Saga - OT "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo" - humor (OC, H/L, young Kylo)

Title: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo
Author: Divapilot
Genre: Humor
Summary: Through a series of communications, little Ben Solo’s teacher tries to get a handle on his emerging behavioral issues.


To: General Leia Organa Solo; Han Solo
From: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School

Dear Mr and Mrs Solo:

Good morning! This is Ben’s teacher, Aline Stoa. I am writing to give you an update on Ben’s progress at school.

First of all, let me express how wonderful it is to have such an energetic and creative child in our class! He is very intelligent and he has the most unusual approach to learning. I am confident that he is a tactile learner, as he is always taking objects into his hands and examining them closely before sharing his ideas with the group. Ben is one of our most exuberant students.

I am a bit concerned, however, with his recent behaviour. As you know, he had a series of incidents over the last few weeks, mostly stemming from disagreements with his peers. We have thus decided to begin a behavioral intervention procedure with him to see if we can redirect his energies toward more positive social outcomes. With your permission, I would like to write up a behaviour contract using positive reinforcement.

I will be happy to speak with you at any time. You may contact me directly or through the school. Please also know that you may always speak with Dr. Honalt, our school administrator, should you have further questions or concerns or if you would like to schedule a parent-teacher conference to discuss Ben’s progress.

Sincerely,
Aline Stoa

***

Hello, you have reached General Leia Organa. I am out of the office right now, running the secret resistance headquarters. Your message is important to me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day.

***

Hello This Chewbacca Wookey. As he is fighting off busy the band of pirates angry, Han Solo can not talk now. Please later try more and more. (Translated from Shyriirook to Basic using Holoogle Translate)

***
To: General Leia Organa Solo; Han Solo
From: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo:

Good morning. This is Mrs. Stoa, your son’s teacher. I have been unable to contact you to discuss my concerns about Ben, so I have decided to proceed with a behavioural intervention contract. Ben’s inability to control his temper causes numerous interruptions to his own learning and the learning of others, and it is my hope that this contract will allow him to learn the necessary self-monitoring skills which will give him the ability to better regulate his emotions. I am attaching the plan below.

Student name: Ben Solo
Age: 8.5 standard years
Referring staff member: Aline Stoa, classroom teacher.
Brief description of area of concern: Ben appears to be struggling to maintain emotional control, specifically when required to share with others. He is easily frustrated.
Classroom interventions: preferred seating near teacher (for monitoring of emotional triggers)
Behavioural plan:
Ben will use his words instead of physically acting out when faced with frustrations. He will take a “time out” to regroup and think before acting. Ben will use his indoor voice when in the classroom.
Positive reinforcements:
Ben will be reminded of his plan when he experiences frustrations. When he successfully employs the positive behavioral strategies, he will be allowed a reward from the following menu.
Ben may play with the building blocks in the construction center. (Note: He may not wear the block bucket on his head like a helmet.)
Ben may read a story from the story collection. (Note: his favorite stories are from the “Kylo, the Very Brave Bantha” series.)
Ben may have ten minutes of quiet time with the class pet fooble. This includes putting food in the fooble’s feeder. (Note: He is not allowed to actually touch the fooble.)
Ben may color in the art center.
I will implement the rewards system effective immediately. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

***

Hello, you have reached General Leia Organa. I am out of the office right now, running the secret resistance headquarters. Your message is important to me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day.

***

Hello This Chewbacca Wookey. Han Solo busy busy in rancor cave. Most sorrow but the Han Solo can not talk now. Please later try more and more. (Translated from Shyriirook to Basic using Holoogle Translate)

***

Private Message
To: Wrin Stoa
From: Aline Stoa

Hi sweetheart – Can’t wait until holiday break! We are so busy at school – the kids are going to be doing the glow stick activity soon and I know how much they love it. Even my little guy who gives me the hard time is excited. He said he wants to make a glow stick just like his grandpa used to have. How sweet!

I know I talk about my kiddos too much. When I get home tonight, let’s get some dinner and go shopping.

Love ya! Ali

***

To: J. Ooesa, school psychologist
From: A. Stoa, classroom teacher
Hey, Jorrash – Remember the student I told you about? I think we need to do some more intensive interventions. His behaviour isn’t really improving with the behaviour contract. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind doing a cognitive screening and maybe a psych eval? I’d appreciate it!
It was good to see you at the party last week. That goomana dip you made was amazing!
Thx, Aline

***

To: Aline Stoa
From: J. Ooesa, school psychologist

Hi Aline – I did the screenings like you asked. It was challenging working with Ben S. I’ve attached the results but here are the highlights.

