Careful What You Wish(Ask) For

It's time for another student story and this one has it all.  Suspense, mystery, intrigue, the love of a good woman, and a misunderstanding.  Without further adieu...that would be silly since that means 'bye' and this is the beginning.  There won't be further ado (to prove that I didn't just misspell the other one) either since I would hate for the critics in years to come to say that this blog was much ado about nothing.  But I digress...Shakespearianly (it's a word).

Howard was a special kind of child, with a special kind of mom, in my special kind of class.  I don't know why I kept calling him Howard...I saw the real name on my roll sheet, it wasn't Howard.   I actually knew of him for years before he got to me in my self-contained sixth grade for kids with learning disabilities.  For the non-teachers or parents in my audience allow me to explain.  Not all teachers get the chance to know many more students than are in their own class.  Sure, kids switch around and go here for reading, there for math, but for me name recognition is saved for my own class and an elite group of students who stand out at the school.  If a student repeatedly 'fails to act responsibly' on the playground, the yard duty teachers will know who they are.  A neighbor of ours had a kindergarten boy in my son's class.  On the fourth day of school we all went to back-to-school night.  In the assembly before the classroom visits, with about 600 students milling around, the principal came over and said to our neighbor, "Hi Andy.  How are you tonight?"  Dad was impressed.  "The principal knows my kid already."  I had to break it to him that for the principal to know him this early was not necessarily a good thing. 

At my school, everyone knew Howard!  Principal, secretaries, teachers, custodians, librarians, food service workers, campus monitors, bus drivers, other parents, and I can't prove it but I would be willing to bet that the guys who filled the Coke machine and fixed the copiers knew him too.  He wasn't really what you would call a 'bad kid', especially since I never use that particular descriptor, but his behaviors made him stand out...a lot. He was the kid who would come up to me on the playground and ask, "How far is the farthest?" or "What is the purpose of meaning?"  He tried to get reactions and my reaction was generally, "Go play Howard."  The troubles arose when he tried to get reactions during class...and that caused him (and others) to stop learning.  Enter my class, and the fewer students, and my wonderful aide.  The district thought that my room would be the best place for him to achieve success...and allow others at school to do the same.

He was a bright student, did his homework, was capable to do whatever I gave him, he just didn't want to...for the most part.  And then there was his mom.  She was an advocate for her son and his needs.  Some would argue too much so, others might say a little too passionate, I liked both mom and Howard.   It was manageable, it was challenging, it was tiring.  Whenever he would try to distract me with bizarre questions I would respond with something like, "about 15 o'clock but I won't be able to wash the car" or some other nonsense that would leave him scratching his head and allow me to keep teaching.  We plugged along trying to get him to do his best while others tried to do theirs.  And then about three months into the year mom formally requested a meeting.  Uh oh.  I thought we had been doing well.  I thought everyone was happy.  I had talked to mom almost daily to give updates and such, but she set this meeting up through the office instead of just, "Do you have a second?" which is more my style.  I was concerned about other teachers' accounts of other meetings with mom.  And then it was time for the meeting.

All of the players sat around my conference table and I asked, "What can I do for you today?"  Mom said that she wanted me to tell Howard to read a half an hour every day.  I started talking about how on top of the homework a half an hour reading is a lot and I thought I was doing well to ask for 20 minutes in my daily reading log.  "I want you to tell him to read 30 minutes a night."  Howard, disinterested, continued playing his Gameboy.  Again I told mom that 20 minutes a significant amount of time and that I had read research that showed if you read twenty minutes a night at the end of the year you would have read a million words!  "I want you to tell him to read 30 minutes."  I talked about how Howard would benefit from playing with other kids in the neighborhood.  "I want you to tell him..."  And then I had the 'we are talking about apples and oranges' moment so I asked why.  Apparently, Howard loved to read.  He would read and read and read in his spare time.  He averaged about a half an hour every night...until he came to my class and my "Read at least 20 minutes a night" reading log.  When mom told me that Howard was now setting a timer for twenty minutes and then stop for the night it was frustrating her and she couldn't talk him out of it because, "Mr. Garrett said so!"  I laughed, I made Howard put away the Gameboy, and talked to him directly.
 
"Dude! I think you missed two really important words on my reading log.  At Least!  Do you know what that means?" 
Shrug.
"It means you can read more than that but you cannot read less than that!  Stop setting the timer for crying out loud!  Reading is awesome!  Go for it!  No more timer, right?"
"OK."
"Anything else mom?"
"No."
"All right.  I think we are done.  Take care.  Thanks."

After that, things went well.  We finished the year nicely and they even brought me in to talk with next year's teacher so I could talk about strategies that worked for Howard.  I told them to let him read as much as he wanted and to be very careful how they worded their reading logs.  Howard did well in the years to come.  I still see Howard's loving mom around town, and I don't dive under the clothes racks of stores when I see her coming...not that I do that with other parents...as far as they know.