juluis

p2 is one of my favorite classes to teach, both because it is my last class of the week, and because the kids are well-behaved and so darn cute. it is a small class, so i am able to get the know the kids better than p1 and p3, which are huge classes.
one of my first weeks teaching p2, i came early and observed the classroom teacher for a while before my class began. they were working on spelling, simple words like "dog" and "ball." students were taking turns coming to the blackboard to spell the words. one little boy named julius had an especially hard time, repeatedly spelling "bog" and "dall." as much as he tried, he just could not understand the difference between "b" and "d". the teacher made him stay at the front of the class, over and over making him rewrite the words, but little julius could not get it right. the teacher grew frustrated, but julius just kept trying and trying and never gave up.
and that's just how this little guy is. he's deaf and also has vision trouble. one eye is clouded, so he probably can't see out of it at all. since his only method of communication is visual, and he probably only has half vision at best, he obviously has a lot to overcome. plus, it seems that he has a learning disability.
but he never gives up. he spends at least twice as long on every assignment as the other kids do, but he keeps trying.
i noticed that he tends to misspell his name on a lot of assignments. he transposes the "u" and "i." i corrected him a couple times, but then i figured out why he was getting it wrong. he can't remember how to spell his name, so when he went to write his name on is paper, he flipped the hem of his shorts up, and stitched upside-down on the hem so he could read it right side-up was "JULUIS."
so that's just what he writes on every paper.
juluis.