Just another day at school ... really?

As I wrote in my previous blog post, I go to support Aditya in class for the last two hours each day. Every night, I (do my best to) update my husband about everything I saw at school. This takes about 30 minutes each time. Last night, my husband was busy working and had just a few minutes before he got back to his computer and I had to give him the highlights of what I saw. As I went over the day's events in my mind, I realized what an awesome day it was!

- After lunch, Aditya is among the first few to line up, wash his hands and start reading (it is DEAR time!) He started reading with total focus, recorded the book in his reading log, put it away, got another book. As he was putting the new book in his folder so he can be ready for reading the next day, he flipped and looked it over. Suddenly, he got up from his chair, went back to the library, put away the book and got another one. I found this to be profound! He is no longer just getting books and moving his eyes over the pages because somebody has asked him to do it, he is actually taking an interest in what he reads! He was totally cool about getting a book, not liking it and hence replacing it with something he likes.

- The entire class was on the rug for agenda time. In the end, the teacher asked everybody to stand and echo what she said and also mimic her. "Hello, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory..." (Similar to this on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGe3JhHMwTY )
Aditya enthusiastically joined in, followed the teacher and after a couple iterations, started giggling! OMG! He was so not rigid, so going with the flow and also enjoying the moment! It was so precious that I felt the need to have a good camera phone!

- After the song, his teacher wrote her expectations from the class for the remainder of the day:
a. Finish your "Hopes and Dreams for the year" picture and ask an adult to put it up on the wall
b. Complete things in your "Unfinished work" folder
c. Jobs
d. Dismissal
Aditya had already finished his "Hopes and Dreams" (He later told me that he had not written his real hopes and dreams because he didn't want everybody to know .. and it is anybody's guess what they are ... to reach the end of stage 5 in SRP!)
He then reached for his unfinished work folder and  realized that he had finished everything. Then I pointed out to him that he still had papers in the folder. He had not realized that he needs to turn in work as he finishes it. He went up to his teacher and asked her where he could put it. She pointed him to a shelf where all the writing/ Math folders were lined up in name order. He found an adult to help with hole punching, found his writing folder, successfully opened it, carefully put in the paper, closed the clip and put the folder back in. He came to me and proudly said to me "Did you see how I did not just thrust the folder back into place? I gently pulled the folder on my left a few inches out, then put mine in and put the other boy's back in again."
(I was happy we had worked that in the playroom this summer. I had gone in asking him for help punching and filing copies of the developmental model in the folders for his new SRP friends who were to attend the first team meeting. He was motivated and it worked his motor skills:) I had not realized till that day how much planning it takes to actually file a piece of paper and put it away. I am so glad that I worked on skills that help him feel successful at school)
When he was turning his Math pattern papers, his teacher asked him to color the beginning letter of his name dark.  Honestly, I was confused, since he had already colored the squares for various patterns, outlined the squares which had the letter at the beginning of his name. He persisted and asked his teacher, "Do you mean I should color this again?" She then explained again (I still did not get it). He thought for about 15 seconds, picked up a marker and started working on it. Done in a minute and back to the teacher.
He does not have an end-of-day class job this week. He is the moderator, who brings in the morning message, changes calendar, moderates meetings and agenda and dismisses kids at the end of the day. So while everybody else was busy with their unfinished work and jobs, he had nothing to do! He went up to his teacher and told her that he has been checked off all lists, and asked her what he could do now. She gave him the choice of reading or drawing/ coloring. He sprinted to the class library, saw a couple titles, turned around and sat on the rug. Watching him for a couple minutes, I joined him on the rug. Classic SRP joining in the middle of the classroom.. squinting eyes to look under the bookshelves, look at the parrot (class pet), stare at the rug. After about three minutes (which felt like forever in a busy classroom) I initiated a conversation with him. "Hi .. How are you doing? .. I noticed you going to the library and then not getting a book. What happened?" "I realized that I had already read today and I am just a little bit tired now. I want to sit on the rug and wait for teacher to read and then dismiss."
I think we need to work more strongly on his SRP goal of taking initiative.

- And here is what I thought was the highlight of the day .... At agenda, a group of girls brought up a problem they had. (These girls were crying hysterically after lunch the previous day and were working on it using conflict resolution techniques the entire time after lunch. They were finally ready to present their problem to the class) The girls explained their problem as follows, "We were playing in the mud yesterday, making houses for worms and other insects, as we love nature. Some kids came by and started saying that our club is yuck and started saying Ewww to us. We told them that they were hurting our feelings. But they kept saying mean things."
Aditya: "But why did you start crying?"
Girls: "Because we were very sad they said mean things to us."
Aditya: "Still, why did you cry?"
Girls: "Because we were upset about they calling us mean things."
Aditya: "But why not use words but use crying?"
I was about to roll on the floor with laughter! This has been a perspective modeled to him over the years in his SRP and he just couldn't get why they were crying!
Then the teacher intervened and said to him: "Well, Aditya, sometimes people get so sad and upset that they feel better when they cry."
Hmm, welcome, my son, to a world where happiness is not necessarily a choice :)