I called ahead on Wednesday: "Meet me outside, we're going to get supplies."
So we spend about 30 minutes in Walmart searching through notebooks and such, making jokes about notebooks featuring the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana and the like. It was a pleasant trip.
We arrive back at the house and start on our itinerary for the day: Math review, assess what needs to be done to finish the Spanish 1 distance class, and assess Food and Nutrition class. We start with the assessments. He had about a month of work left in the Food and Nutrition, we estimated. I started looking through his spanish workbook; some work was left undone and some was completed. I decided rather than waste time on it there, I would bring it home and work on it later. I did notice that he had adulterated most of the illustrations in the book. One in particular made me laugh, then wonder about it. It's the picture I added here; I asked him about it.
"Dude, what did you do to these pictures?" He started laughing.
"Yeah, I was trying to make that one into like a King Kong. It's not that good."
"Actually, it looks kinda funny," I said. "What about this plane?" He just shrugged. I let go of the subject. He was 9, by the way, when 9/11 happened.
We moved on to math. I was told that he needed to work on his fraction and percentage skills, so I thought we'd do a little review. I started going over some of the principles, and it wasn't long before he interrupted. "Do we have to do this here, or can we move to the balcony?" It was a nice day out; I didn't see why not. He had been rubbing his head, looking generally bored and disinterested, so I thought a change of scenery would be nice.
We got out to this large balcony/deck, where I began to review fractions again. He started pacing, walking around me in circles, so I just followed him with a small whiteboard illustrating basic principles of working with fractions. I actually got kinda dizzy at one point. I made him work through the problems I put on the board, then I had him sit down and do some problems from a book. It was absolute torture to him. The whole time, anything that came to mind, related to the topic or not, came right out. I had to redirect him constantly in my sweet, patient sort of way. "Dude, if you don't focus a little more, we're gonna be here doing fractions all night."
"How much more do I have to do today?" He had been complaining how tired he was the whole time, too.
"Well," I muttered, "Let's finish this lesson, then do problems 1 through 50 on these pages." These were easy questions. He slammed his head down on the table.
"It's not THAT bad!" I laughed, "These are little problems, you can fly right through them if you just focus for a few minutes." He took a deep breath, threw his head back, and put his hands over his face.
"UUUUGGGHHH." He sat back up at attention. "Ok, let's do this."
I started back in on the lesson. We barely made it to the questions. He started on them, constantly chatting as usual, then stopped at about number 11. "How much more time do we have?"
I looked at my watch. It was already about 4:45. I don't quite remember how this worked out, but he managed to get me to let him do the rest for homework. I doubted it, but I thought I'd let him prove something. "It's a completion grade, so you'd better finish it," I said. Just like the day before, he had all kinds of things he wanted to show me and talk to me about, so we chatted for a few minutes before I headed out. I reminded him to study his spelling words and do his math, and I left. I guess I was hoping for the best.
When I arrive on Thursday, I knock on the door to no answer. I knock again, this time hard enough that it opens a little. "Hello?" I yelled in. So I went inside and yelled up the stairs: "Wake up!" I hear some stirring as he gets out of bed. He was sounds asleep. Mind you it's 1 in the afternoon.
"Be down in a minute."
So I get set up. Today's itinerary: math review, Food and Nutrition work, keep figuring out what's needed in spanish, and review some spelling words. When I get to the table, I notice the math book right where I left it yesterday. Untouched. I should have known.
He lumbers down, sits down at the table, and looks like he just rose from the dead. "Tired?"
He nodded. "Was up playing WOW."
"Do your homework?"
He made a face "....No...."
"Well, let me know when you're ready, I need to talk to you about something."
"I'm up, what's up?" I sighed, and got ready for it.
"I need you to be honest with me, because I'm putting a ton of effort into this. I am here to help you get this diploma, full time, but I have to know, are you really ready for this?"
He took a deep breath and shook his head, "Not really."
"Well, I think you can be. This may look like a ton of work right now, and don't get me wrong, it is, but you are fully capable of doing this. I believe in you 100%, you just need to jump in with me and believe that you can do it, too. It just kills me that we're starting off with a zero for a completion grade in your math, over what could have been no more than 30 minutes of work."
I'm paraphrasing, but I must have spoken for five minutes. I told him how much I believed in him over and over, how this was his best chance he had at getting a good education before college, and how I didn't want to see him shipped out to another inpatient system because I didn't feel like he belonged there. He was quiet through the whole thing, and paying close attention for once.
So I asked him again. "Are you ready?"
He nodded this time. With a smile. "Yeah."
I said it again, louder. " Are you READY?!"
"Yes!" He said he was. So I had to believe him.
"GOOD! Because we have a lot to accomplish today, and we're gonna get it done if it kills me."
We briefly reviewed percentages, got into our food and nutrition work, and got stuff done. And while he was still distractible as all get out and hyperactive, he was doing work and somewhat motivated. It took us forever to get through like, 10 questions in his Nutrition workbook, but we finished it. By the way, it's a terrible book, which only made it that much more difficult. Vague, poorly written, boring. When discussing ingredients on a food label, it said, and I quote: "Does it have baked beans or chicken pot pie in it?" We died laughing.
We reviewed some of his spelling words; I helped him with mnemonic devices and "mispronunciation" to get his words right. He focused the most through this, more than he had ever before.
It was 5. "I have to go," I said. He saw a little disappointment in me.
"What's wrong?" he asked me.
"Well, I feel like we could have done a little more of the nutrition and gotten through more spelling words by now, but I'm kind of a perfectionist like that." Anyone who knows me knows how I am about getting a lot done.
"What? We did a lot today!" He said. He was right, too.
"I know, I know.. " The next thing he said made me feel a million times better.
"I've been able to get more done with you than I have anywhere else I've been."
I melted. "Really??"
"Oh yeah. Way more." He could have been lying, but I didn't care at the moment.
Awesome. We left on a high note, and a bargain. Trevor is a bargainer, by the way. It's always, if I give you this next hour, can I show you this video, do this, do that, whatever. So he made me this bargain:
"Hey, if I make a 100 [out of 106 possible points] or more on this quiz tomorrow, can we skip math and nutrition tomorrow?" I acted like I thought about it. My plans were to work on a writing assignment all day, not work on math and nutrition anyways. So I agreed.
"You better study," I said. A good day.
Friday, however, left me more frustrated than ever. I got to the house, rang the doorbell: no answer. Knocked, called, rang, called again, knocked, rang more, etc. I did so for 45 minutes. No answer. He was sleeping, I am sure. I gave up and left.
Such a disappointment. I was all excited to see how well he might do on that quiz. I would have to wait until Monday.
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