Intellectual screening – Ben’s a bright kid. However, the test is developed to be increasingly difficult, and the kids are supposed to meet a point where the problems get too hard for them. But in Ben’s case, when the questions got harder, he got more frustrated. Then, I got a piercing headache and I closed my eyes for a minute. When I checked the results, Ben had all the questions correct. Not sure how he did that. I may have to recalibrate the assessment.

Creative thinking: He seems pretty solid here. I gave him the two-color flimsiplat to color a design on and he didn’t want to use the white side like I expected him to. He flipped it over to the back to color. He said he likes the dark side better. That looks like pretty out-of-the box thinking to me.

Psych eval.: I ran a whole evaluation on the boy. I say he’s fine, he’s just really immature. He acts like a spoiled eight year old. I’m sure he’ll outgrow it.

***

Private Message
To: Wrin Stoa
From: Aline Stoa

Hi Honey – Boy, what a day. That little boy I told you about threw a table today. HE THREW A TABLE! I thought the things were bolted down. But at least nobody got hurt. He is really getting to be a handful. Then he grabbed a bucket of building blocks, dumped them on the ground, and put the bucket on his head claiming it was a helmet. I’m getting really tired of that.

I’ve been thinking – we should go away when I go on holiday. I think it would be nice and relaxing. What about a beach vacation?

Love, Ali

***

To: General Leia Organa Solo; Han Solo
From: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo:
Things are going in an interesting direction with your son Ben. He still struggles to make friends, refusing to join us for circle time and for cooperative learning groups, claiming to prefer to work alone. I have tried to engage him in creative activities but he refuses to paint with any color other than black (occasionally silver or gray, although he loves bright red). On the bright side, he often talks about his family, and his grandfather in particular, with whom he apparently has a loving and very communicative relationship.

I have to inform you, however, that it is getting increasingly difficult for Ben to focus. I have tried the behaviour contract but Ben does not like having to make choices. He prefers to tell us what he wants and have us provide it for him.

I am recommending a one-on-one instructional assistant to help Ben make good decisions.

***

To: General Leia Organa Solo; Han Solo
From: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Solo:
I am increasingly concerned over Ben’s ability to be a productive learner in our classroom. He continues to display oppositional behavior, especially toward authority figures. We have had limited success with his instructional assistants. It seems we are unable to keep them employed for more than a few weeks at a time, and those who don’t quit seem to develop throat and neck problems and must leave for medical reasons. I believe that he would benefit from more individualized instruction and I am requesting a child study team present Ben’s case for potential referral to the specialized education services.

***

Private Message
To: Wrin Stoa
From: Aline Stoa

OMG Wrin if I have to deal with that whiny kid one more day I swear I will drop a star destroyer on him. My education professors told us that there would be those challenging kids but honestly! So get this – we were making holiday glow sticks in science class. Everyone else had these pretty little glow sticks and this kid makes this monstrosity that sits there spitting fire like a krayt dragon. Like, follow the instructions!!!! And the worst thing is that I have to give the regional standard assessments next week. Guess who already said his grandfather told him that he doesn’t have to follow the rules. You know, there’s always that one kid every year who totally kriffs my data. There goes my teacher evaluation.

Anyway, what would you like for dinner? I’m feeling Ithorian take-out. Btw did you check on those flight tickets to Corellia? I can’t wait for the holiday break, a drink in my hand on the Golden Beaches. I have got to get away for a while.

Love, Ali

***

To: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School
From: Jax H Honalt, PhD, Lead Administrator @ Happy Friends Elementary School

Mrs. Stoa:
I have received a communication from Mr. and Mrs. Solo regarding their disappointment in their son’s lack of progress in your classroom. Furthermore, your data from last month’s standardized testing reveals that your teaching methods have failed to result in adequate progress in instructing all of your students as one of your students failed to attain the state-mandated goal in cooperative learning. I regret to inform you that you will be placed on a probationary level and you will require further development as an educator.

***

To: Jax H Honalt, PhD, Lead Administrator @ Happy Friends Elementary School
From: General Leia Solo classified
CC: Aline Stoa @Happy Friends Elementary School

Dr. Honalt:
I’m trying to run a war here. I can’t come every time you have a problem with Ben. I don’t think you really understand him and I think I need to bring him where he will receive the kind of attention he needs. Effective immediately, we are withdrawing Ben from Happy Friends Elementary School. He will be working with his uncle, who is starting a new charter school for exceptional students.

***

Private Message
To: Wrin Stoa
From: Aline Stoa

Wrin, I sure hope you got those vacation tickets. We’re going to the Golden Beaches. We are not coming back.

