My Day - No Holds Barred and Raw Emotion
The therapy week is finished.
The therapy week is finished.
Ooh, I like saying that this week. The therapy week is finished. (By the way, while I am reading that in my head, there is a soundtrack that goes along with it - music is played by a full orchestra and has majestic chords and cadences...hmm.) The therapy week is finished.
I do twenty music therapy groups per week. Sixteen of these groups are convenience based, meaning that I have absolutely no say in who is in which group. Four of those groups are organized by the art therapist and myself which allows us to arrange our clients based on level of independence and appropriate relationships with others - that's the system I prefer, but the other teachers struggle with the idea that they can split their classes up into other groups - it's a control-type issue. Blah, blah, blah - long story short, I often feel like my services are viewed as babysitting/entertainment by some of my co-workers.
Yesterday afternoon was a rough one.
One of my groups was just unsettled and one of our classroom staff members tries to be a bit controlling and that sets the very defiant teens that she works with off all the time. The session ended up with a very large student escalating. I got the staff member away with the other students, and I offered my student options.
A setting factor in this story is this... A couple of years ago, I was injured in an altercation with a student. I was incapacitated during the incident, and I had 18 months of surgery, recovery, and physical therapy after the injury to get back to almost full capacity. Now, two weeks ago, I had to go through our physical behavior management training recertification. While I was doing that, I sprained that same knee. This has happened before - almost exactly a year earlier - so I knew what to do - back in the knee brace. So, I am constantly reminded of my injury, the difficulties that the injury brought me, and, to put it simply, I am a bit scared of getting hurt again.
The student refused to be safe, so I called for assistance from the people who are supposed to help out. No response. I heard a call from another person - response. I called again, asking for help with my situation. No response. The student decided to start moving, so I followed the student and the staff member who was with me back to class. I spied a member of the assistance team who completely ignored me and went to the other situation going on. No support from the people who are paid to support ALL staff members in situations. I managed to get the student back to class, calm a student who was looking for an excuse to go into full-blown aggression, and use my body to block access to both students simultaneously. Their teacher was nowhere in sight, and there was no assistance from anyone else. All of this as my overemotional brain is shrieking, "Run! Run!"
I went back to the music therapy room and prepared for my last group of the week. Three minutes before the session was supposed to start, one of the classroom staff members came down to ask me to abandon my plans and "just come into the classroom to do music today." Now, this teacher has tried to get me to do music in her classroom all the time because she just doesn't like that she has an afternoon session. "It's too difficult." I have accommodated her by having one session per week in her room, but Thursdays are my day for music therapy and not entertainment while she and her staff members talk loudly while I am trying to do something with the students.
I snapped.
It was not my finest moment, I admit, but I just couldn't think at the moment of anything outside of my session strategy. I tried not to take my frustration out on the poor, hapless staff member sent (the teacher didn't even bother to try to talk to me directly), but I think I was a bit snappish. I told her that, no I couldn't just change my plans because they were being lazy (I don't think I used those exact words - I think I stopped after plans - oh. I hope I stopped after plans), and if they weren't able to come down to the music room, then just cancel the session. She left. I cried.
It was not pretty. My emotional response to things is to cry. I always have, and I have resigned myself to the fact that I always will cry. I blubbered, I bawled, I whimpered. I spent about five minutes feeling horribly sorry for myself and very frustrated, and then I mopped myself up and cleaned up all the things I had prepared for the absent group. I finished up my work day and drove home.
All of that emotion due to one group issue with a staff member. Now I am sitting here wondering if I need to apologize to the teacher (I'm torn - I don't want to get into the habit of people just thinking that I can drop everything at any moment to go into their classrooms to be treated like a background musician who plays for tips, but at the same time, I want to be a helpful member of the staff. Nope. I am feeling more like the first example - I am more than entertainment! My plans mean something, and I spend lots of time developing them. It is difficult to just scrap everything and come up with something new - especially in only 3 minutes. I already did that session with them earlier that week during the scheduled in-class session. Aaaah, I'm getting all het up again...).
So, I am very happy that it is the end of the therapy week for me. My Fridays are my preparation and planning day because of several different things. I put groups on my schedule from Monday through Thursday because that is our consistent schedule through our extended school year. Trying to smash five days worth of sessions into four days and then back again is a scheduling nightmare. As a result, we only have classroom group treatment four days a week. The other reason is that my room contains the student store. Fridays are school store day. There is no way that I can be running music therapy sessions with an entire classroom in my room, shopping. As a result, I have a limited therapy day on Fridays. I was trying to get some individual sessions planned, but three teachers refused to communicate with me, and the four teachers who responded didn't want times on Fridays, so I have some in-class time with our students with communication issues and diagnoses of Autism for relationship building and (my own) classroom observation. Last week, we went to the playground, and I got to swing and climb with my clients. After that is finished, I have peer supervision, and then an afternoon of tasks and chores to complete before taking off for the three day weekend.
During my drive home yesterday, I spent some time thinking about why the day was such a disappointment. Now, I did realize that I need to be fair with myself - four out of the five groups that I actually ran went very well. Students engaged in the TMEs I presented. They were primed for learning when they left the music therapy room. There weren't many other issues during the sessions, and music therapy was just that - therapy. Two disappointments - that's all. That shouldn't be enough to make me so very hysterical, but it did. That means something.
I'll spend some time today talking to my peer during peer supervision about these things. I know that she shares many of my frustrations, but I also know that she will have a different perspective to offer. Then, I will finish my work week and come home for some rest and kitty cuddles. Thursday is over.
