#17: Kunte still likes the bathroom:

Today Kunte asked me if he could use the bathroom. Since he hadn't already used all his bathroom visits, I let him. Once again, he spent a good 15 minutes in there, but I didn't hear any flushing or gurgling sounds. I knocked on the door and didn't get any response. Finally I opened the door to see what was going on.

Kunte was laying face down in the middle of the bathroom with his eyes closed. Immediately fearing the worst I rushed over to him to see if he was alive. As soon as I sat next to him and started looking for vital signs he sits up and looks at me. In a frantic voice, I asked him if he was alright, if anything was wrong. He smiled and said,

"No I was just sleeping."
"Sleeping?!?", I inquired, "If you needed to take a nap you could have asked to go to the nurse, why are you sleeping
in the bathroom".
"Because the tile is cool."

#12: Macaroni Fiasco:

I had the tards make macaroni pictures today. They make thousands of these things as they progress through the elementary school special needs program.

Despite that, most of them still have a lot of trouble getting the general concept. I'll usually end of with one or two students who don't use glue, and a few who don't use macaroni. The pictures they make are so open to interpretation you could use them as a Rorschach test.

The arts and crafts time was progressing as normal, in essence, the tards were yelling occasionally, getting frustrated and ripping up their pictures, or just staring at the big Tupperware bowl of macaroni.

I was circling the table calming them down and encouraging them to participate, when Kunte, who had been in the bathroom, started walking back towards the table. He saw Antonio taking pieces of macaroni off of his drying picture. Kunte yelled "MINE!" and started running towards the table. The table was only five or six little tard steps away, but after about three steps Kunte tripped over his own feet. He came crashing down face first on table, covering himself in glue and macaroni, and toppling the table, macaroni, and glue all over the floor. Antonio pulls his macaroni picture out from under Kunte and starts hitting him with it.

Picture this scene: One screaming tard covered in glue, pasta, and cardboard convulsing on my classroom floor, while another tard beats him with a rolled up, half dry macaroni picture. As this happens, the rest of the tards, even the ones who were just staring at the macaroni bowl, are now screaming, crying, jumping up and down, or trying to hide under the table.

My aides calmed down most of the bystanders. I pulled Kunte off the table and got his change of clothes (yes, we keep a change of clothes for all the tards) out of my cabinet. I punished Antonio for hitting by telling him he had to clean up all the loose macaroni. Because of his obsessive nature, this is appropriate punishment for him, as having to deal with that kind of disorder drives him crazy.

#7: Tards have food fight

My tards usually aren't very adept at thinking for themselves. They tend to mimic. Occasionally you'll find that one of them does something the others view as "cool" and they all start in copying it. Unfortunately what that one person does isn't usually cool, in fact it's usually retarded.

This was the case with our ice cream day. The entire class had been rewarded with an afternoon where we ate ice cream and played games. Just as a side note, no one other than the aides pointed out that ice cream day was actually a half day, but what do you expect. Anyway while the tards were eating their ice cream, and I was going around trying to make sure the ice cream went in their mouths, Kunte gets the brilliant idea of starting a food fight.

Kunte grabs a scoop of ice cream from his bowl, screams "FOOD FIGHT!," and smacks himself right in the face with his ice cream. He didn't even know that a food fight meant you throw the food at OTHER PEOPLE!

Almost as soon as he does this, all the tards in the room start grabbing ice cream and smashing their faces with it. It was absolutely amazing.

Eventually my aides and I calmed everyone down. I was trying to figure out how I should punish Kunte, and I asked him where he got the idea for his food fight. He said he saw it on TV, and that someone grabbed a handful of food, stood up, and then he couldn't remember what happened. I considered explaining the concept of a food fight to him, but instead I just sent him home early with a note telling his parents what he did. Maybe they'll tell him.

#3: Fun with water

The door to the bathroom stays closed most of the day. The tards know that they need to talk to one of the aides or myself if they have to use it. Each tard is allowed to use the restroom 4 times a day, unless they have some sort of medical condition.

The "4 times a day" rule was started because of Kunte.  Kunte always tries to ask different aides if he can leave to use the bathroom. He must ask each aide at least five times a day. Because of this I now keep track of his bathroom usage on the board. I put a check next to his name each time he goes to the bathroom, this way each aide knows if he's used up all his restroom privileges.

Recently I found out why he goes to the bathroom so much.

One morning, I put one of my aides in charge and left to grab a Pepsi from the teachers lounge. As I pass the bathroom I hear frantic splashing and heavy breathing. I knock on the door and ask if everything is OK, the splashing immediately stops. I realize something is up and open the door to see what's going on.

I find Kunte in one of the stalls, on his knees and covered in toilet water. I asked him what he was doing. Apparently he
had been dunking his head in the toilet, flushing, and trying to drink as much as he can. When I asked him why, he responded, "I saw Charles do it."

I walked him down to the office and called his father. I told him that he was apparently emulating a friend or sibling named Charles, and that they might want to do something about it. The father proceeded to tell me that Charles was the family dog.

I had to hang up, it was just too funny.