Letters as Essays - Writing Something You Care About
Allowing Visitors
Sheila Sims Iding
Dear Teacher of our most Special Children:
When any child is entrusted to your care, you have an amazing responsibility. When a child with Asperger’s Syndrome is entrusted to your care, that responsibility takes flight to a different height. Teaching a child with Asperger’s Syndrome is an honor and in the end, you will find out, it was that special child who was actually teaching you all along. The needs, the challenges and the wisdom needed to teach children who live in a different world takes a special passport to visit their thinking. I have discovered that Asperger children live in their own little world but they allow visitors. If you want to journey through the school year with a child with Asperger’s, you will need a map of compassion and patience if you want to gain that privileged visitor’s pass.
To visit the world of an Asperger’s child you will need to know more about their world. You will have to make travel plans. Find out their interests and the things they are attracted to. Even more, find out why. Then do your homework. If it is Pokemon, investigate Pokemon and the world around him. Get to know the characters, the good guys, the bad guys and what time the cartoon is on t.v. Go buy a Pokemon folder for your desk, a Pokemon book for your classroom library and incorporate it into some journal entry during the week. If their interest is roller coasters, happy exploring. Read about them and the amusement parks. “You Tube” a roller coaster for a science lesson and get out those toothpicks and marshmallows and let them build a roller coaster for art.
If you want to tour the world of an Asperger’s student you have to ask questions. Why, why, why? They have a reason for everything they do and, most often, it is not the conventional one. If writing is the first work they are told to do when they come in from recess and you tell them “first thing this afternoon we will do writing” and the child just sits there. Do not remind him to work or insist that he get started. Please ask him why he is not working. Chances are it is 11:55 and not “afternoon” yet. If he gets in trouble for running in the hallway, chances are you gave him a note and told him to “run this to the office”…so he ran. If they are not conforming to directions, please ask why. Like all children, they want to do the right thing and literally, they are.
Once you visit the world of an Asperger’s student, please recognize the honor of being there. Recognize the beauty of their black/white thinking. Recognize the over stimulation of a racing mind and the blank stares of retreat into their own world. Recognize that the meltdown in front of the whole class with parents in the room, wasn’t to upset you. And the time you take to rock and hum and whisper to that child is also a teachable moment. And the big science experiment the parents came to help with will wait. That special child can’t…and shouldn’t.
When parenting a young Asperger ‘s child I was utterly exasperated with trying to cope. When I asked my wiser, older sister what to do she said words that forever changed my view. She caringly said: “Remember, he doesn’t wake up in the morning to wreck your day.” That has been the best teaching advice for these special students. Yes…there are more IEP’s, more staffings, more communication with parents and teachers, more phone calls and a ba-zillion emails. But whatever travel extras you endure, remember, that child did not walk into your classroom to wreck your day. Quite possibly, that child walked in to make your day. This passport into the world of an Asperger’s student is a special trip. Embrace it…and embrace the Asperger’s student who allows visitors.
May God bless your journey,
Sheila Iding