Boy. Am I mad? Heather Taylor
Copyright 2009 Heather Taylor
Smashwords Edition
ISBN 978-1-4580-9543-5
All rights reserved.
This is a work of non fiction.
In order to protect privacy some names and places have been changed.
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To Jeremy (my personal bastion in an ocean of despair), Scott, Ben, and Nathan.
In memory of Basil, our ‘black and white baby.’
Boy. Am I mad?
I sang to the dog today. His favourite little ditty. ‘Do you want a brother or a little sister, do you want a brother? We’re getting one today …’ Hard to believe, I know, that I made that song up.
He looks at me obliquely. Although almost fifteen and a half and completely deaf now, I think he knows I am singing. There is a gentle wag to his tail.
Half way through the squawky, tuneless song, it struck me. That it was the first time I have sung in two years. Well almost – one year, ten months and three days to be precise.
I must be getting better. I know I will never be the same person again but, it is something.
The Prologue.
I guess it would be remiss of me not to set the scene. I seem to be one of those people who when their cup is full, it spills over and when their cup is empty it is totally depleted and devoid of all things good.
Good holidays, short working days, what more could any girl want than to teach. That is what I was told time and time again.
I toyed with the idea of studying law, but was encouraged by my elders that teaching was the job for a girl. So, a teacher I became and right from the beginning was drawn in to the world of special education. My teacher training had given me no real insight in to special education, or none that I can remember anyway. I was though, completely fascinated by special education right from the start of my journey into teaching.
I have always supported, had empathy for, the troubled, the underdog. In effect – drawn to them like crackers to cheese. I’m not entirely sure why.
My first teaching post was to be in Limavady, a market town situated between Portrush, where I lived then, and Londonderry, the second largest city in N. Ireland.
My interview for the post of assistant teacher should have alerted me to the ‘special’ times ahead. Sitting at the head of a long table in the Board Room, I was quaking at the thought of the impending interview. I was so nervous that I had driven myself to the interview with the handbrake on! There could well have been smoke coming out of the engine – I noticed nothing. I shudder to think of the damage I may have done to my mother in law’s car.
I had just been formally introduced to the very formal Board of Governors when the window was hammered noisily from outside. A massively irate parent with a pronounced speech impediment was shouting loudly at the headmaster to come out. Believe me; she wanted him out and she wanted him out now!
Flustered, embarrassed and most probably upset by the scene, the Governors basically forgot to ask me any difficult questions and offered me the post. To be fair, I also have to tell you that… I was the only applicant for the job. Those were the days! Most teaching posts in special schools at that time were difficult to fill – I have no idea why.
The first day in a special school for children with moderate learning difficulties (plus many other difficulties) was mind boggling. I floundered. Big time! Confronted with a class of 14-15 year olds I was completely out of my comfort zone. Out of my depth completely as it turned out. They knew it; I knew it; and they quickly took advantage. The lesson ended in chaos when one of the boys kicked me hard on the shins, legged it out of the classroom and disappeared at speed out of the school grounds. He, I think his name was Kevin, was apprehended about four miles away on the mountain road. Cold, wet and hungry I don’t think he even remembered kicking me. He was on my mind – I didn’t feature on his.
Those boys learned very little, if anything, in that lesson. Dazed by the experience, it was me that learned a lesson. Strategies to deal with these troubled and difficult children were what I needed. I had to learn fast. What ‘worked’ one day seemed totally ineffectual the next. I read some excellent books written by behaviourists of the time and plagued colleagues who were much more experienced than me.
I am thankful that in those early days, I had some absolutely terrific colleagues. Teacher training college had done little to prepare me for a special school. One colleague in particular acted as an unpaid ‘mentor’ to me for many, many years and to her I will always be grateful. ‘Busy Lizzie’ as I christened her inspired me to learn, to reach out and to love my job. Nothing was ever too much trouble and she was always available when I needed advice. Even in my latter days of teaching I would have contacted her regularly when I had a particular problem or simply needed a boost. She was a great collector of all things educational and always had a supply of articles on any aspect of teaching or lessons that I ever needed.
Slowly but surely teaching became a challenge that excited and sometimes exasperated me. Self reflection and self evaluation are great tools and I was to do both a lot of reflecting and evaluating in the years to come.
Although always in special education, it was the pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties that really intrigued me and pulled my strings. They made me roar with laughter, they made me tear my hair out, but, as far I was concerned, that is what made me tick. Never a dull moment, calm could turn to storm in the blink of an eye. It was immensely satisfying when the storm ebbed away and calm returned.
One of the most fascinating aspects of these challenging children was that they almost never held a grudge. They were always ready for a new start, a new day, a new minute even.
It was also fun to work in that particular special school. Although, I can see that ‘fun’ more clearly now, years and years later. At the time we (the teachers) were all a bit in awe of the principal. He was ex army and liked everything to run with military precision. When he entered the classroom it was all I could do, not to jump to attention! The pupils, for some reason, didn’t seem to see him in the same light. We, the female staff, had to wear skirts. Trousers were for men and men only. Once when an unknowing rookie substitute teacher came in wearing trousers the principal asked her if she had left her horse outside. The poor woman was completely flummoxed; I’m sure her teaching suffered that particular day. In a deluded way, the principal imagined he was running a posh private boarding school and as part of that he expected a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ from his teaching staff!
