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It is very hard to tell what pushes their buttons. It can often be something totally innocuous, like someone not passing the ball to them while playing football. Then they will storm off the pitch screaming blue murder and weeping uncontrollably. One of our pedagogic aims is to prevent them from venting frustration on each other. It is considered a minor triumph if they go and kick the living daylights out of a door or a fencepost instead.
During classes I have been roped in as an assistant teacher. I am trying to teach the fundamentals of adding and subtracting. It can be a pretty frustrating process. I am used to being able to break things down into ever simpler concepts until a student understands a basic principle, then you can build things up from there. However, with basic arithmetic you get to a point at which things cannot be made any simpler. You hit an explanatory rock bottom. Many of these kids have some form of cognitive delay and they won’t ‘get it’ even at the most basic level. As soon as I hide the counters or beads or whatever, they founder. It’s a pretty tiring and unrewarding process and the teachers who work with these kids have the patience of saints.
Kids are allowed to walk out of the classroom at any time. They are encouraged to do so if they feel that they may shortly lose emotional control, though very few of them have that level of self-awareness. There are a few who abuse the system by walking in and out of the classroom whenever it suits them, though this does detract from their ‘reward time’ later. I often find myself wondering what would have happened to one of these children had they been put through an English Prep School like my own. Would the high levels of discipline and the constant threat of punishment have had a salutary or a detrimental effect? How do symptoms of Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder respond to cold morning runs, hours of mud-clearing and the occasional application of Mr. Perry’s slipper? It would make for an interesting piece of research.
I had to present a case study on one of the children at the treatment centre. I chose to write about Kenny (not his real name). Kenny is a 10 year old African-American boy. Most of the time he is extremely charming and engaging. However, his tantrums have to be seen to be believed. I was unaware that it is possible to cry as vigorously as he does: the tears actually jump off his face like little bullets.
Kenny’s great love is nature documentaries, particularly anything concerning lizards, snakes or crocodiles. His depth of knowledge about reptiles is astounding, as is the complexity of the vocabulary he uses. He invents extremely imaginative stories and blends fact and fiction in very fanciful ways. I often talk to him about snakes; he seems to find it very calming. I think he is gratified by my interest and relishes the opportunity of displaying his mastery of a subject. This is rare for him since his reading and arithmetic are both developmentally delayed.
Kenny grew up in a broken home. His father was in and out of jail. He frequently moved house with his mother and continues to do so. As a 5 year old he formed a close friendship with a 7 year old girl who was then diagnosed with a brain tumour and died shortly after. Kenny arrived at the school two years ago with a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, recently Kenny has started having auditory and visual hallucinations. He reports hearing voices and seeing a ‘Naga’ and a ‘shotting gun’. He claims there are homeless men ‘making dukie’ around his front door and that he has to clear it up (which his mother says is untrue) and he has started defecating around the house. At times Kenny runs out of the classroom with his hands over hears ears. He goes to the quiet room where he writhes around on the floor. He has now been diagnosed with Schizophreniform Disorder, a version of Schizophrenia.
Recently I sat in on a therapy session with Kenny. The therapist asked him to draw a picture of himself. He drew a stick man with a peculiar appendage emerging from his hand. The therapist then asked him to draw how he felt. Kenny drew a box and coloured one half yellow and the other half red. The therapist asked him to draw how he would like to feel; Kenny drew lots of stick men.
The therapist then asked Kenny to explain the drawings. Kenny stated that the first drawing was himself and his ‘Naga’. He didn’t want to dwell on it. The second drawing, the red and yellow halves of a square, was the way he felt because he always has a sense of being pulled in two different directions. One is his good side, the other is his bad side. The drawing of lots of people represents how he would like to feel because, as he said, ‘I want to return to my people’.
When Kenny had left, I asked the therapist about the ‘Naga’. Apparently, ‘Naga’ is the name that Kenny gives to his animal spirit who is with him at all times. Kenny’s ‘Naga’ is a lizard. This is very similar to the ‘daemons’ in the Philip Pullman series. The therapist told me to look up ‘Naga’ on wikipedia, which I did:
Nāga (Sanskrit: IAST: nāgá, Indonesian: naga, Javanese: någå, Khmer: neak) is the Sanskrit and Pāli word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very large snake - specifically the King Cobra, found in Hinduism and Buddhism. The use of the term nāga is often ambiguous, as the word may also refer, in similar contexts, to one of several human tribes known as or nicknamed "Nāgas"; to elephants; and to ordinary snakes, particularly the King Cobra and the Indian Cobra, the latter of which is still called nāg in Hindi and other languages of India.
Naga Goddess
The therapist came across this by accident. She asked Kenny how he had found out about Naga. Kenny says that he invented the word. If that is true, then it is powerful evidence for Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious.
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On Friday night I went out with a friend from my judo club. The judo club attracts a colourful mix of people. The head Sensei is a 50 year old, two time Olympian (heavyweight) who trains San Francisco’s SWAT teams. Grappling on the floor with him is a farcical business. It is like being slowly crushed to death by an enormous Boa Constricta. He barely has to make the slightest effort and keeps up a lighthearted commentary whilst manoeuvring his weight onto my chest; that is sufficient to make me tap out.
My friend, on the other hand, is quite proud of his ghetto heritage. He is also powerful but not in the same league as the head sensei. Sartorially there is more than a small nod to Turtle, the character from Entourage. Think baggy.
After judo we went to a nightclub South of Market called Mighty’s. My friend used to work there as a bouncer so we were ushered past the considerable queue. As soon as we got in we saw two stocky young men trying to get at each other but just about being restrained by their respective groups of friends. My friend tensed his shoulders, puffed out his chest and made a beeline for the melee. I prayed that I wouldn’t be expected to get involved in some local turf war. Looking around, I realized I was the only white person. In itself that wouldn’t worry me, but I realized that statistically it was quite likely that at least one of the patrons of the club would be an older version of the kids I work with at the treatment centre. That particular patron might not know his tai-otoshi from his seoi-nagi, but I still wouldn’t rate my chances for a second.
Fortunately, the situation diffused itself. For the next two hours I was mesmerized by some extremely high level Bboy dance-offs – all entirely spontaneous. Circles were formed, battle lines drawn; perhaps the turf war was resolved that way. In the past I have introduced my one and a half pseudo breakdance moves to the slippery dancefloors of Salzburg. This would have been a very different proposition. The only person who might have carried it off would be my friend A.S. I laughed quietly to myself at the thought of him garnishing his legs – his signature move - in the thick of this ‘tuff krowd’.
As we were leaving I spotted a girl with Down Syndrome leaning against a pillar on the edge of the dancefloor, contentedly tapping time. She was wearing a bandana, sideways baseball cap, baggy dungarees, chunky jewelry etc – the whole rude girl outfit. My own sister has Down Syndrome and it is a condition I associate with greater innocence/naivety/childishness; in short, with the polar opposite of street/rude/bling…call it what you will. I have no doubt that this girl shared those characteristic Down’s traits. However, I couldn’t help finding her appearance extremely incongruous. I suppose that is her everyday reality and I shouldn’t be surprised by it. Nevertheless, it has left me thinking that Mighty’s is the real deal.