Let Friday begin!!
The therapy week is finished.
Ooh, I like saying that this week. The therapy week is finished. (By the way, while I am reading that in my head, there is a soundtrack that goes along with it - music is played by a full orchestra and has majestic chords and cadences...hmm.) The therapy week is finished.
I do twenty music therapy groups per week. Sixteen of these groups are convenience based, meaning that I have absolutely no say in who is in which group. Four of those groups are organized by the art therapist and myself which allows us to arrange our clients based on level of independence and appropriate relationships with others - that's the system I prefer, but the other teachers struggle with the idea that they can split their classes up into other groups - it's a control-type issue. Blah, blah, blah - long story short, I often feel like my services are viewed as babysitting/entertainment by some of my co-workers.
Yesterday afternoon was a rough one.
One of my groups was just unsettled and one of our classroom staff members tries to be a bit controlling and that sets the very defiant teens that she works with off all the time. The session ended up with a very large student escalating. I got the staff member away with the other students, and I offered my student options.
A setting factor in this story is this... A couple of years ago, I was injured in an altercation with a student. I was incapacitated during the incident, and I had 18 months of surgery, recovery, and physical therapy after the injury to get back to almost full capacity. Now, two weeks ago, I had to go through our physical behavior management training recertification. While I was doing that, I sprained that same knee. This has happened before - almost exactly a year earlier - so I knew what to do - back in the knee brace. So, I am constantly reminded of my injury, the difficulties that the injury brought me, and, to put it simply, I am a bit scared of getting hurt again.
The student refused to be safe, so I called for assistance from the people who are supposed to help out. No response. I heard a call from another person - response. I called again, asking for help with my situation. No response. The student decided to start moving, so I followed the student and the staff member who was with me back to class. I spied a member of the assistance team who completely ignored me and went to the other situation going on. No support from the people who are paid to support ALL staff members in situations. I managed to get the student back to class, calm a student who was looking for an excuse to go into full-blown aggression, and use my body to block access to both students simultaneously. Their teacher was nowhere in sight, and there was no assistance from anyone else. All of this as my overemotional brain is shrieking, "Run! Run!"
I went back to the music therapy room and prepared for my last group of the week. Three minutes before the session was supposed to start, one of the classroom staff members came down to ask me to abandon my plans and "just come into the classroom to do music today." Now, this teacher has tried to get me to do music in her classroom all the time because she just doesn't like that she has an afternoon session. "It's too difficult." I have accommodated her by having one session per week in her room, but Thursdays are my day for music therapy and not entertainment while she and her staff members talk loudly while I am trying to do something with the students.
I snapped.
It was not my finest moment, I admit, but I just couldn't think at the moment of anything outside of my session strategy. I tried not to take my frustration out on the poor, hapless staff member sent (the teacher didn't even bother to try to talk to me directly), but I think I was a bit snappish. I told her that, no I couldn't just change my plans because they were being lazy (I don't think I used those exact words - I think I stopped after plans - oh. I hope I stopped after plans), and if they weren't able to come down to the music room, then just cancel the session. She left. I cried.
It was not pretty. My emotional response to things is to cry. I always have, and I have resigned myself to the fact that I always will cry. I blubbered, I bawled, I whimpered. I spent about five minutes feeling horribly sorry for myself and very frustrated, and then I mopped myself up and cleaned up all the things I had prepared for the absent group. I finished up my work day and drove home.
All of that emotion due to one group issue with a staff member. Now I am sitting here wondering if I need to apologize to the teacher (I'm torn - I don't want to get into the habit of people just thinking that I can drop everything at any moment to go into their classrooms to be treated like a background musician who plays for tips, but at the same time, I want to be a helpful member of the staff. Nope. I am feeling more like the first example - I am more than entertainment! My plans mean something, and I spend lots of time developing them. It is difficult to just scrap everything and come up with something new - especially in only 3 minutes. I already did that session with them earlier that week during the scheduled in-class session. Aaaah, I'm getting all het up again...).
So, I am very happy that it is the end of the therapy week for me. My Fridays are my preparation and planning day because of several different things. I put groups on my schedule from Monday through Thursday because that is our consistent schedule through our extended school year. Trying to smash five days worth of sessions into four days and then back again is a scheduling nightmare. As a result, we only have classroom group treatment four days a week. The other reason is that my room contains the student store. Fridays are school store day. There is no way that I can be running music therapy sessions with an entire classroom in my room, shopping. As a result, I have a limited therapy day on Fridays. I was trying to get some individual sessions planned, but three teachers refused to communicate with me, and the four teachers who responded didn't want times on Fridays, so I have some in-class time with our students with communication issues and diagnoses of Autism for relationship building and (my own) classroom observation. Last week, we went to the playground, and I got to swing and climb with my clients. After that is finished, I have peer supervision, and then an afternoon of tasks and chores to complete before taking off for the three day weekend.
During my drive home yesterday, I spent some time thinking about why the day was such a disappointment. Now, I did realize that I need to be fair with myself - four out of the five groups that I actually ran went very well. Students engaged in the TMEs I presented. They were primed for learning when they left the music therapy room. There weren't many other issues during the sessions, and music therapy was just that - therapy. Two disappointments - that's all. That shouldn't be enough to make me so very hysterical, but it did. That means something.
I'll spend some time today talking to my peer during peer supervision about these things. I know that she shares many of my frustrations, but I also know that she will have a different perspective to offer. Then, I will finish my work week and come home for some rest and kitty cuddles. Thursday is over.
Let Friday begin!!
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