As the school had a large boarding department, some of the parents often sent tins of biscuits, chocolates, bottles of whiskey or whatever for the staff at Christmas. We were then all invited to the staffroom at break time where the goodies were raffled. Yes, I did say invited – we didn’t normally have the pleasure of using the staff room at break time. The principal and his wife (who was the school matron) were in charge of proceedings. The names were put in to an empty tin and then drawn out. Time after time the principal or his wife’s name was drawn out of the tin. To my recollection, none of the other staff ever had their name drawn out. Were they just a very lucky couple? I will leave you to draw your own conclusions from that!
I worked in that special school for seven happy and fulfilling years. I was happiest when teaching in the diagnostic unit for pre school children who came in to be assessed, before deciding which educational provision suited them best. It was just such an enchanting environment in which to work. The happy ethos in that unit was tangible. Tiny wee children full of innocence put their trust in us and I loved the way they enjoyed each and every day.
For several years I taught Class 4. Class 4 was a mixture of boys and girls of between six and eight years of age. During that time in class 4, I taught the son of the lady who had hammered the window whilst I was having my interview for the job. She visited the classroom regularly; bumping a younger brother, a great big lump of a three year old, up three flights of stairs in his buggy to do so. Once, when she came up to see me, it was because she wanted to know if I could get her husband a job building the new school. She was less than impressed when I explained that the impending building work had nothing to do with me and kept reiterating that it would help if I could ‘put a word in for Davy.’
Memories of particular or peculiar characters in the Limavady School flourish and will probably stay with me forever.
John was a gentle, tactile and affectionate boy. His father was a lighthouse keeper and before coming to our school John had spent most of his time on a small, scarcely populated island tending the lighthouse with his father. His dad was apparently a man of few words and when John joined us at six years old his language skills were well below par. Although a remarkably contented wee soul he had communicated with his father using few words and lots of gestures and grunts instead. In his dad’s world that was all that was required. John wore huge ‘jam jar’ glasses. I was never totally sure how good his eyesight was even with the help of the thick glasses. Rather like a partially sighted person he liked to gently feel unfamiliar faces. It was his way of sussing them out and getting to know whoever it was – his very own method of approach and introduction. A school inspector who visited one day was not entirely enamoured when John gently touched his face in greeting. It was obvious that he was totally ill at ease with John getting up close and invading his intimate space.
Twin boys of about five or six years old came to the school when I was there. They were tall, good looking boys who came from a farm somewhere deep in the country. If I remember correctly they had lacked sufficient oxygen at birth and they subsequently needed a lot of help and guidance in their development. Their gentle yet apprehensive mother had no idea she was expecting twins and it came as an enormous shock.
When they first arrived the school caretaker followed them around the school grounds with a shovel – they were just beginning to be toilet trained! Billy, the caretaker, was a kindly man, a ‘one in a million’ who was not only a great worker but also a terrific role model for the boys. Many of the boys used to love helping him with gardening and other little handy man tasks.
I know twins often act ‘as one’ but these two boys really took the biscuit! They spoke in unison with deep slow intonation and were unsure which one was which. When you called one, they both looked up or came lolloping over!
The lovely thing was that they were always so happy and tried to please everyone. My memories are of them always smiling, always happy. When it was break time they would lean their elbows on a desk and say, ‘you going to get your head shired Ma.’ They called all the female staff ‘Ma.’ Everyone in school adored the easy going twins, even if they weren’t always entirely sure which one was which!
Massey Ferguson tractors were their passion and mostly they were found clutching toy tractors. I like to imagine that now; they are somewhere working happily on a farm - perhaps driving around on a proper life size Massey Ferguson. No other make of tractor would do!
One of my pupils in Class 4 was a pig farmer in his own right. Joe had a large number of pigs and although struggled enormously with anything academic, managed to buy and sell pigs at markets all over the country without any problem. He was frequently absent from school and when he returned I would find out that he had been away with his dad on the pig lorry buying or selling pigs. The rest of the staff used to wind me up telling me that at that time Joe earned more than I did, buying and selling his pigs! So much for my efforts trying to educate him! Or perhaps it gives some credence to the saying ‘education isn’t everything.’
That particular year Class 4 had more than its fair share of memorable characters – one of the boys liked to keep a crisp packet down the front of his trousers and I was often aware of a rustling sound coming from his direction. When I looked in his direction the rustling would cease, when I looked away it would resume! It was as if he had an on /off mechanism.
That same boy was obsessed with clocks – working or not. He loved them – neither able to read nor write he could tell the time accurately. When I say he couldn’t read or write, he did have one word that he was capable of writing… on the walls. That word began with ‘F’ and ended with ‘k’. He was a boarder from Sunday evening until Friday afternoon. The duty teacher told me that one evening he followed her around the school grounds shouting ‘Any clocks, Miss?’
She ignored him for a while, hoping he would go away and find something to entertain himself with, until he roared,
‘Here, f… ing oul’ deaf ears, I said, any clocks?’