Love, Ali.

 

divapilot - I loved this! Such a slice of life thing and true to TFA. Parents too busy yeah buncha regrets behind that one I'll bet eventually! I love Mrs. Stoa and her attempts to solve a very problematic situation and change several incorrigible attitudes and behaviors. Sad she was blamed for the noncooperation of her "worst" student! but glad about the vacation.

 

I can just see little Ben Solo flipping tables and his fascination with helmets

The "translated" messages from Chewbacca were great.

As funny as this was, it was also heartbreaking in a way to see how absent Leia and Han were. Great job displaying that duality.

 

While it makes me sad to think of Han and Leia as absentee parents, the escalating frustration of Aline at Ben's antics are hilarious - and I loved Chewie's messages!

It's interesting to think of Ben being advised by his grandfather - just his imaginary friend to give him an excuse, or something more sinister - perhaps Snoke pretending to be Vader?

 

Very creative and intersting and FUN! Good writing.

 

OH.MY.GOAT. BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.

Is there a connection between Happy Friends and Happy Tree Friends? Tootootoo doodoodoo la la la la la etc. Given that Ben Solo is involved, I can imagine there is. You know, cute things dying a horrible death...not that there isn't a totally serious story with cute things some of whom may die a horrible death somewhere on this board.

Hello This Chewbacca Wookey. As he is fighting off busy the band of pirates angry, Han Solo can not talk now. Please later try more and more. (Translated from Shyriirook to Basic using Holoogle Translate)

Hello This Chewbacca Wookey. Han Solo busy busy in rancor cave. Most sorrow but the Han Solo can not talk now. Please later try more and more. (Translated from Shyriirook to Basic using Holoogle Translate)

My favourite part of the whole thing, absolutely. TOO MUCH. I CAN'T EVEN.

Ben will use his words instead of physically acting out when faced with frustrations. He will take a “time out” to regroup and think before acting. Ben will use his indoor voice when in the classroom.

That obviously worked out, I see...

Ben may read a story from the story collection. (Note: his favorite stories are from the “Kylo, the Very Brave Bantha” series.)

Not that the name wasn't stupid to begin with, but now, with the explanation of why it's stupid, I totally get it.

Even my little guy who gives me the hard time is excited. He said he wants to make a glow stick just like his grandpa used to have. How sweet!

EEEEEEK.

He will be working with his uncle, who is starting a new charter school for exceptional students.

Ohwell...

...

Now for the dark part. I can totally see how a combination of extreme sugary positivity (which is a short-term thing and has nothing to do with real positivity, in the slightest) and occupational therapy that gets Ben closer to his obsessions, yet parents being unavailable and kind of neglecting their son, would get to where we see Kylo Ren.

Similarly, Aline herself might not have deserved what eventually came for her, but at the same time, she sort of did. One needs to balance family and work, and she was doing the exact opposite of what Leia and Han were doing - husband, husband, and more husband, while the approach to her own job was somewhat shallow. As Ackbar would say, IT'S A TRAP. And the psychologist is being a psychologist, the principal is being soooo painfully principally (!)...smash the system, I say. SMASH THE SYSTEM.

 

Ben is bad from the beginning. And with parents absent it is no wonder he turns Sith

 

Hehe. I showed this to my cousins last night (they're both primary school teachers) and we were all roaring with laughter. Of course it resulted in a long list of similar stories in RL, although the kids they were talking about were slightly less creepy than little Ben, and there was no Holoogle Translate involved

PS: This is a public service message from the indexer -- as this story takes place between RotJ and TFA, I believe it should be tagged Saga - OT.

 

Being an ex-secondary-school teacher and Kindergarten teacher again, I read your story half-laughing and half-frowning. I know fates like that. Your story about young Ben is brilliant and so authentic.

 

This was absolute gold. Well done.

 

Some of this is just so funny but at the same time so sad.

Having never had an absent parent I can't imagine not being one of my parents' top priorities. If I acted out like that in school I would have gotten a swat on my rear, probably the longest timeout I ever had, been grounded for a month and told to apologize to everyone.

Not to say I was a little angel at school, I developed the habit of when adults stumbled over my name, unusual spelling, to sit there and wait for the third attempt before I announced my presence and corrected them on the pronunciation; not to mention if they wrote my name wrong on a paper I wouldn't take it and pass it on with the rest of the papers because it wasn't my name.

So I would like to apologize now to all my teachers and everyone else that had to deal with me growing up that got tripped up on the funky spelling of my first name (some also mispronounced my last name too) you all deserve an award for having to deal with me.