Nate Stories

Nate's Special ed teacher has a very witty sense of humor. I love the way she tells Nate stories, and the way that she works with him. Here is one good example (this was an email sent to all his other teachers that I was copied on):

Nate Bartholomew is very committed to being the class clown.  He uses this strategy in an attempt to get his peers to like him.  I assume that this might be problematic in your classes as it is in mine when he does his class clowning during instructional times.

 We developed a plan where Nate is going to work really hard to do his best class clowning during non-instructional times such as before morning meeting, during lunch time, or during study hall when others aren't working, etc.. If he should forget and practice his "art" during instructional times, please get Nate's attention and give him the thumbs down. You might also need to ask him if he remembers what thumbs down means....I am confident he will remember.  If the clowning/silliness continues, give him a brief time in the hall (it usually takes about 2 minutes from my class). When he returns, I ask him if he is ready to follow the plan. This usually works.

And another:
Let me share my Tuesday Nate story. He was still very excited on Tuesday when he came to school and was having trouble "focusing"  (surprise!!!!). We are doing a sewing unit in Independent Living so I got him started on the lesson. He was to sew the outside seams of 2 small squares of fabric together. I showed him what to do, got him started and then went to help another student. When I returned to check on him, he had wadded the fabric into a ball and was proceeding to sew through it so that his "ball would stay together"...of course he had a great big grin on his face. I had him take a seat in another part of the room and asked him to let me know when he was ready to work on his project as I had instructed. I checked with him a few minutes later and he said he wasn't ready to come back yet. At the end of the period I let him know I had good news and bad news: the good news was it was Tuesday, so he had study hall with me later that afternoon and could do his project that afternoon. The bad news was there would be no IPad until his assignment was done. When he came 7th hour he brought his assignment from Ms. Dekich's class that he hadn't finished either. He started with that assignment and told me he was finished. Of course I asked to look at it and the "quality" was a bit questionable, so I started to work with him again. His mind was... still at NASA:) I asked him if he lost his brain somewhere while he was on vacation. He assured me that he had and I suggested that perhaps he lost it in the hallway and he could go do a quick search, put it back in, and come back ready to work:) Nate ran (literally) to the hall. I expected him to return in 15 or 20 seconds, but after he hadn't returned after a couple of minutes, I went searching for him. He sprinted around the corner and I asked him if he found it.  "YES!!!" 

I asked him where he found it and he explained "It was in Mr. LeMahieu's room!!!!"  

Great Nate!!!!! Did you put it back in? 

He assured me he had put it in and came back to class with me and finished his assignments:)