Never a dull moment – the ‘craic’ kept us all going. As a staff we all bonded really well and frequently socialised outside of school.
Many a good night out was had by all. A high percentage of the teachers lived in the Portrush and Portstewart area so it made sense that we travelled together.
Mostly five, sometimes six of us used to cram in to one of the teachers pea green Citroen Diane car. As soon as that car got to the school gate on the way home, three or four of us had ‘lit up.’ We kept a small tin especially for the cigarette ash. The owner and driver of the car was a non smoker! When I reflect on what Mrs. Gee put up with in those days I am not sure whether to laugh or cry!
The car would have been coming out the school gates and heading for home at approximately four minutes past three. Four minutes being the time it took us to hurry out to the car park and get in to the car.
No one was ever late to get away in the afternoons. School finished at three and in those days so did the teachers. We all did preparation at home but there was no question of staying late in school. I don’t remember the question of staying late ever arising. Unless of course, you were unfortunate enough to be a duty teacher, who stayed on one night a week to oversee the boarders.
Frequently in the winter months the mountain road, as we called it, would have been covered in snow. We slithered along without a care in the world, often having to get out and push the Citroen Diane when it got stuck in snow.
Although I tell myself, it is only thirty years ago, a fair number of children were absent from school during ‘spud diggin’ or harvest time generally. Quite a few youngsters were from farming communities and it was quietly accepted that these children were needed at home during busy times on the farm. I seem to remember June and October being relatively quiet months as far as class numbers went!
I loved every minute of my job. Special education to me was like a wonderful, colourful clematis climbing plant - it was easy to get wrapped up in it and it grew and grew over the seasons, engulfing me. It was so much more than ‘just teaching’. Even the most challenging children extracted from us the best we could give.
After seven happy years in Limavady I gave up teaching to spend time with my own children. By then I had two boys and I really wanted to be at home and spend time with them during their formative years.
Quite quickly a third baby was on its way. I revelled in pregnancy, loving every day of it and thinking how lucky I was.
The luck didn’t last long.
My husband, also a teacher, had an affair with one of his sixteen year old students. She became pregnant, and to cut an upsetting story short, he chose to be with her and left me. It looks almost palatable when I write it quickly! But that is another story.
I did say when my cup was empty….
I had a gorgeous bouncing baby boy and that made three wee boys to look after and be both mother and father too.
Alone with three small children; well not strictly alone – my wonderful and generous dad paid for me to have a live-in nanny.
Deesha, as the youngest boy christened her as soon as he began to gabble, lived with us for ten years! I must admit that for the first month or so I found it quite weird having a ‘stranger’ living with us, (it must have been the same for her) but she very quickly became a completely integral part of the family sharing the highs and the lows. The boys adored her, I adored her and she adored us. Everyone who came in contact with Deesha fell for her ‘hook, line and sinker.’ Deesha was one in a million; I cannot imagine what life would have been like without her. She gave me back my life and she gave the boys caring and emotional stability.
In many ways I was a privileged single parent – a rarity amongst that breed.
As content as I was, as we were as a family, I still had the responsibility of being a single parent, the one that ultimately had to make all the decisions. The one also that had to budget the money and stick to it. Re-shoeing the boys always seemed to be the biggie! As they got older they became very fussy about the make of their trainers. They wanted the same make as their friends wore and for some reason, they were never cheap.
I would have loved someone to say; ‘I’ll see to your car being serviced’ or ‘I will get the boys new shoes this time!’
Having sole responsibility was a relentless job but I did my best. My situation was also a source of amusement to many. A solicitor who was dealing with my divorce proceedings proclaimed astonishment. He told me in a grossly exaggerated, yet animated tone that I was the only person he had ever known that was in receipt of benefits from Social Security and had a live-in nanny!!
The benefits didn’t last long though, and with a built in childminder, I quickly had to decide to go back to teaching full time. I was a substitute teacher for a while, mostly in the primary school close to where I lived and also where two of my boys already attended. When a vacancy arose in the special unit attached to the school I applied for the post. I was delighted to get the job and settled in to the unit quickly. The unit catered for children in Key Stage 2, which included Year 4 to Year 7. It was supposed to be a special unit for children with moderate learning difficulties. Moderate learning difficulties, tended to be an umbrella term used for many different problems. Many of the children were also referred due to challenging behaviour. At that time there was no specialist provision for behaviour in the area, which meant that most of the time they came to me.
I could always tell what kind of a day we were in for - it was very apparent by their arrival in to the classroom. ‘Hoods up’ or ‘hat on’ were a precursor to a potentially difficult day. Agitation by the bucket load was what most of those children brought with them to school. Other children brought schoolbags, pencils, etc - mine brought the aftermath of god knows what.
The mind somersaults when you hear what some of those children have put up with, or been subjected to, since they had gone home from school the previous day. Others came from settled homes but for one, quite often unknown reason or another, had conduct disorders.
