Listen to children

I was waiting for a class to start at my local community centre when I saw a small sign tacked to the director’s door. It just said ‘Listen to children’. It was so direct and simple – it stopped me short.  As a teacher, I usually do all the talking and even when I pause to take a breath, I’m thinking about what I am going to say next. Not much listening in between. Same goes as a parent. Lots and lots of talking there, like ‘Clean your room NOW’, ‘Finish you dinner, or ‘Stop teasing your sister’.

Without listening to children though, we never get to see how they are seeing the world. We miss hearing about their fears, worries and anxieties and all the opportunities to comfort and reassure. We miss building on their ideas. And we miss learning from them.

Different is good

I’ve decided that one size does NOT fit all.  Since we are unique individuals, communities and countries, it doesn’t favour us to think that something that works for someone else will work the same for us.  That goes for therapies, educational programmes, and social services.  I encourage everyone to think waaaaay outside the box, because our kids are anything BUT standard.  Instead of governments trying to normalise their approach, they should celebrate (and fund) diversity instead.  Each community has its own strengths and skills, and can create programmes that utilise these to the fullest.  If you think how languages develop their own quirky accents and jargon, it would seem strange to have government regulation or policy regarding how we sounded when we spoke or what phrases we used.  Our interactions are dynamic, ever-changing and alive, and how we teach our children should reflect this.  I think schools should mirror the philosophies of the neighbourhoods that they exist in, and be encouraged to start charter schools or trial new programmes.  They would need funds and support for this.  The more choices we have, the better chance we have to find what matches our own needs.

“Every human being has an impact on another.” Patch Adams

My motto used to be ‘It could be worse’.  Truly, it helped to put things into perspective, and when I imagined a pretty ugly situation being even worse, it managed to crack the seriousness of the situation just an incy bit.  And when something cracks, light can shine through.  When my son unearthed all the flowers I just planted, I thought, ‘At least he didn’t bring them into the house’.   And when he did do just that the following week, I was grateful that he didn’t bring the hose inside to water them too.  That would have made it worse.  This approach gave me a weird space to be grateful for the things that didn’t (yet) happen.

Lately though, my mantra has been ‘Look around’.  Just like when the camera pans around on cop shows to give us clues as to what really went down.  A look around to get a bigger picture, a 360 degree view of all that’s involved.  It gives me time to draw in that extra breath before my blood pressure rises or say something I try to take back a hundred times after.  Literally, it gives me time to centre myself, and it sorely helps if I can look at something other than the problem itself.  Funny enough, when I look back, it’s not as big/scary/frustrating as before.  But the best thing about looking around, is I might find someone else to help.

In my career as an educator, the most amazing times are when the people I’m working with make connections with each other.  I love playgroups where mums and their young kids with special needs come together once a week.  You feel the mums just relax into each other.  They don’t have to worry about how the world is going to see them and their children who are different – the other mums just get them.  They had cleaned poop out of the living room drapes and tassle tie backs when their child had gone on a No 2 smearing rampage, they had been in the grocery store at peak dinnertime rush hour when their child broke the scream sound barrier, they had been in that shaky place locked in their bedroom after finding permanent vivid marker drawn across the new kitchen cabinets and every wall surface in between.  They had been in and out, in and out of hospital and digested thousands of words of med-speak.  Their marriages were teetering and sleep was a cruel joke.  They would come to play group and let out a big, audible sigh.  They looked around and saw comfort and support.  Once I heard a mom say thank God for her son, after watching another wee lad screech every time the others came too close to him.  I looked at her son who was still not walking at three and mealtimes that took almost two hours to get through.  This mum was using both mottos – it could be worse and look around.

We have each other.  No problem is so big that we can’t share the cost or difficulty.  Look around and see who can help.

Cooperation versus complaining

People are human.  All of us, every last one, teacher, student, administrator, bureaucrat, parent, politician, all with wonderful quirks and forgivable faults.  It does not help to play the blame game when we are in it together.  The enemy is ignorance and apathy, not the government, not the parent, and certainly not the child.  We must remember that we hold the child’s best interests at heart, regardless of our different roles and responsibilities. It is foolhardy to think you will gain cooperation from anyone you consider the adversary. If you leave the door open, the other person can step through.  Keep it closed, and you may as well just bang your head against it for all the good it will do.  We will always need more money,  programmes, specialists, resources, support – the list is long.  If we spend our precious energy fighting each other, we won’t have enough for what we really need.

