Some Stories from the Start of School

Less than a day after a student is upgraded from a Go Talk 9+ to a Go Talk 20+ the teacher and a therapist encourage a student to scoot a chair back, the student does so and is given much praise, looks up and spontaneously presses, "I am great!" on the new speech device.

Teacher and student are leaving the main office, having finished their errand. The student steps (accidentally) on the teachers foot and says, "Ow!" The teacher laughs and says, "You stepped on my foot and you said 'ow'?" The student laughs. A passing instructional assistant says, "That's just a verbal cue to remind you what to say!"

Student (using high tech AAC) requests a particular Barney toy. The teacher, with a lilt of humor in her voice and her hand banging the table says, "There are no purple dinosaurs in high school!" The student smiles and repeats the request. The teacher repeats the reply. This continues back and forth for some time until the teacher records her reply onto a Step-by-Step and allows another student to answer the repeated request. Later in the day the high tech AAC user leaves for a walk outdoors with another class and then returns only to have the Step-by-Step user greet him with, "There are no purple dinosaurs in high school!" The paraprofessional pushing the high tech AAC user's wheelchair jumps in and says, "Oh, my nothing has changed in here since we left! Can you believe that?"

Students are gathered around for morning meeting, which ends with a Video of the Day (VOD) on the big screen. A student makes a request for a certain song and the teacher clicks on it and the video starts. The teacher comments, "Oh my, now I see why you wanted this video, those are some pretty ladies!" Without missing a beat the student blows a huge kiss to the screen.

Classroom Quotes

One of the ways I acclimate new hires to my classroom is to have them read the classroom quote book. It is a composition book where all classroom staff right down the funny things that are said in the room. Today a new staff made it to the four day mark (hurray!) so she was handed the book to read. Every time she laughed aloud we asked which one she was on. Here are some of our favorites:

Teacher: Tell me one whale fact.
Student: Don't call me whale fat!

Student one: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Student two: Oh my gosh, he's gonna pop!

Teacher: You drew the word surprised. Show me a surprised face.
Student: (Pantomimes entering a room and turning on a light - like a surprise party.) Surprise! What the hell?!

Teacher: (At the end of a thirty minute lesson on the dangers of drugs) What do you say to drugs?
Student: Please?

Student: I did it! I did it!
Teacher: You did what?
Student: I did my fart in the bathroom like you said!

Student: I did it!
Teacher: You did what?
Student: I said a polite word in the community.
Teacher: Great job!
Student: We don't touch girls in community right?
Teacher: That's right we don't touch girls in the community.
Another customer at the store: Laughing. Men are really all the same aren't they?

Student: (Age 19, in wheelchair, parked near toaster oven during cooking group.) Holy cow, it's like I am having hot flashes over here!

Teacher: What kind of music will there be?
Student: Bon Jovi.
Teacher: The DJ will play Bon Jovi?
Student: (Gives teacher that you're-so-dumb look.) Jon's coming.

Background: The year this happened we had a paraprofessional who was a little off her rocker, she was happy to admit this.
Teacher: Who is crazier, me or the speech therapist? Point to who is crazier.
Student: (Students whips head around, raises arm and points beyond the teacher and the speech to the paraprofessional, laughing so hard she started sputtering.)