I often found it helpful to use this analogy when training new teachers or classroom assistants;
‘Imagine yourself having one hell of a day. You have had a row with your husband and it is all picture no sound at home, coupled with the fact that your in-laws are coming for tea. Your mother in law hates you anyway and this is going to make it worse. Then you go to work, after a sleepless night, to find that your boss is on the warpath. Oh, and you came out forgetting your packed lunch. Concentration is zilch. Efficiency zilch. Try as you might, you simply have too much on your mind to ‘get it together.’
Now think about the children we work with. Knowing what we know about them is it any wonder they find it impossible to concentrate during literacy or maths?’
‘‘Gently, gently, very gently.’’ Peter Alliss, the golf commentator always used to say. Forget golf - this was sound advice when working with these confused, problematic and frequently disturbed children.
Making progress with these children is a task that can sometimes feel inexorable. I could never have enough knowledge and I sucked information and ideas like a hungry piglet vying for food.
Throughout my teaching career I have been so blessed with my classroom assistants. I never worked alone and have always had at least one classroom assistant working in the classroom alongside me. There can only be one word to describe the classroom assistant I worked with in the unit on the north coast - outstanding. She had all the attributes necessary for a superb assistant and some more!
It can be a potentially dodgy thing – working all day, every day with another adult. I have known situations where personalities clashed and it was a difficult and less than pleasant working environment all round. I think that would be incredibly stressful and not exactly conducive to helping the children develop and learn. I have always worked with great classroom assistants - I would go so far as to say that I have worked with some absolutely incredibly talented people. I must have struck lucky. Some teachers I met along the way, found working alongside another adult tough, even intimidating. I loved it – it can and should be a real bonus and a wonderful addition to both teacher and children.
Laughing was a good tonic - with the children as much as possible and about them in private. So many funny and precious things happened in my time teaching that I think they far outweighed the difficult or worrying days. That is just one of the nice things about having another adult in the room – being able to reflect back over the day with someone else and share the good and the not-so-good. Reset the plan, rant, laugh – whatever it takes.
There was one wee boy when I taught in the Unit on the North Coast who gave me a ‘run for my money’ for two or three years.
From a huge (11 children) and exceptionally dysfunctional family Thomas had other things on his mind rather than an education. He liked me though. He must have done because he kept bringing me presents.
One morning, coming up to Christmas, Thomas came running in to the classroom, uniform splattered with muck of some description, swinging a rucksack round and round.
‘I’ve a present for you Miss,’ he shouted, swinging his rucksack higher and higher in the air. I was thinking, ‘gosh, if it is chocolates or biscuits they are going to be mangled.’
He threw the bag on my knee and said, ‘open it Miss, I bought it for you. It cost me a fiver.’
Nothing prepared me for the shock when I unzipped the bag. The biggest and smelliest cat I have ever seen screeched pitifully as it leapt out of the bag and made a bid for freedom. Not quite as loud as my scream though! The poor beast must have been traumatised having been rammed in to the rucksack, zipped up and swung around like a football supporter’s clacker! It must have had a truly awful journey – the cat was much too big for the rucksack and quite a few cat hairs were caught in the zip, not only that but it had messed itself inside the bag. Not a pleasant sight or smell. I took a deep breath.
‘Well Miss, do you like it?’ Thomas said with an enormous typical seven year olds toothless smile. What could I say… Cat or no cat, muck or no muck, you couldn’t help but love Thomas.
Before I had time to deal with ‘Mr Huge’ pussy cat, a parent came in to the classroom to have a quick word with me. By this stage the cat had calmed down and was making itself at home rubbing itself against my legs under the teachers’ desk. It was purring loudly (content now, I imagine, as it was safely out of the enforced imprisonment) and I could sense the parent looking at me quizzically, suspiciously even. I thought it was easier to keep a straight face and say nothing! What must the parent have been thinking? Is it any wonder I loved my job?
I found out later that Thomas had assertively told the taxi driver to stop at a house because ‘he had to pick up a cat for his teacher’. In reality, he had simply lifted the cat from someone’s doorstep. Thomas had obviously overheard me telling my classroom assistant that our pet cat, Snowy, had disappeared from home and that the boys were very upset. Mr. Huge was delivered back from whence he came by one of my trusty classroom assistants. This time his mode of transportation was a big, comfy cardboard box.
Often Thomas used to call me Mum. His own mum had sadly died in her early forties and he was being ‘brought up’ by an elderly father who had precious little time, or energy for a seven year old.
We, as a family, set sail the following weekend to choose another cat at the local animal sanctuary. For some inexplicable reason we seemed to bypass the cats and were shown in to the dog area. It was mayhem, dogs barking and howling, pleading in their own language to be let out and more than that, to be given a home. One gave us the ‘eye.’ He could have charmed the hind legs off a donkey. We ended up going home with him - a ten month old black and white hairy mutt called Basil.
Basil completely hoodwinked us in to thinking he was well trained and had manners. Initially he had the charm that only an Irish dog could have! That lasted for the duration of the journey home. He then proceeded to show his true colours. He showed his colours in a big way. Basil was totally wired to the moon. To mention just a few misdemeanours, he chewed his way through most of the boys’ socks, the furniture, through anything he could reach, the contents of the garage and through the electric wiring of my car.
