A Special Challenge

After the Quiet One starts throwing tantrums that mimic Girly Girl's, I move the toys from the shelves to the lockers. My students sit in stunned silence. "When you can learn to work with the toys in the room," I tell them, "I'll put them back."

Even without the toys to throw, the tantrums continue. In desperation, I set up a makeshift discipline system, drawing three lines, like tallies, on the board. "You can play again when the lines are erased," I tell them.

DURING A CALM WEEK IN NOVEMBER, the cluster program's site supervisor from 825 visits. The woman enters my room dressed in a suit and heels. She notes that my students look happy, as they play peekaboo with her behind bookshelves.

"So you just have the three students?" she says. She asks if I can take more. I tell her I won't unless I get an aide. She appears taken aback.

I ask her about teaching materials, and she suggests I e-mail 825 with my list. Two weeks later, I will be directed to another school's supply room, where I will receive first-grade phonics kits and the second half of the kindergarten curriculum, all too advanced for my class.

The woman will return in January, and another person will come in May, but their visits are the same. They interrupt class, leaving me to try to engage the students and talk to the visitors at the same time, like a parent chatting with a neighbor while the kids wreck the house. They ask a few generic questions, invite none from me and leave. In June, I tell the representative from 825 who is evaluating the cluster program that it isn't working. Without an aide and no structure in place to help the kids move into regular education, they aren't learning all that they should. She nods and jots a note on her clipboard. She's just collecting the information, she explains, and doesn't have the power to change it.

Later, I will try to find out why I didn't receive more help. I call John White, the school system's director of communications, to ask why 825 never furnished my classroom or gave me proper teaching materials. I also want to know the purpose of the three visits to my classroom. But over the course of a week and six conversations with him, White says he is unable to find someone at DCPS's central office who can give me a response.

On my own, I manage to reach Tara Mahnesmith, who became director of the Teaching Fellows program this year. The program depends on the central office to provide clasroom materials and adequate staff for mainsteaming. But in response to feedback from other fellows, Mahnesmith says, the program began providing more behavior management training last summer. I tell her that fellows really need mentors who can be at school to support them on a regular basis, not just when there is a crisis.

"Support is a loaded word," Mahnesmith tells me. "It doesn't happen when you have two people and 150 fellows," referring to herself and the summer institute coordinator. She says the program is working to connect fellows with another mentoring program in the school system. Meanwhile, she says, the program is encouraging fellows to seek out resources on their own.

In my graduate classes toward permanent certification at Trinity University, other fellows share stories of getting hit by students, but not all of the special education fellows are as miserable as I am. Those who parachute in to help special ed students who have been mainstreamed seem the most relaxed. But some of my peers have it worse. My friend Kate, who teaches in a cluster program for students with emotional disabilities at an elementary school, sprained her back when one of her students pulled a chair out from under her. She came back to school on pain medication.

BY MID-DECEMBER, WE HAVE GONE DAYS WITHOUT A TANTRUM. But the calm ends when Spidey misbehaves. I put him in timeout, and he slaps me. Shocked, I stand up, holding one hand against my face. This is different than being hit during a tantrum. This is intentional, malicious.

Later, I call Spidey's mother and explain what happened. "He hit you?" she asks, surprised. "He's not getting any movies or TV tonight," she assures me. That night, my mind whirs, replaying the scenario. Girly Girl has hit me from Day One. This is the first time Spidey has hit. He must have learned this at school, in my classroom. I sob: This has become normal behavior for my students.

During winter vacation, I decide to treat January like the beginning of the school year. The strategies I've learned as a fellow aren't working, so I reach back to my days at the camp for children with disabilities. Intended for first-through-sixth-graders, that program relied heavily on positive reinforcement. Instead of specific rules -- keep your hands to yourself -- the rules cover everything. Be safe, be nice, be responsible. I'll make it my mantra, modeling how to act in class, outside and in the hall, and I'll put stickers on my students when they're doing the right thing. Meanwhile, I'll keep the timeout system as a backup.

The stickers appear to be working. During the last week of January, we take a field trip to the Museum of Natural History with Brown. When we unload onto the steps of the museum, the Quiet One runs up the stairs, pulling on my hand. Spidey pulls at my other hand, yelling at the Quiet One to hurry up. Inside, they run straight for the large elephant in the lobby. "Wow! Cleaver! Cleaver!"

"That's an elephant," I explain, and I pull out work sheets with pictures of animals that I want them to find. Spidey and the Quiet One take their markers and work sheets but don't look at them. They hurry to the mammal hall and run up and down the aisles, screaming my name and pointing at animals. We are standing in front of the giraffe when Brown and Girly Girl find us. Ten minutes before our bus arrives, I take them outside to run around the Mall. My head spins. I'd imagined fights, temper tantrums, lost children, kicking and screaming, but, nothing.

Brown praises me later. "Look how far they've come. At the beginning of the year, they wouldn't go into the classroom, and now they've gone to a museum!"

This, I think, is my first real success as a teacher.

ON VALENTINE'S DAY, I MEET MY STUDENTS IN THE CAFETERIA. "Happy Valentine's Day!" I exclaim. The Quiet One unzips his backpack and pulls out a large, velvet, heart-shaped box and gives it to me. "Thank you! But remember, I have a boyfriend," I tease.