Jack coming to school

Jack coming to school

Friends

‘Carrie’ was incredible with Jack.  She was a steadfast, no-nonsense friend who saw him for what he was, a boy and fellow classmate, someone who was on the go like she was.  Carrie was athletic and centred.  She had heaps of brothers and sisters, and the care giving role came natural to her, but she didn’t see Jack as helpless at all.  She saw him as someone who needed a bit more time and then he’s ready to play like everyone else. They were both tough and liked to have fun.  They seemed like old friends.

What things do children with challenges teach us?  A new perspective gives us insight into what we hold in common, to take Life a moment at a time,  recognise our strengths not weaknesses, and a push to celebrate even the smallest successes.

After Jack had come to school for about a month one of his classmates said to me “Jack is the coolest kid.”  When I looked at him with their eyes, I saw his strengths and his charm. They were right, he is totally cool.

I think schools are places to learn how to get along with each other.  I know it is important to learn how to read and write and figure our sums.  I’m a reading and writing teacher, so I get that.  But the real learning opportunities happen when kids open their circle to join hands with each other.  When they give a nod and say ‘You’re one of us, and you’re awesome’.  It can happen naturally; many times it needs the support of teachers, principals and other parents. The skills of inclusion cannot be underestimated.

Belonging

Sadly, even if kids with special needs are attending their neighbourhood schools, there are many isolating situations within the school environment. Though well-meaning, a teacher aide can come between their student and his or her world.  I have seen teacher aides glued to their side, inadvertently preventing them from making friends naturally.  Teacher aides have told me when I’ve come to visit their schools, ‘Conner has picked up with a boy who is all wrong for him.  I want him to play with someone else.’  Oh my, it is not for us to interfere, unless there is danger or bullying. When kids make friends, it is generally reciprocal, and when a kid with special needs finds a friend, it is sweet indeed.  Sometimes it can do as much for the other child, especially the ones we wouldn’t pick first for them.

Other ways schools sequester special kids is to place them in the back of the class or to the side, or worse, in a separate solitary room.  I believe on our kids’ IEP it needs to say where the intervention will take place, with a clear rationale for when the child is withdrawn.  Teacher aides tell me they have to take their young charge out of the classroom because he is noisy.  Children of all levels of intelligence can learn the cause and effect of their behaviour, and a teacher aide can unwittingly reinforce troublesome behaviour by withdrawing when he or she is noisy.  Some teacher aides are not confident to work in the classroom, under view of the teacher and other children, and might not want to disrupt the other children during their work.  I say, only withdraw the child if the answer is yes to ‘Is it nearly impossible to teach this particular concept with the other children present?’  With Jack, I relished the quiet of the ‘Pink Room’, a room the school had designated for Reading Recovery.  Jack wore hearing aids, and I knew that Jack would not have to filter out background noise in there.  Plus, I could get cranky with him without 25 other people finding out.  Dangerous, to say the least.  Stay with the group.  Jack eventually learnt to focus on me with background distractions and I learnt to take a deep breath when I needed more calming oxygen to the brain.

If you absolutely have to take a child outside of the regular classroom, you can add other classmates in.  Kids love to help out with your special programme if they get to leave the class too! I confess I did withdraw Jack when I had an unorthodox method of teaching.  One I stumbled on by accident.  We found an old, broken down guitar on top of dusty, out of print books in the library.  It had a hole in the back and only three strings, but Jack loved to strum it.  I would stand in front of him and sing off-key, stopping to reinforce with sign language.  This situation was one of the few times he would look directly at me.  It was an ingenious way to combine his love of music with my need to have him look at me while I signed.  And, it helped that he could hold something that was strictly off-limits in other classrooms.  After that, when anyone played a guitar, he would practically break his neck to see if it had holes in the back like ‘his’ guitar.  His mum had forbidden me from exposing him to any more hip hop music (don’t knock it, it has a good beat and heaps of everyday lyrics to sign along with) so now I happily imagine Jack as a rock star in the making.  I would take Jack’s learning buddy for that day to the library for the jam sessions, delighted to witness their lovely made up songs and accompanying dance routines.

Our kids need to truly belong.