He excelled as an escape artist – he should have been employed by Houdini. Gardening was his other great passion – he could dig and dig and dig, never becoming tired. My garden had huge muddy holes - everywhere. Not exactly the garden I had dreamed of.
This black and white furry bundle of endless fun became one of my greatest challenges to date! Maladjusted was a generous way of describing him. Every day I threatened to bring him back to the dogs’ home. Every day the boys pleaded his case.
It became reminiscent of a plea for a ‘stay of execution!’
Everyone loved him, he was so easy to love and yet his crazy behaviour was hard to stick sometimes. My brother in law branded him as ‘untrainable.’ We had to prove him wrong, one way or another. So, straight off to enrol at the first available dog training classes we went. The trainer was initially unimpressed, we could tell by his face. He had that well worn and practised look of; ‘Oh Gawd, we’ve got a right one here.’
After months at the weekly training class and little discernable progress, Basil was eventually awarded ‘Runner Up Dog of the Week.’ Knowing what I know, I secretly wondered if they gave Basil the trophy in an attempt to motivate us! Either way, our excitement was on a par with an Olympic win and the trophy had pride of place on the mantelpiece for a whole week. Crushingly, it had to be returned at the next training class.
It took at least two years before this hyperactive addition to our family even marginally settled down. On bad days, when I came home to yet another doggie disaster, I wondered if I should have held on to ‘Mr Huge,’ the cat that Thomas had so kindly brought me!
The pupils came to school via standard taxis. That is, until the day the taxi company obviously ran out of the normal four door saloon type vehicle. I was standing at the door greeting the children as they arrived when a shiny black hearse drew up. Transfixed to the spot, I watched as, in full regalia, an undertaker opened the back door and lowered Mary to the ground, wheelchair and all. In all honesty I didn’t know what to do or say. Mary seemed relaxed and happy obviously quite pleased with her mode of transport!
‘Bye Mary, see you this afternoon,’ called the taxi (hearse) driver as I wheeled her indoors.
‘Byeee!’ Mary sing songed back.
One lovely, fairy like, dainty little girl, Emma, came in every morning bursting to tell me increasingly awful stories about ‘Alfie’.
“Miss, Alfie told me to f…. off, Alfie bit me; Alfie teaches me bad words”.
Alfie this, Alfie that. I knew that her mum was a foster carer and imagined Alfie to be a new recruit to the ever expanding family. One that would soon have his name down on the waiting list for the Unit I taught in by the sounds of it.
Then came the day Emma arrived in and told me that her mum wanted to know if I could look after Alfie for two weeks while they went on holiday. My heart sank. What next, I thought as I went to telephone her mum. I felt a complete twat when her mum said she knew I liked animals and wondered if I would like to ‘bird sit’ Alfie, the parrot while they were away on holiday!
As our dog was an intrepid bird hater and bird chaser extraordinaire I decided it may be unwise or downright foolish to attempt to bird sit Alfie. Secretly, I would have enjoyed the experience and the opportunity to hear Alfie in action.
Televisions were a luxury that came and went on a regular basis in our special unit. We used to fund raise or were occasionally given a television by the Parents’ Association. You could bet your bottom dollar that the very day we got a new television, it would disappear that night. After a while it was replaced, and then it would disappear again. One of the pupils (an avid Enid Blyton fan) christened it ‘The Mystery of the Missing Television.’
The police were regular visitors after these burglaries and the children were in a fairly regular state of excitement when a police car would drive up. Sometimes the police turned on the siren and blue flashing lights to much applause and delight!
The broken windows eventually showed up fingerprints that matched up with the big brother of one of the boys in my class. When we were told the results of the fingerprints matched a relative of one of the pupils it didn’t take a genius to work out what had been going on - my pupil fed his brother the info. Big brother broke in that night and made light work of the TV. What a right little mafia team they were!
I still see that wee boy sometimes. Not so wee anymore – he’s a great big lad now. Sadly, I didn’t turn his life around as I have been told he spends quite a lot of time in a young offender’s institution. It is such a shame. He has a genuinely nice side to him and years later if we meet in the street he smiles and shouts ‘Hello Miss.’ My sons tell me that if they see him in town, he always asks how I am.
One illustrious day we lost Ronnie. We had been doing a class project about different types of shops and as part of this project had taken the children to visit a pet shop, a bakery, butchers, a grocery shop and a chemist. There was high excitement as we made preparations to go. I suppose in the forefront of everyone’s mind was bakery = buns. The staff were included in that excitement!
We began our day at the local pet shop. The class were so fascinated by the noises, smells and array of animals that we spent quite a long time looking and talking about the different species. When ready to move on, we lined up the children in pairs and did the obligatory head count. All there. ‘Great, We are going to do the crocodile walk, children, let’s go.’ Singing; ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the bakery we go,’ we crocodile marched down the footpath towards the bakery. We were just inside the door of the bakery when I suddenly noticed Ronnie was missing. Momentarily my heart stopped. Where could he be?
