School Fest

The hall above bisects the middle of the Southwood Early Childhood Center in Bloomington, MN. Once it was a grade school. In between that and the building's current usage it was once split amongst three groups: a Montessori school, a daycare center and a pilot special educational program named Family Focus. Toward the end of my time in that pilot program however, the Montessori school had moved a few blocks to the north, and I have no idea where the daycare center moved to.  After that, Family Focus had the run of the place until the program was terminated at a date I’ve yet to uncover.

I can still recall the daily routine instilled into students enrolled at Family Focus. A routine that both began and ended inside the open door you see on the left hand side of the photo.

On days without special all-school events scheduled, the routine would go like this: Upon our arrival we would gather in the gym, where our various classes got sorted together by a teacher or their assistant. Our first duty of the day as a class would be forming in a line and marching off to our classroom.  

Being at the front of the line was an honor that either was awarded by merit or one rotated amongst the class per school day; my memory fails me as to which method would see me at times lead the class on in feeling a bit of pride in spite of my dislike of having to be there so far from my home in Minnetonka, MN.

Once at class, a fairly normal school day of the kind you could find in regular schools would take place with subjects like math and all that kind of jazz covered, along with breaks for playtime and lunch.   

The most unique deviation from a “normal” school day for us would be seeing a counselor. This took us out of the classroom and back to the hall by the gym you see here. The counselor’s offices were located down the hall and to the right.  

My counselor was named Thomas Cook. Tom Cook meant well but did not have a clue as to what made me tick and why I had such a hard time in school and doing things like taking part in mass group activities like watching movies, speakers, and so on. I hate to say it, but he viewed me as a kid who needed to conform in order to get by in the world and did his best to achieve his goal. He did not come close to achieving it, because while I gave him respect, I also did not go along with his various schemes. I liked myself just the way I was! Our sessions would last for about a half an hour or so, and then back to class I went.

At the end of the day we would march out of class back to the gym and break up prior to boarding a bus (or in my case, a van) for home. Ringing down the curtain on yet another day doing what I hereby dub the Southwood Shuffle.  

When I went to Excelsior Elementary School, they did not see eye-to-eye with me nor I them. Heck, I was only, what, five or six years old when I got switched to there from Deephaven Elementary School as the Minnetonka School District sought to make something of me as a student.

During my stint at Excelsior, half of my day was spent in a regular class, half in a special education class, while lunch and recess still divided my mornings from my afternoons just like for the rest of the kids.

There is a hill with a modest-sized slope on the northeast side of the school closest to the playground. It is pictured above. Today it has a concrete retaining wall with a mural depicting happy or otherwise content students. The mural (which did not exist during my stint) is ironic in the extreme given that I once got caught up in something on that hill which did not leave me as happy a camper as those kids on the mural.

Despite the slope being so tiny as to be of little consequence to a grown-up, it was deemed dangerous for us kids. Maybe it was because for fear of students getting into trouble over at the TCF Bank next door.  But temptation came calling one day toward the end of our outdoor playtime when I spotted several boys on that forbidden slope. Despite the warnings I had heard, curiosity compelled me to join in and I arrived just in time to get busted with them by one of the school staff.

Our punishment was soon handed down: we had to sit quietly with our heads resting on the tables in the lunch room like we were so many hard cases in a prison. Unfortunately for me, I had landed myself in a jam with just about every cut-up in the place.  

Not only did they not sit quietly, they laughed and giggled amongst themselves as they did things like try to eat gum stuck to the bottom of the tables as they collectively thumbed their noses at the lady trying to keep order in the room as the school dispensed with capital punishment.

I did not join in the fun. I was so overwhelmed by it all I just sat there with my head down and let the Cool Hand Luke Jr.’s do their stuff.  Wishing all the while they would just shut up as their antics and noises were not helping my already crushed morale any. Happy to relate, mom read Excelsior Elementary the riot act when she heard about what they had done to me and took me out of there.  

Recently on the “Anomalies” Klat blog I posted an article entitled “To the time out room,” a succinct reminiscence of a place once located inside Southwood Elementary in Bloomington, Minnesota when it played host to a pilot program named Family Focus in the 1980s.   Targeted at special needs students, these kinds of school rooms have been defended in some circles as providing a means to protect staff and students. It is not just my opinion but bitter personal experience that leads me to believe they must be banned instead.

