't want to go back to school the next day. I did call the school and kept Rand home for the rest of that week and that too gave me a chance to calm down and gather my thought on how to deal with this situation. I agonized for my child that entire week and came up with a poem( writing is my meditation). That following Monday I marched into school (well walked fast) and went straight to the principle and the teacher and read them the poem I had written the week of the incident and asked if I could read it to Rands class, Rand was still not going back to school until I straightened everything out. They both agreed and at the end of the school period I was able to go to his class and read the poem to all those kids, not to hurt them but to try and express how they hurt Rand. They all listened very intently and I really think most of them got it. Although there's always that one kid (kinda like mine) who walked over to me after hearing the poem and said " How can you stand being with Rand all the time" I leaned down to her level (remember these are all 4rd graders) and looked into her beautiful little face and said because he's my child. Here is the poem that I wrote and read to all of them:
http://www.addconsults.com/creative/display.php?id=33&board=creative_story