Leaving the class in the care of my very capable classroom assistants, I retraced my steps back to the pet shop. I ran as quickly as I could all the way. There was no sign of him until I went back in to the pet shop. Thankfully, down at the back, leaning in to a rabbit’s cage and stroking a lop eared bunny, was Ronnie. Even more thankfully he hadn’t a care in the world. I was so happy to see him! I don’t think Ronnie realised that we had moved on. He must have nipped back to the rabbits just after we counted the children in line. Ronnie had taken a shine to those rabbits and talked endlessly about them for weeks.
When you work with challenging children you inadvertently or sometimes intentionally work with the parents or carers too. Many of them have miserable memories of their own school days. Many of them can tell a story or two about their own school days! Many of them have had very little but complaints from their child’s mainstream school – or it has been perceived like that by the parent.
Some, in fact quite a few, have told me that they dreaded going to meet their child at home time, where very often they were greeted with a tirade of what he or she had done wrong that day. It would have been nice if they had been told just one positive thing their child had done! For some strange reason it always seems to be the negative stuff that parents are made aware of.
It was all important to engage the parent. Not always possible, but we tried. There was a much greater chance of success if the parent were on board.
I liked to think of it as an equilateral triangle – teacher – child - parent. The saddest thing is when the parent had got to the stage that they simply no longer even liked their own child. It happened, not often, but it did happen that - when asked by me what their child’s strengths were - their answer was; ‘There’s nothing good about …………., I can’t stand him.’
E-v-e-r-y child has good points. Every child has sparkling moments no matter how disruptive or difficult they can be. Sometimes though, the parents were just too worn down by the disruptive behaviours to see them. Sometimes they had just too many problems of their own and simply couldn’t cope with any more. We gave some parents a ‘Sparkling Moments Diary’ and gently encouraged them to note down even the smallest positive thing that their child had done. It may have been as small as the fact, that they sat nicely for a minute or two, used ‘gentle hands’ or they put away a toy when asked. I used to become quietly emotional when the parent noted down little things and began to see the good in their child. Definitely guaranteed to bring a lump to the throat! I so wanted them to dwell on the strengths and not the weaknesses. They always looked so pleased with themselves when they were showing me something positive recorded in their diary!
Then there were the mums who cared but perhaps hadn’t developed the skills required to successfully parent hyperactive and disruptive children.
A lovely mum, who struggled not only with parenting skills but life generally, came in to the Unit one day to show me her lovely new car that she had been given by the DHSS through the Motability scheme. She had several children with a range of problems from physical disability to learning difficulties to ADHD. While admiring the pristine new car I said, ‘It’s a gorgeous car, health to drive it, when did you pass your driving test?’
‘Oh’, she said, ‘I am still learning to drive; I haven’t done my test yet.’
Just the mum and the baby had come to see us in the new car, all the way from a town about ten miles away!
Sometimes the most anxious parents were those who might be described as ‘middle class’. Some struggled to manage a child with ADHD or perhaps more, in the form of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Disorder, Aspergers Syndrome, Autism or perhaps even an injury to the brain. Frequently the child may have co morbidity of more than one of these difficulties. They might also have had learning difficulties in one form or another.
Often they had other children in the family who had or were succeeding at school. Suddenly, they had a ‘problem’ (their word, not mine) child to deal with. A child who could and would readily embarrass them, whilst shopping or on an outing. A child who no one wanted to baby sit for. Sometimes, they were ‘too much’ for the grandparents. A child who could be destructive and aggressive in the home and outside. A child who was very often labelled as a troublemaker, both at school and in the community.
My heart went out to one such parent. The family lived in an affluent area of Belfast and had a lovely home. The mum had two older children, both of whom were doing well. Then she had Jed. Incredibly destructive and troubled, he sadly did enormous damage to family life. Once, he got up in the night, lit a candle and poured the wax in to the sink. Then he turned the tap on and when his mum came downstairs in the morning her beautiful kitchen was completely flooded.
Jed systematically cut the wires of anything electrical he could find in the house on another occasion. Gravely and disturbingly, he also beheaded a couple of pet hamsters and rabbits. I try and put that information out of my mind but it’s not easy. He was also quick to ‘lose it’ and would have been violent and aggressive towards his mum. She increasingly became frightened of him and at that time he was only seven or eight years old. The only criticism I could apportion to that mum was that she gave in too easily and tended to over indulge Jed.
Jed had, when he was in a fairly good mood, a terrific sense of humour and told quite funny jokes. Then he would laugh uproariously at his own joke which was very endearing and made us laugh even more.
As I think about him now, I feel sad that I can’t, in all honesty, say that I made a huge or lasting difference to that particular boy.
It was a case of ‘one step forward, two back’ much of the time. It reminds me of line-dancing. Jed was observed by a ‘posse’ of professionals during the time I worked with him. No one was successful at settling his behaviour down. He is in his teens now and I hear about him from time to time. Sadly none of it is remotely encouraging.
Finally, on the parental front, were the scary parents. Especially in my latter years teaching, part of my remit was to meet parents in their own home. Sometimes things they said were amusing. I always remember saying to one gentleman that the mainstream school was concerned about his son’s bad language. His response was, ‘Well he doesn’t f……..g hear any bad language in this house.’
