February 28th Bad Day at School

This all happened on February 28th…been meaning to post:

It started with a note from Ben’s teacher, in which I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry:

Hello,

Ben had a difficult day today. He repeatedly disrupted the two students who sit next to him. He copies everything they say and he calls them names like, “Big Bird.” He also tries to pet one of the students and he says, “What nice fur you have.” I told him that if it continued tomorrow I would have to change his seat. We discussed how those two boys are his friends, and we practiced appropriate ways to talk to our friends and get their attention. If you could talk to him about this I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Ms. ______

But  that night I discovered that the experience at school with Ben was not funny at all. He cried all during his homework and said he wanted to go to his room. I asked him if I could come with him and we went together. I told him that sometimes there were certain situations that were just not good and that it happens to everyone–it’s happened to me, I told him. “You can be in a bad situation, like this school where you’re just not happy. But we’re going to find you a new school and it will all be better and you won’t feel like this anymore.” He looked at me and through his tears he said:

“I want to climb back inside your stomach and live there from now on. I used to hear you sing from inside there and sometimes you would wake me up. And when I looked through the dark I could see the stars.”

I hugged him while running these sentences through my head. And then I left the room to find a pen.