We asked the students if they thought Sue now belonged to their class. Unanimously, they indicated that she did not, but that she was someone who spent a lot of time in the resource room. When asked how they thought they could start including Sue, one boy said, “Saying hello in the morning.”
We asked,“What sort of things do you think Sue likes to do outside in the playground?” The children said, “Climbing, piggybacking, swinging, slidingng, playing with Puppets, having other people besides her aide or teacher with her.”
We asked what things the students could do in the classroom with Sue. They said, “Learning her numbers and letters, cutting things out, crafts, picture cards, puzzles.” We questioned them on activities Sue could do with them and they replied, “Read, help her with her work, read to her, draw with her, have one of us with her each day, write on the blackboard.”
When invited to help Sue with these activities, all but two of the children volunteered to help. We stressed during the meeting that they were not to feel pressured into helping but that if they wanted to make the commitment, they should consider it to last the whole school year. We picked six students arbitrarily to help support Sue at school. Within a few days of the meeting, it was apparent that these students had commitments which sometimes took them away from Sue. If students were going to help her, it would require all the children in the class.
We worried about initiating this process because, while we were committed to the group, we were responsible for maintaining safety and order in the school. Sue was known to strike out at those around her. With the other children in Sue’s class, we discussed their ability to identify Sue’s signs of anger. The students spoke of ways to deflate a potential incident and to minimize the chances of getting hurt, and of what to do if they felt things were getting out of hand.
Most of the students admitted that they found it upsetting when Sue got out of control. Twenty-one of the twenty-five students indicated that they were concerned about her anger but didn’t want to change their commitment to Sue.