Sometimes, for reasons unknown to me the dad or the male partner would be asleep on the settee. Once, a mother warned me to ‘keep the noise down,’ so as not to wake the snoring mass that was stretched out on the sofa. He wouldn’t take kindly to being woken she warned me in no uncertain terms. A whispered parental interview ensued.
Sometimes a parent would answer the door wearing a flimsy negligee or worse still, boxer shorts. It was impossible to know where to look! A few parents didn’t seem to get dressed until lunchtime or later. Quite a few left their children off at school in the morning dressed in their pyjamas and slippers, some collected them at 2pm still in their ‘night’ attire. I witnessed it all - big spotty PJs, cosy or cartoon dressing gowns and garish nightdresses. The slippers always intrigued me. I saw them all - fluffy mules, sheepskin moccasins, fleece, satin, bedroom, ballet or plush furry ‘animal’ slippers complete with lion’s heads or elephant ears. Walking along the streets, more often than not pushing a buggy or dragging a reluctant toddler, some of them must have constituted a health and safety hazard.
Not that long ago I heard some of these parents interviewed on a local radio station. The radio presenter was incredulous; I’m not convinced that he believed that parents truly did stand at the school entrance in their pyjamas! I laughed thinking back about the times I used to pass them on my way in to a school, listening to their incessant clack of chatter and the slip slopping sound of their amazing multicoloured slippers.
It never ceased to amaze me how often I attempted to talk to parents while the television blared in the corner of the room. On a volume scale of 1 – 10 it was usually 10. I found it most disconcerting. Competing against Jeremy Kyle was no mean feat. It never seemed to bother them having a really loud conversation. It was worse when their attention left me and drifted back to Jeremy Kyle or whatever happened to be on.
Once I had to stand during a parental interview because all the furniture had been repossessed for non payment. Actually, when I think of it now, all the furniture had been repossessed except the television! Or, who knows, maybe they had got a new one since the repossession.
Stuff, like the kitchen cupboards, that did remain had little or no cupboard doors because my pupil in a rage had taken a hammer to them.
I found it really, really sad. That poor woman was simply at the end of her tether. Her small, wiry and very determined son was running rings around her. She was functioning, but at a much distorted level. There seemed to be a lot of support from outside agencies but, at that time anyway, it didn’t seem to have come together in a way that made a difference. At home, he ruled the roost.
A few parents were just plain scary. On a couple of occasions I was advised by mainstream schools not to visit certain homes alone.
The men of the family were said to be somewhat volatile. I didn’t ask but I could see they had other things on their mind. Often it was a result of unemployment, alcohol or occasionally it was the consequence of feuding families or paramilitary involvement. I could also see why the children involved were acting out and causing problems in their schools.
It gave me enormous insight. An insight into children’s lives I would otherwise have had little or no idea about. In ways it was a huge learning curve for me. Without visiting some of these homes, I may not have had the necessary empathy or drive to nurture these children. Some of the backgrounds were the type of homes you read about, but don’t really believe could possibly exist.
At this stage in my career, I had moved to live in Belfast. Big city and all that! I found the move to Belfast fairly daunting – I loved living on the north coast of Ireland and I knew I would desperately miss my friends. I would especially miss living close enough to the sea to take the dog for a daily walk on the beach. In my opinion there is no better way to reduce or remove the stresses and strains of the day than to blow them away walking on a beautiful beach.
I had good reason to move though. I had met the ‘man of my dreams’, my soul mate and was about to get married for a second time! It was part of my remit to say ‘everyone deserves a second chance.’ My cup spills over and all that!
I got a job working with children in a Unit for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The children who attended the unit had a huge range of disorders and difficulties that affected their behaviour. It was all very new and all very different to my previous teaching post. The provision was for Key Stage 1 children – basically from Nursery to Year 4. Some of the most challenging children came in on a two day placement from mainstream primary schools. At the beginning I taught two days in the behaviour unit and the other three days I visited children on outreach. During outreach I visited the unit children and others in their mainstream schools, working with them on a one to one basis and giving advice and support to the class teacher with regard to behaviour management.
Overall I had approximately fourteen, four to eight year old children at any given time on my list. I bought a street map of Belfast and practised how to get from A to B. In the early days my husband used to drive me around on Sunday mornings so that I could become familiar with the various routes that I would have to take the following week. That street map was worth every penny. I went to areas that previously I hadn’t known existed or had only heard about on the news. It felt like a fairly major undertaking for a ‘girl from the country’ but I got used to it pretty quickly and actually for a while became ‘the authority’ in our family on the different areas of Belfast.
Generally, we would have had roughly 100-125 children on our books at a time. I worked among a staff of four or five teachers, lots of classroom assistants and my line manager.
My line manager was an exceptionally knowledgeable lady. At that time she was the only person I knew that had a Masters degree in Behaviour Management.
Knowledgeable, yes – morning person, no. She was not really a ‘morning person’ in terms of being sociable with her staff and I never really felt totally at ease in her company – during school hours and especially in the mornings. In contrast, out socially, at staff do’s or whatever she was the ‘life and soul’ of the party.
I was always in school early, in an effort to beat the traffic and also because it was a quiet time in school. I could get loads of stuff done before others came in. My line manager used to shuffle in around half past eight. Occasionally she mumbled “good morning” but mostly, she sort of ignored me or grunted and went straight to her desk. It took some getting used to. I had previously worked with an all singing, all dancing, and social group of people.
