Special Needs

I was looking at everyone's blogs recently and went to my blog and noticed my last post was on August 28! It's about time I post something here.

Nashville is as great as ever! The fall is here although it was 85 yesterday but will be 65 tomorrow. The leaves are beginning to turn colors and it's beautiful.

My new job started off a little rocky. There is this particularly "special" child. He has down syndrome and is much bigger than his classmates. They are all in kindergarten and 1st grade and he is in 4th grade but has the mind of a kindergartener. He loves to bully all of the kids. The first couple of days were rough with him. The teacher said since he doesn't know me yet he was testing the boundaries. Within the very first hour of my new job he was getting a drink of water while we were walking down the hall. I stopped to wait for him while the rest of the class went around the corner. He got one last drink while I pulled him away. I could see something in his eyes and caught on just as he spit a huge mouthful of water right at me. I was able to jump out of the way and dodge it. He then laughed hysterically and ran and caught up to the rest of the class. I thought, "oh boy, I'm just going to love this job!" The next day we were in art with another class. The assistants, me and another girl, sit in these classes (it's either art, music or p.e. each day). The other assistant took one of the boys downstairs to be fed (he eats with a feeding tube) and left me in the room with Casper (the down syndrome boy) and the rest of the class plus another class and a substitute art teacher. Casper of course totally freaked out and started throwing crayons and hitting little kids. I held him in the corner for a few minutes but he was being so disruptive to the other kids trying to color so I took him out in the hall. Another teacher came out and asked if I needed help because he was FREAKING out and I was using all of my strength to hold him in the corner to try to calm him down. No exaggeration, it took all of my strength, he is a big kid! He could probably take me down if he really wanted to. Finally the other assistant came up and got him calmed down. So after day 1 and day 2 I was really not enjoying my job. I didn't realize how much work special needs children would be. Day 3 was so much better. Casper didn't try to kick or hit me once all day and he even gave me a big hug at the end of the day. Ever since then we've been good buds and my job has gotten a lot better. There are 9 students in the class. Three of them have "special" special needs the rest mostly just have learning disabilities and trouble paying attention but they are capable of learning. So far I am really liking it! I am the floater assistant so I go back and forth between the younger special needs class and older. I love going to the older class. They all learned to love me quickly and always want to tell me their whole life stories. I love hearing them say, "Ms. Sampson, did I do it right?" I got sick the week before I started and now two weeks later I'm still sick! I have had NO voice the last 4 days but am finally just starting to get it back today. I'm hoping over the weekend I can rest it and be fully recovered by Monday. I think I just lost it because I am not used to having to raise my voice but with these children there is no choice. They don't listen unless you get right in their face and force them to listen.

Well that is a small update. I'm going to try to update this more often. It's really ridiculous how long I went. There are some fun activities coming up so I'll be sure to take my camera and get pictures of my friends and the events going on.