My classroom was filled with adolescent boys who had failed at everything. Violence on steroids. EduPsychoBabble. We called them Severeley Emotionally Disturbed. The teachers of typical children loved you now. Don’t come into my classroom because meltdowns were every hour of every day. Any stranger in the room was fresh meat. We not only needed a cure for things like HIV (sexual acting out and home IV drug use were common) something that would change Little Johnny’s schizophrenia on a dime would have been nice. No one wanted autism. They ate our plants. Paper. Books. During the afternoon, if you didn’t sit down and weep, you were crazy, too. Taking these kids to the school bathroom was a nightmare in logistics. I would stand outside the door and pray. There is no way I am going in there. I was trained in the dynamics of restraint. But not in having to use it 250 times a day. A one-on-one follows the kid through his day. Every family wanted one. If wishes were fishes. He will rip you apart and the room. Biters would take a chunk out of you. Boys burned things. Kids with organic brain syndrome, were terrified. They had done nothing wrong. We were the medical team. We handed out the not-so-happy pills. Hyperactive kids might respond. You just drugged up the rest. We don’t know these kids or the extent that home is a war zone. We just want to make it through the day without being killed. Without losing a kid. Do not tell me to use a metal detector. I am the metal protector.