I mentioned that my line manager went straight to her desk. Lucky her - I had no desk, just a bit of worktop, a couple of drawers and a chair that was too low. It was a mighty shock to my system and also a shock to my back. I had been used to being in charge of my unit and my previous principal had given me complete autonomy where the unit was concerned. Spoiled, some would say!
I learned an enormous amount though. I used to team teach with my line manager and she was ‘something else’ to watch in action. I kept my mouth closed and took it all in.
Like many other jobs there were just never enough hours in the day. Never ending waiting lists put huge pressure on us to ‘cure’ a child and pick up another one from the waiting list. It was incredibly hard work and because progress was often slow it often felt relentless.
In between my teaching and outreach commitments I had staff meetings, phone calls and constant preparation for teaching in the unit or outreach. Every pupil had completely individual work prepared for them. No matter what, the children were at the heart of everything I did.
Sometimes people referred to me as a perfectionist but I know deep down that I wasn’t really. It is just that I am someone who gives ‘my all’ to everything I do. When I do something I like to do it right. Perhaps at times I was verging on, not the alcoholic but certainly a workaholic! I was always trying to keep ahead of myself in tasks; it just didn’t always work that way. Best laid plans and all that.
It was difficult to get enough time for my own work – there always seemed to be someone needing something and it was so easy to become diverted from whatever I was supposed to be doing. We seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling with technology, in an effort to keep our computers and printer working. I can (like every woman) multi task but this was more, much more!
We also had behaviour classroom assistants who worked with individual children. The time allocation the assistants had with individual children was decided on a ‘needs must’ basis.
We never seemed to have enough assistant hours to satisfy the schools involved. It was a constant but friendly battle between us and the mainstream schools. I used to think that they would be content if we just gave them full time classroom assistants – far and away the mainstream schools’ favourite resource.
The main aim of the service was to maintain the children within mainstream education. Not always an easy task, certainly easier said than done.
The mainstream primary schools often appeared to be under huge pressure. Big classes coupled with high numbers of special needs pupils and quite often, increasing numbers of children for whom English was a second language, made the teacher’s job frequently Herculean.
The pupil with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties was often the ‘final straw’ as far as the mainstream teachers were concerned. They wanted results and they wanted them now. More than that, often they wanted to hand over responsibility for the child to us. We had to be quite dogmatic and explain that the child was their responsibility – we were there to help and support them.
One of the behaviour teachers on the team used to say,
‘‘We don’t have a magic wand but we will do our professional best for each and every child.’’
I always thought that was a fair and also honest way of putting it. We were constantly evolving to meet the needs of both the children we taught and the mainstream schools.
Within our behaviour intervention programme we operated five levels of support with placement in the unit having number one spot - the pinnacle of our support. The children who came in for a two day placement were the children ‘on the edge’. When I think of them I can visualise a row of little souls dangling their legs over the edge of a cliff, clinging on for dear life. They were the children who were finding it hardest to maintain a place within a mainstream classroom and who we thought would benefit from small numbers, high ratio of staff with expertise and a calm nurturing environment.
The behaviour unit had two experienced and skilled teachers and one classroom assistant working with a group of usually six children. It was and remains a massively expensive provision. The placement was for three terms and we had to do everything in our power to make it successful. Three terms basically meant that they attended the unit for a year, though once or twice we had exceptional cases that completed a second year. Children whose school had all but given up on them.
Most of these children were more familiar with failure than success. We wanted to change that, we badly wanted to mobilise success.
Many of the problems these children had were exacerbated by the ‘troubles’ in N. Ireland. ‘Troubles’, as a word describing what was going on in N. Ireland, is a word that never ceases to make me giggle. Yet, I know it was no giggling matter. It is just, in my opinion, such an underwhelming word to describe what was going on in this country.
Many of our referrals came from the areas in Belfast where a lot of the trouble emanated. They came from both sides of the community and in my opinion the troubles played a large part in destroying the childhood of many of our pupils. Some of them came from families where the dad was in, or in and out, of prison and their nightly entertainment was rioting on the city streets. We didn’t know for sure but we speculated that drugs and or alcohol also played a big part in the lives of many of these families.
Fairly often, when a child was not coping for one reason or another, and fairly often we did not know the reason, I would take the brunt of their frustration or anger. Often I was threatened that the ‘big boys’ or ‘my da’ would get me. I rapidly learned not to take things personally though it wasn’t always easy. The aggression, in whatever form, was borne out of frustration, not against me personally.
Some of them regularly threw stones/bricks. At one time it seemed to be the ‘in thing.’ Some threw them at their school windows.
One day, I arrived at a primary school in North Belfast to find the principal barricaded in her office while stones and bricks were being hurled from outside. The principal told me that this particular unruly pupil had a remarkable aim and had no difficulty keeping his eye on the ‘ball.’ Along with the stones came a tirade of verbal abuse. The use of language was staggering! The poor woman wasn’t amused. More than that, I had a feeling that she was actually frightened.
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