The teacher: ‘I can hit myself in the head if Leonieke has got hold of a pair of scissors’

Monday morning, math class. I am in front of a class full of children who suffer from serious behavioral disorders. There are twelve of them. They cannot function in large groups, with all stimuli and activities, which is why they are here at school.

Johnny, for example, has obsessions and tics. He often has to go to the bathroom to wash his hands. He regularly walks to the door to check that it is not locked. Everything is perfectly straight on his table: pencils, eraser. Maartje is depressed. She is too thin because she has no appetite, she sleeps poorly, which causes dark circles under her eyes, and she cries a lot. Ishaan has autism. He does not make eye contact, reacts panically to unexpected sounds, cannot tolerate changes, cannot read facial expressions well.

Resistance

Next to my table is a screen one and a half meters high. A triptych, with a view of the board. Behind it is Leonieke. She has a ‘transgressing normal behavior disorder’, also called oppositional defiant disorder. She resists all rules, cannot learn, cannot form relationships. Not even with her parents, the sweetest people in the world. She steals money from them, lies to them, runs away from home.

She is easily tempered, then destroys things, herself and other children. Recently she attacked Maartje from nowhere, she could not tell why. Since then she has been behind that screen. To avoid stimuli. She cannot see the rest of the class, including myself. So only the plate. Apparently she feels comfortable there, because she can’t get behind it.

She is often noisy. She calls across the classroom, everyone is used to that. But she’s been silent for the past hour. I teach math in a pleasantly peaceful atmosphere, for a change.

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Scissors

Suddenly the class starts to laugh. I look to the side. There Leonieke’s face peeps out above the screen. She has a cat mask on her head. A cat nose with whiskers on her cheeks. And she meows.

It’s such a funny face that I laugh out loud. Only then do I get frightened. How did she make her mask? Which paper? And does she have scissors? I look behind her screen and see that her Dutch language book has been cut into pieces. Furthermore, there are indeed scissors. And glue. She got it from the craft corner.

I can hit myself for the head because, as an aggressive child, she got hold of those scissors. Fortunately she did something nice with it. My heart is with this child. I think she is sweet, with all her unlovable sides. She has a tough future ahead of her. But her humor will get her through.

This article can be found in Kek Mama 01-2021.

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