Squirmy, a kindergarten student, came across my desk because his agency case worker referred him for a re-evaluation to see if he needs a more restrictive environment for behavioral issues (i.e. smaller classroom or agency). He's currently only receiving speech services. I observed Squirmy in the classroom yesterday and he was decidedly not squirmy. He was mostly composed, on-task, and got his work done. Hm. Curious.
I took Squirmy for IQ testing this morning, and his true colors began to shine through. He was quite excited, and took off running down the hall towards my office. After choosing a special Santa pencil to do his test, and sharpening it for approximately 2.25 minutes until it was half gone, Squirmy bolted down the hallway towards the room I was going to be testing in. He was instantly overwhelmed and intrigued by his surroundings. There were bags of donated clothes, uniform shirts, hats & gloves, computers, coffee making supplies, office supplies, tables, chairs, white board markers, wall hangings, and all kinds of goodies. Squirmy cataloged this in his mind for later.
Whoever decided to make the first subtest on a preschool IQ test have blocks as manipulatives is possibly insane. Squirmy immediately began rolling the blocks as dice around the table (and floor), stacking them, and generally doing everything with them except replicating the patterns I modeled for him. He also decided it was time to check out his surroundings, and went for the computers. He was so insistent on trying to play on them that he checked each one by pounding the mouse and keyboard. After redirecting Squirmy and getting a few more answers out of him, he was off again to pull clothes off the shelves, investigate a carousel of funky scissors, and see if said scissors could cut through shirt fabric (the shirts went unharmed). He also asked if he could wear my glasses and tried to remove them from my face. Remembering that he had broken his own glasses in half yesterday after my observation, I kindly declined. Squirmy decided he wanted to try and pull the American flag from the wall instead, anyway.
Squirmy calmed somewhat after the promise of stickers for good behavior upon completion of our "games" and became interested in subtests where he had to complete picture patterns and match pictures that had similar characteristics. But oh! What was that on the floor? A red sticky gift bow left over from our holiday donations?! Squirmy had to have it, and couldn't concentrate on defining any vocabulary words that I was throwing around. Determined to make it stick to his head, Squirmy ignored all else... except his special Santa pencil, which he began rolling across the table. I pulled Squirmy into my lap, thinking proximity would help him to focus.
After he stopped trying to pull my sweater up, he discovered that maybe the red bow had stick left to it after all (or maybe I just have better balance, since it kept falling off his head. I wonder why). Onto my head the red bow went, and we began some word riddles.
Yes, gentle readers, there I was: sitting with a red holiday bow atop my head and Squirmy McAntsypants wriggling in my lap waving his special Santa pencil like a baton. I love my job.
Sometimes it's whatever works!
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