The agency is fortunate to have its own special education school right here on campus. It is a county funded school and there are a few "day students," kids who live in the community who have special needs, but practically speaking, it is reserved primarily for our group home boys. There has always been a debate regarding the school's effectiveness regarding the kids' education. Do the kids stay dumb because the school is no good, or is it because of the kids' severe limitations and emotional intrusions?
I don't have the definitive answer, but I do know that the school sends the kids home with dot-to-dots and word searches and tells them it's "homework." The two-story building holds the younger kids on the first floor and the teenagers on the second floor. Whenever one of the older kids tells me he is in high school, I ask him, "You mean the 'higher school', don't you?"
One thing all staff across campus desire is the opportunity to help the kids re-immerse themselves into the outside community. This can be done successfully if it is done gradually and with a lot of supervision. It can start off by enhancing one aspect of the kid's life, such as joining a sports team, taking an arts and crafts class, stuff like that. You have to do it slowly so that the kid isn't too overwhelmed with all the new stimuli and temptations he will invariably find off-campus.
Some of our higher functioning kids have been able to immerse themselves into the public high school, which is about a mile away from our campus. They will start out by attending one class a day until he works his way up to spending the whole day there. Needless to say, in my unit, the sub-acute level of residential treatment, the boys who have been able to make it to an outside school have been very few and far between. In fact, I can only think of one.
Ian was a tall 13-year-old who was intellectually sharp, but had a history of angry tantrums, fire-starting, self-mutilation and violent sexual fantasies. During the few years that I knew him, I had seen him mellow out through puberty and assume the "cool" demeanor. He came out to me one day after spending about a half an hour in front of the mirror and asked, "Don't you think I look like Tom Cruise?"
I nodded. "Oh definitely. If you don't count all the pimples and dark circles under your eyes." So, he was beginning to act like a lot of "normal" teenagers.
At any rate, Ian was our candidate for outside school. Intellectually, he was performing at grade level and his behavior had been great as far back as anyone could remember. The question in everyone's mind in this kind of situation is always: How will he perform under increased scrutiny and peer pressure? Will he be able to stay focused or will he regress to violence and be seduced by gang-bangers or drug dealers? Will the presence of girls be a hindrance? These topics are always discussed amongst the staff and residents when it comes to trying to blend in with the society at large.
After about a month of a seemingly uneventful and productive immersion, Ian looked like he was holding up well. He was completing his homework and there were no signs that he was cracking under the pressure. Aside from the occasional lewd comment about girls, he seemed to be handling himself with poise.
Late one afternoon, as I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, Darius, a skinny, black, grown up crack baby with a huge head and teeth sticking out in all directions came running out from Ian's side of the house. "I knew it, I knew it!" He was panting and pointing to Ian's room. "Porn! He gots porn! I seen it! Titties this big!"
Frankly, I wasn't all that surprised. After all, he is 13 and he now attends public high school where there is access to almost anything. I wasn't upset, but since nudie magazines are contraban, I knew that I would have to confiscate it from Ian and give him a serious talking to.
I called out from the kitchen, "Ian, come out here, I need to talk to you."
No response.
"Ian, you need to get out here and talk about this."
No response.
"Ian, if you don't get out here right now, I'm going to send you to the time-out room and we can have a talk there."
No response.
"That's it. Go to the time-out room. We'll talk there."
Ian emerged from his room and strutted in a cocky, defiant way toward the time-out room. "That's okay," he said. He reached into one pocket and pulled out a fat joint. He lit it up with a lighter he pulled out from his other pocket. As he puffed away he said, "By the time I get over there, I'm not gonna give a shit about anything you say anyway."
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