As I noted in my post to “Anomalies,” Family Focus had a four-step disciplinary program.   If you crossed the line in class, you got a “reminder;” if you crossed it a second time you got a “check mark;” if you crossed it a third time, you got stuck into a cubbyhole equipped with a hard plastic chair where a timer was placed before you set for either three or five minutes. If you crossed the line after that treatment,  it was off to the “time out room.”

The “time out room” was located in a converted classroom located at the head of the T-shaped hallway system in the building.   It was filled with more cubbyholes equipped with hard plastic chairs as well as their heaviest artillery: two cubbyholes with narrow rectangular windows which you would get locked into for the same amount of time as in the cubbyholes.

Did I ever wind up in one of those cubbyholes or booths because my behavior threatened myself or others?  No!  Not once was I banging my head on my desk, trying to cut myself, or seeking to attack somebody.  

In my “Anomalies” post I wrote that I got into trouble because I had (and still have) a hard time with strict rules and was in general rebellious over having to be at Family Focus, but that is a generalization. The nitty gritty facts as to why I would get into trouble stemmed from frequent outburst of crying when I was frustrated, scared, or just plain overloaded. I got no sympathy, even from my counselor, one Thomas Cook. All they wanted me to do was shut up and conform, and whenever I wouldn’t, the vicious cycle of reminder, check mark, time out, and getting hauled off down the hall would revolve again and again.   

The memories that linger aren’t pleasant. The most unpleasant of the bunch is the day that I stood before a man seated at the desk by the time out room door. He had curly black hair and wore dress pants, a white shirt, and a black tie. I still remember with extreme distaste how he looked at me with stern eyes and asked an equally stern voice “Are you ready to go to the film festival?” To which I replied in a trembling voice “What?” as I recoiled inwardly at the very thought of having to attend yet another school activity with the power to send me into sensory overload thanks to the kids and adults almost always whooping with laughter at whatever flick was playing and tearing the heck out of my concentration in the process. My memory is dim, but I do believe his words set off a wild round of crying and agitation from me, though I can’t remember if I was punished or got dragged to the classroom showing the movie.  

At best that man had looked at me like I was some kind of troublemaker, or a wild animal at worst. Regardless, wherever he is now … well, I don’t send him my regards because I think he ought to be ashamed of the way he treated me, because I am not a wild animal but a human being!

Some of my memories from when they would shove me into one of the booths are downright surreal. I remember once defacing the wall of one of those with my spit because I had nothing else to do as I resisted whatever they were forcing on me that day; another time I actually slept in that hellish contraption until a boy locked up in the other booth began calling my name. The staff quickly quashed our attempts at conversation like we were prisoners in a cell block.  

All the times I got hauled down the hall to that room severely taxed me both emotionally and physically. While the punishments they meted out did not break me because I am stubborn to the core of my very being, the sensation of being helplessly hauled off by force despite my desperate attempts to break the grip of the teacher’s assistant hauling me down there ultimately inflicted emotional harm. In fact that experience, coupled with the fact that my father as an abusive bully, gave rise to two great emotions within as I grew older: a deep sense of being unable to protect myself from anyone or anything, and a deep sense of mistrust in other people which helped stunt friendships.    

Call them what you will: “seclusion room,” “time out room,” whatever. Based upon my own experience and what I have read of others, I believe they must be banned from all schools both public and private. They are little better than what you would find in jail, or a POW camp, and contribute nothing to the growth and development of our children because they are a legal form of child abuse.

When I wound up in a special pilot program known as Family Focus back in the late 1980s, I had to go to Southwood Elementary school in Bloomington, Minnesota.   But unlike the school I had just come from –Excelsior Elementary in Excelsior, Minnesota- Southwood did not have its own school library.   The result was that we had to be bused to much bigger nearby Westwood Elementary and use their library. 

Westwood stands near the built-up intersection of Old Shakopee Road and France Avenue.   Our bus would roll up the latter street and then swing down a side street and up to the main entrance, where we would disembark and embark.

One sight that became firmly affixed in my memory was the tall chimney Westwood boasted.   It rose like a landmark each time the school came into view as the bus hummed up France. I was not a happy camper in those days about being so far from home in a strange pilot program filled up with kids who did not fit into the cogs of public education like so many of our peers, and because of that mood that chimney soon took on a melancholy appearance as it frowned down on the school like a monolithic statue raised to celebrate the glories of public education.   It frowned down on me on all those bad days and yes, the rare good one as my life’s path intersected with Westwood on a regular basis.  

Then one day I was freed from that pilot program and now only see that chimney on rare occasions such as the day I snapped its picture for future use in an article about it.  A chimney I now hereby dub “the spire of Westwood.”  It seems to fit.