Autism: The Musical

I watched the documentary Autism: The Musical last week and I was so moved.  The director, Tricia Regan, follows five children with autism and their families for six months, and turns out a movie that goes right to the heart of what is possible, but coupled with the heartbreaking day-to-day realities of parenting kids with autism.   The children rehearse for a musical in Elaine Hall’s inspired ‘Miracle Project’ in Los Angeles, California, and by the end of the film you will feel most privileged to see such honesty from the parents struggling to stay together and stay sane, and lucky to meet such interesting kids.  Adam, Neal (Elaine’s son), Lexi, Henry and Wyatt  show you how diverse the autistic spectrum is, though they all share challenges in social interaction and communication. It’s impressive how Elaine uses theatre to draw them out, getting them to choose what they wanted to talk about  (Wyatt talking about bullies and how much he wants just one friend flattened me) and then she gets them to act out scenarios with positive solutions.  Brilliant!

Inclusion

To be a part of, to have membership, to have a place.  Inclusion means acceptance.  That everyone has value. Children with special needs have the right to be included with their peers in public schools, but it goes beyond that.  Inclusion erases the line that divides us.  The kids on the fringe can come in.

I have seen parents suffer through repulsion to expulsion when it came to enrolling their children in public classrooms. Many times I have met with teachers and principals reluctant to embrace inclusion.  There usually isn’t enough teacher aide time to cover ‘difficult’ children,  not enough money for extra resources, not enough time for more teacher training.  I have heard teachers say that their first priority is to “protect” the other classmates, that their learning and progress must not be jeopardised.  Why “protect” other classmates from a child with special needs?  Give the child’s classmates an opportunity to make a difference.  In any one classroom, there are children waiting to grow up and be politicians who will pass special education policy into law; architects who will design buildings with full access for people with physical disabilities; engineers, researchers, and inventors who will make it possible for people to see, walk, or hear when they didn’t before; lawyers who will argue for equal opportunity; social workers,  special education teachers, and hospital administrators ready to serve; children growing up with other children who are different so that when they do their jobs in the future their “we” is big and inclusive. Schools are micro communities and children practice all the skills needed to live cooperatively in the wider world.  Turning away those children with differences just handicaps everyone.

I went to school every day with Jack when he started.  I was his specialist teacher, teacher of the deaf, and teacher aide, all rolled into one.  Jack has life threatening allergies, so as a 5-year-old he started in a Year 2- 3 classroom, with the thought that older children would be better able to keep their food separate and Jack safe.  He was not toilet trained, he struggled to see in bright light, everything was too tall for him, he took his hearing aides out when he could, and he was mainly interested in preschool toys, not the Year 2 – 3 academic programme going on around him.  Though pint size, Jack was a big challenge to inclusion.  However, I had the honour and privilege to see a school step up to the challenge.  I saw children take responsibility for accepting and caring about each other.  The kids in Jack’s class helped him and he taught them back, and we all learned together.

Teacher aides taking a step back

Parents and teachers fight hard to get teacher aide time for their children with special needs.  A full classroom is a busy, busy place, and a teacher aide can make a huge difference for a child’s learning.  This is especially true for children who are barely coping with the classroom routine, subject material they are not ready for yet,  or social interactions that cause extreme anxiety.  It is beneficial having an extra adult who can sit with a learner struggling to understand the material,  explain tricky concepts and show different ways of doing it, gather extra materials, and prepare a child for what’s coming next on the timetable.   Having an extra pair of hands in the classroom can keep everyone sane.  On the other hand, a  good teacher aide needs to know when to take a step back.  When not to help too much.  The generous and caring natures of teacher aides mean they strive to make things easier for the teacher and the young people in their charge.  I remember watching two different teacher aides teach a particularly difficult student in a Year 3 class brilliantly.  The boy did everything the teacher aides asked him to do, but after 90 minutes of straight instruction in reading and maths, he started to lash out verbally and physically.  At morning tea, the exasperated teacher aides asked what more they could do to keep this young man on task.  The problem was he needed allowance for off task time, just like the other children in the classroom.  They needed to remember that our kids with special needs are kids first; they need down time, and a chance to be grumpy if they feel like it.

Another challenge for teacher aides, especially ones in charge of children who need extra social guidance,  is letting kids  negotiate  or compromise between their peers without too much interference.  Teacher aides usually intercede to settle a dispute before harm or foul occurs, sometimes intercepting before the child has learned how far is too far.  Unfortunately, the child will eventually become passive or in special education jargon, start to show a “learned helplessness.”  Soon, it becomes much easier from the child’s point of view to use this grown up to square up with the world.  Many important lessons happen naturally on the playground, or in unscripted situations, where kids learn how to cope with the bumps, bruises, and setbacks that invariably occur.