Becky and the Hominy :))
As I was driving home from work my mood was lifted as a memory surfaced from when I was a teacher. It made me laugh out loud in my car. I hope it makes you laugh as well.
When we moved back to the Dallas area in 1996 I got a job as the Special Education Coordinator for a very small district. The elementary, junior high, and high school were in the same building . K-12 was about 300 students. I was so very proud of this position but I had never lived or worked in such a small town. It was a different world but I grew to love it . I was in that district for four years until I became a drug addict and they asked me to leave:))
As the special education coordinator for this very small district my duties also included teaching in the elementary school . As part of the reorganization of the Special Ed. Department I introduced content mastery and inclusion to the district mainstreaming many of the students in the program but the students with more severe challenges spent their days with me.
There was one student that we will call “Becky”. She was 10 years old and lived in a group foster home on the outskirts of town. Becky‘s story was heartbreaking and she had suffered years of neglect and abuse. I hate the use of labels but I don’t know how else to describe Becky. After much testing she was classified as Emotionally Disturbed , Autistic, and Mentally Retarded. She was also basically non verbal although she did talk some but not much. Becky spent all day everyday with me. We were attached at the hip so to say. Becky’s behavior could be very challenging to say the least.
Becky would get very upset and keeping her on task seemed impossible. Becky threw many tantrums. Students with behavioral problems were not new to me , this is what I had excelled at when I taught in Amarillo. It seemed I had success with the most challenging students. I loved them and wanted them to succeed. I now know God gave me a heart for them but Becky was my greatest challenge. As I said she wasn’t very verbal but when she was she would use her limited words to cuss me out :)) It was shocking to see this sweet little 10 year old girl use the language she did. She would look me in the eye and call me a “bitch” when she got mad . I tried all kinds of behavior modification programs rewarding her for good behavior but they all failed. Only one thing worked and it was basically a threat. For some reason Becky hated hominy . I don’t know why and I don’t know where this fear of hominy came from but she despised it. I honestly don’t know how I learned of this either but I thank God I did. So after countless behavior plans failed I turned what I called the hominy plan. I bought a few cans of hominy and kept them in my desk drawer. One day Becky was out of control and not listening. After countless attempts to get her on task she looked me in the eye and called me a “bitch”. At that moment in frustration and anger I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a can of hominy and put it on my desk and told her if she didn’t sit down this was going to be her lunch. Her eyes got big and she looked fearfully at the hominy and then gave me a dirty look. I told her I wasn’t kidding and as dramatically as possible I pulled out a can opener laying it beside the hominy. She looked at the hominy again then looked me in the eye and whispered “bitch” as she walked back to her desk and sat down. IT WORKED!!! From that moment on I always kept hominy in my classroom. Becky never had to eat it because she always minded when I pulled out the can, she would still call me names under her breath but that improved with time as well.
A lot of the time she was a sweet girl and I would praise her when she did well. Plus when she wasn’t calling me a bitch she would run and hug me saying “ I love you Mrs. Washington” and I would hug her too and tell her I loved her. I know we weren’t supposed to do that but I felt a lot of this little girl’s problems stemmed from not feeling loved so I tried to show her that I really cared and I honestly did.
I really miss teaching sometimes. Remembering this story made me laugh and smile.
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