We walk to the prekindergarten class, where the students are making valentines. The Quiet One watches while Girly Girl sits at a table and starts to cut out a large pink heart. I tell Spidey to sit at a table. He shakes his head and walks away, pacing the room. After 10 minutes, he walks to a shelf and knocks a box of toys onto the floor. I ask him to clean it up and sit down.

"No," he says, and sticks his tongue out at me. I wind up carrying him back to my room, where we make a deal: We can go back to the party if he follows the rules.

"Okay," Spidey agrees. I extend my hand. He shakes it and grins.

Back in the prekindergarten classroom, our deal wears off quickly. Now the children who are finished with their valentines are playing. Spidey hurries to the blocks corner, smashes a tower, then runs away. During cleanup, I take Spidey's hand and walk him to the blocks corner. He runs away. Frustrated, I walk to get him. Seeing me, he jumps over chairs and crawls under tables. When I finally catch up, my face is red. "Come on," I say, taking his hand and hurrying to the office. Twenty minutes later, Brown returns with a much calmer Spidey.

The next time I see Brown, Spidey has attacked me during reading. "Ms. Cleaver," he asks, stopping me in the hall. "Are you okay?"

"No," I say, defensively, "I was attacked." I realize how this sounds -- Spidey is 5; I'm the teacher -- and this just makes me more frustrated.

I try to retreat into the teachers' bathroom, my chin wobbling. "Ms. Cleaver, it'll be okay," he says. "We'll get through this."

Before I leave, I learn that Spidey has been suspended for a day. "Even if he has an IEP. He knows what he's doing," Lawrence says. But she cautions me again: "You're too diplomatic, too nice. That's not going to work."

I TAKE THE NEXT DAY OFF TO CALM MYSELF. I spend that evening researching new behavior management tools on the Internet. Everyone has been telling me to crack down. I admit to myself that my way -- the even delivery, the positive reinforcement -- hasn't worked. So, I think, here goes.

On Friday morning, I start to lecture.

"You all have gotten some bad behaviors," I say, "sticking your tongue out, saying 'no' to me, hitting, kicking, pushing, jumping on the chairs. These behaviors are not appropriate. I won't accept them anymore."

I'm struck by how loud and unyielding my voice sounds. They look at me, then at each other. They seem to notice a difference, too.

"I set up levels so we can stop these behaviors right now," I continue.

I lead them to a colored graph representing the different levels, with each child's name pinned to the chart. "Right now, you are all on green level. That means you are following the rules." I point to a table with a green square taped in the center: "When you are on green level, you can play with whatever toys you want. When you start acting up, sticking your tongue out, teasing, or anything like that, you move to yellow level. When you are on yellow level, you sit at that table." I point to the other table, with a yellow square in the middle. "And, you may only play with the toys on the brown shelves." Before school, I rearranged the toys so that only the un-coveted toys are on the brown shelves.

"If you keep acting up, then you'll move to orange level." I move the Quiet One's name up to orange level to demonstrate. "When you are on orange level, you must take a timeout, and you can't play with any toys."

They are watching me intently, wide-eyed. "If you hit another student or hurt another student, then you are automatically on orange level," I tell them. "And, if you continue to misbehave, you move to red level, and you must go to the office."

For the next week, they learn the new system. They test it, moving in and out of timeout, spending the afternoon in "yellow," making frequent visits to the office. I don't let up. Brown has gotten too busy, so when I need help, I call Lawrence. As though for the first time, I watch her as she handles the students -- respectfully but firmly, too -- like the alpha dog in a pack.

The color system becomes routine after a week. Almost miraculously, it works for both big and small behavior problems. I realize that I've created the group dynamics that I wanted in September when, after Spidey sticks his tongue out at me during writing, I move him to yellow. He starts to cry and hobbles over to the yellow table with his work sheet and marker, where he sits until I move him back to green.

"What are the rules?" I ask him.

"Be safe, be nice, be responsible," he replies. "Sorry, Cleaver."

After months of my being more disciplinarian than teacher, my students are staying on task. Making the transition to regular education will need to wait for another year. But in June, they manage to spend a day in the overwhelming kindergarten class -- because my AC is still broken -- and follow directions, working and playing with their peers. One by one, I also help them achieve their IEP goals. By June, Spidey reads short sentences -- I like pizza. I love Daddy-- and can write his full name. Girly Girl learns to say her full name when asked and to count to 15. The Quiet One describes shapes using two words, counts to 20 and writes the first letter of his name. On the last day of school, he writes the second letter and grins.

Before they leave, I hug them each goodbye. "See you next year," I tell them. It is not a dramatic parting. They gape at me, unsure of what "next year" means.

I do look forward to next year, until I walk into my classroom again in August, this time with 10 students with severe disabilities and behavior problems. I will have an aide, but, without enough support from 825, it won't be enough. I will tender my resignation before the holiday break but will be talked into staying on until the end of the year at another elementary school, just long enough to finish the fellows program.

But right now, I am newly confident about my skills as a teacher. Holding a bag stuffed full of her schoolwork, Girly Girl looks around the now bare room, and smiles. "This was fun," she says.

"Yes, it was," I reply.

Samantha Cleaver is a special education teacher for D.C. Public Schools. She can be reached at cleaver_samantha@yahoo.com. She will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.