The first few days

My job is amazing. I love it. This school has given me a relatively free hand in my execution of the curriculm, which I LOVE! It is awesome for me to have the freedom to adapt and modify, as I see it needed, to suit each individual learner in my class! NO PAPER WORK! I don't have to get permission and tests to implement an IPP, I just create their specific program and learning materials as though an IPP was already in place.....except I dont have to follow it exactly, if something isn't working well, I can fly by the seat of my pants. If someone is about to melt down, I can take them to the quiet room and talk with them till they are stabilized, or intervene however will best fit the situation.

I am frustrated in general by the system these kids are in, and how poorly it is constructed, the lack of consistency of care, the limited options for placing these kids, the limited options for handling the kids in placement and the nature of what brought them to this place in the begining!
However, that has little to do with my role in the education of the students, and I am not frustrated with the parameters I am expected to teach in.

This home is very like a juvenile detention center. The floor manager is actually a plainclothes security person.
The floor staff consist of individuals trained in protection and containment of individuals who are a danger to themselves or others.
Everything is locked.
Inside doors, outside doors, food cupboards, after breakfast is served, the bedrooms and dorms are locked. as well, any sharp or weaponizable items such as forks or knives are kept out...the students eat only with spoons. Anything requiring a knife is prepared prior to serving (ie: buttering bread cutting meat).

They are allowed 1 hour of community time per day, to go for a walk or to play outside etc.....this is the point in time where kids go AWOL but that's another story.

My first day was all orientation, the school was closed for that so I only met a couple of the kids that day.
Yesterday was a leap in with both feet! There are 4 girls and 6 boys. Each student's desk is out of arms reach and out of eyesight from each other.
There are three teachers in the class of ten (and sometimes it feels like we need more!!!).
They aren't allowed erasers (they throw them at eachother and it starts fist fights), scissors (I was going to say "DUH" as though I'm such an old hand at this LOL! because they are exceedingly dangerous in the hands of some of these angry young people.), no paper other than what we give them, which they must account for after every class period. This is because they pass notes to eachother....not that every other student in school HASN'T also done the same, but the results of a note passing at YAC are vastly different. They could be notes planning or inviting an AWOL, antagonistic notes that will start a fist fight, or other such nasty things.

One particular student, a native boy with FAS, is bullied so badly by the other boys in the class, that his desk is placed in a corner, with one of my co-teacher's desk placed at an angle as to block anyone from easily approaching the boy.

Sounds unbelievable doesn't it.
The lives these kids have had, is more unbelievable. I save my heartbreak for the drive home.
Each one of my students has to be handled so carefully, keeping in mind where they come from and what they've been through as well as their "crimes" or "issues" and their particular conditioned response to their particular "triggers".....ALL this while making sure that how you deal with each of them LOOKS fair to all the others....because they watch, and they keep amazingly detailed tallies in their heads about who got what dicipline and why, the privelages, the warnings, all to make sure that they "get theirs". They've had to stand up for themselves with no grown up advocate standing with them, it's a survival tactic. Fail to meet that expectation and anarchy results.

Today, I broke up a fist fight, gave a serious incident report to the RCMP, talked a young man out of punching his way through a wall and AWOLing and instead advised him to punch the side of the filing cabinet, once, to start the release of his anger and then talked to him to find a solution and a way for him to resolve it in his own head.

I escorted a hallucinating young woman to the on staff Dr., and "made friends" with two very sullen individuals. (one particular boy seems to be responding really posatively to a very motherly approach... the other girl, is responding beautifully to a big sister/auntie approach....YAY!) I still have 6 to figure out and find a repoire with, so wish me much wisdom!

All that as well as teaching language arts and current events.

I love my job. I love the other two teachers I work with, I'm getting to really like the students and seriously, this is a dream job.
Leishabeth missed the school bus today, so when her school called me, my own class had already been dismissed and we teachers were debriefing....so I was able to slip out and pick her up! Fabulous.

Oh yes, let me tell you about debriefing.
We do it three times each day. Which should give you an idea of the magnitude of issues these kids have. We debrief between 8:30 and 9am to get up to date on how the kids' nights were, who will be coming to class, who won't and why, and then decide whether or not to assign class work or not. We plan the morning classes based on the information we get about the children, during that time as well. If 5 kids had melt downs and got out of control the night before, we're not going to go through with a planned test. It isn't fair to ask them to write a test when they've been either restrained or in a jail cell or kept awake all night by the "fuckus" (Char you have no idea how much I love using that word!)
At noon, to discuss the morning events and what tactics or classes to have in the afternoon, and to make sure we're all on the same page about each of the students (they do their darndest to divide and conquer!)
Lastly, at 3:10 regarding the afternoon, and any other stuff that needs to be discussed.

How I wish I could snap my fingers and make it all work for these kids.
To remove the memory that their parents abandoned them and that they have no home to feel safe and loved in,. It makes me sad that they have to "lay the smack down hard" on anyone who even appears to be usurping their autonomy or projection of "alpha-ness" even in YAC, because the reality is, in their worlds, if they don't, they'll be killed (or maimed or beaten or emotionally hurt, or a constant target of abuse)
I can't, but in the moments that I have to touch their hearts, I can do the best job I know how to do, and love them hard.

Ten kids need loving stable and connected parents....any takers?