From time to time my life takes a bizarre and completely unexpected turn. I am just a regular guy. I have a wife (she will be 40 on Thursday, don't tell anyone), three regular kids, well, two regular and one imp, and two motorcycles.
I like normal. Normal is good, it's reassuring and it's just well .... normal.
Then my soon-to-be-forty wife comes home and regales me with the Salvadore Dali of High School life.
Fittingly we will now jump the surreal squiggle and hear the tale.
In a High School class not too far from here, the names protected to preserve the anonymity of the hapless and the unfortunate, there is a boy in a wheelchair.
There is nothing unusual about that. High Schools up and down this great nation are pretty good on access and inclusion, as they should be. Generally, those students and staff alike are able to go about their business unhampered. Appropriate accommodations are made, and life goes on.
This is a situation that American Schools do deal with very well. Whether this situation is brought about by a general goodwill and insight, or a generation of law suits is neither here nor there. I sometimes feel that the US goes overboard, actually, with it's provision for the handicapped. I feel this especially outside Homedepot when it seems like every parking space is closed to me, and open to the very section of the community least likely to be buying a ladder, but I squash my selfish inclinations and accept that I would rather there be too much provision than too little.
Meanwhile, back in the High School the student concerned has lost the person designated to help him with his daily routines. Not lost, it's just that the previous helper left, and the staff are trying to figure out who will take over.
One would imagine that finding a replacement amongst the many ancillary staff would be a routine matter, fixed in a few minutes by asking first for a volunteer then, if one is not forthcoming, appointing someone. There, job done, it took one email blast and five minutes consideration.
Whooooahhhhh! Not so fast Mister!
Oh no. You see there are body parts involved. You know, he is a boy and he has a willy. Imagine that, a High School student, of the male persuasion, has a penis and occasionally needs to use the bathroom.
Well apparently penii (although he only has one) are a problem. This student managed perfectly well with his previous assistant, a woman who, in a very relaxed and matter of fact way accompanied this student to the bathroom, and held a jug. She didn't have to touch anything, or even look and for the whole of last year it wasn't an issue.
My wife now holds the teaching position that covered this issue last year, and she brought her classroom assistant with her. It was the previous assistant who helped the student, so all eyes fell on Mrs Twiggs assistant to take over. Well apparently there is nothing in Mrs Twigg's Assistants job description about "jug holding", and she doesn't want to do it. Not only that but the student doesn't want her to. Unlike his previous helper, the new assistant is way too cute, and he is a teenage boy and ... well you get the picture.
So the hunt was on and I go back to my previous statement about this being a simple, if delicate, management issue. Ask for a volunteer, probably from the staff used to dealing with personal issues, and fix it.
:: sigh :: It's never easy. There are all sorts of objections and few of them have anything to do with providing an education, or a support service to the student.
Meetings have to be held. Phone calls placed and emails sent. Everyone and his dog has to be consulted, and all their objections, concerns, downright pettiness smoothed over and mollified.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE JUST HOLD THE DAMNED JUG?!?
Eventually there is a compromise. The assistant to the multi-function class will perform the task. It's not like this young man pees every five minutes. It's once a day, maybe twice if he has extra orange juice at lunchtime, and it takes five minutes. But the Multi-function class teacher can't manage without one of her several assistants for five minutes, so Mrs Twigg says she will hold the jug. "It's just a jug, and I have a husband and three children. I have seen a willy before, it's no big deal".
Mrs Twigg is elected "Back-up Jug Holder", a title I feel confident she never expected when completing her degree and Teaching Certificate.
Mrs Twigg's assistant will go to the Multi-function room to cover the absence of one of the assistants for five minutes, maybe once a day, and all is well.
This took about ten folk most of a whole day to sort out .... Now where did we put that jug?