So I do have a job lined up using my brand new Commercial Driver's License, but it doesn't have a start date yet. And since I've used up All of my unemployment money, that means I am back to substitute teaching in order to pay the bills, at least for a little while.
Today has me as a one-to-one paraprofessional in a preschool special ed class. I have subbed Pre-K before, and I have subbed middle school special ed, but this is a whole new experience. Let me just share a few notes that I wrote down on a piece of construction paper while watching a little girl play with putty:
Almost everybody in this class seems to be autistic. I can't say that as a fact, but out of the eight students here, at least half of them are showing at least a few behaviors that I associate with autism. And having just read Neurotribes (highly recommended), I have got to say that I am ecstatic and overjoyed about this. There's no way that autism rates are increasing, but if this many kids between the ages of 3 and 5 are being put in a special ed program, then that means awareness and even diagnosis are skyrocketing.
Special ed programs in 2025 are amazing. These kids are actually allowed to be fully themselves. There's no behavioral redirection away from hand flaps or walking back and forth while rotating a plastic dinosaur and mumbling to yourself. Most of these kids are almost totally non-vocal, but they are allowed to vocal stim so long as it isn't bothering anyone. And this entire morning has been nothing but free play, except for breakfast and a quick centering activity to kick things off. In fact, the only redirections that I have seen were about kids spilling sand on the floor or being at risk of hurting each other. Everything else is just them expressing themselves. But social activities are encouraged, every kind of social normalization is rewarded, and nothing has been punished. Of course, we are very far into the school year, so I'm sure there has been a lot of work prior to this point, but the fact is it's working.
This district was able to get these kids in almost one-to-one faculty to student ratio. Other districts in my county are pretty good, but I don't think they have quite this good of resources. New Jersey is split up into so many school districts it's unbelievable. There was a kid here whose lunch was totino's pizza rolls, and one of the staff cut those already-bite-size bits into quarters. That's what it's like in this state. I have worked at two separate schools where the entire school district was just that one K-8 school, and for high school they go to a different district. I am entirely positive that this is because of redlining, especially in the town where I live. There are three different school districts in my zip code. One is well-integrated and wealthy, one is poorly integrated and struggling, and one is almost exclusively black and can barely pay its teachers.
Watching tiny little kids eat lunch is very interesting because of how they choose to eat their lunch. They don't just eat, they graze. But with this many adults around them, most of them immigrant mothers, the kids aren't allowed to just graze. They are told over and over again to keep eating. I do not think it's healthy, and I do not do that. Kid does not want to eat, I do not think they should eat.
One child was eating an uncrustable but she tore it in half, ate the insides, and threw away the uncrust of the uncrustable.
