During my senior year of high school, I was fighting the impulse to become a teacher because the job market was terrible. My psychology teacher assigned the class to visit someplace connected to psychology. I went home and said to Mom, "Now what?" It's not exactly routine to go on a tour of a psychiatric ward. They frown on having people walk through hospitals and stare.
Mom had the idea to go to a home for mentally handicapped children. I'd always had a tender spot for the students who've been known by the alphabet soup of EMR, DH, CD, MC, MH.* In fact in junior high, I ate lunch with some of the special students and helped out an autistic boy in art class. But honestly, when Mom arranged the tour, I wasn't thinking about future careers, but was only relieved to have a location and be able to fulfill the assignment.
A staff member took us through a highly-respected home for severely handicapped people. On the tour we saw residents in therapy, residents learning, residents being fed, residents in wheelchairs and cribs. One young lady was 22 years old and was sleeping in a crib; and indeed, she was crib-sized, small and limp and barely taller than a toddler. That image is one of the two clearest memories from the tour.
Here's the other vivid memory. We got back out to the car, and Mom broke down and wept intensely. It was uncomfortable; was I some kind of beast that I didn't cry? Granted, Mr. Spock has long been a role model for his logic and sensible approach to situations, but was I that cold? Sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for Mom to get it out, I realized that some people see the tragedy that happened in these lives and cry over the pain. (After all, Mom was thinking of her 17-year old daughter, and how that could just as easily have been me in the crib.) But still, while some people feel sympathy and cry, other people say, "It can't be changed, so what can I do to help?" Mom is one, and I'm the other.
I worked at a camp for handicapped people for five summers; and when I graduated, two of my four certifications were for the mildly cognitively handicapped and for the multiply handicapped. For a number of years I taught the mildly and moderately handicapped at the high school level. Some of the kids still write to me. Some still have the jobs our department helped them get, way back when they were in high school. I see them working at the grocery store or wiping tables at McDonald's. They're functioning, tax-paying members of society. Others, who are more deeply handicapped, work at county workshops and live in group homes, but they have lives of their own. There's the undeniable tragedy of adults lying in cribs, but most of the handicapped people are a lot more like you and me than they are different. Though attitudes toward the handicapped have changed for the better in recent times, I wish more people understood that they're not so different.
*EMR, DH, CD, MC, MH. Educably mentally retarded, developmentally handicapped, cognitively disabled, mentally challenged, multiply handicapped. There are possibly some other sets of initials I've forgotten. The terminology keeps changing!
I found it interesting how a high school assignment to visit someplace connected with psychology changed your life. Teachers never know the impact of their teaching on young minds. A simple homework assignment was a roadmap for your choice of a career.
ReplyDeleteI could visualize you and your Mom in a home for the severely handicapped. Each person reacts differently to seeing the physical state of profoundly handicapped people. This was certainly a moving experience for both of you.
I agree with you that “handicapped people are more like me and you than they are different.”
Carol…I read with great interest about your choice of working with a special population. I commend you! All of us find our way. It might be in content areas or special areas or general elementary. I agree with your perspective of these children and adults. They can be contributing facets to our society. Solon High School has a café that is directed by CD students. Over the years it developed into a new exposure and interaction for many students. Now, more than in the past, CD students are included through mainstreaming and simple kindness in activities that once excluded them.
ReplyDeleteMost of my students have the alphabet as their diagnoses: ED, OCD, ADHD, AD, LD, ODD, CD…and there are many more. However, my students bring fear to many teachers and students. These are the aggressive, unsettled ones who are searching for a way to be heard. These students often lack the social skills to participate successfully in the traditional school setting. Day treatment programs provide a safe haven for them to learn not only academically, but also socially. I’m never sure of the outcome of my students. Privacy issues prevent follow-up, as many are wards of their counties. We, as teachers, continue to struggle in attempts to educate this population; there are too many variables that interfere with the acquisition of societal skills. It is an area that needs more study with programming and methods to best support these children.
Deb
(Emotional Disability, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Attention Deficit, Learning Disability, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Cognitive Disability)
Carol,I always admired people, who can work with students with special needs. It takes a lot of love, patience, and understanding to become a special education teacher. Sometimes people, who have various disabilities, amaze me with their courage, optimism, and determination in life. Some of their life stories definitely left a deep imprint in my life and made me a better person.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I grew up in a country, in which education of disabled students never trespassed with education of the students with special needs. Nevertheless, not only education, but also the whole society separated people on healthy ones and disabled ones. I think it is very wrong. Only here, in USA, I learned to perceive this in other way. Here, children do not feel discriminated or unaccepted by society. They have opportunity to study with their peers and feel part of the community. I am happy that my children learn that disability does not take away the personality, and it is the personality that matters.
I especially appreciate your reflections on disabled students. It is often the case that educators (including myself) are attracted to those students who do well in the classroom most of the time. And we do have a prejudice for these students. It is refreshing and challenging for me to read this segment and to realize that I indeed have more in common with these students than I would first think. They have the same goals as the rest of us, think about most of the same things we think of in life, and wish to succeed in life as well. It is a challenge for me to remember this in my classroom and administration that their road may be different than mine, but that they will intersect with my road, and that I can touch their experience (and they can touch mine) with a positive outcome.
ReplyDeleteMichael Brunovsky, OSB