In Memory of Ol' Sol

  

         Her name was Solveig (pronounced: Soul' vig) Farseth. She was very much one of those intrepid Minnesota "Scandahoovians". I'm really not sure if she was Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish...there were plenty of all three in Minneapolis; but I know she was old. She was a lead social worker at Emerson, the special school where I worked. Both of the other social workers were somewhere in their 30s and 40s....but Solveig was ancient compared to them. Ancient, as in stoop-shouldered, skinny legs, old-fashioned dresses, and holding onto the stair rail on the way down the stairs. She said she had never smoked, and I certainly believed her, because she never drank the hard stuff, either, when we had staff parties. Knowing that, I always marveled at how many wrinkles she had....she seemed to have too many for a woman who had obviously engaged in the art of  "good, clean living". In hindsight, I suppose Solveig's fair Scandahoovian skin was responsible; it was just too delicate for that blazing hot Minnesota week of summer every year..

       In Solveig's favor, she had arresting, sparkling blue eyes. Her hair was a pale shade of gray, with natural streaks of pure white. I wish my own hair was going gray in that beautiful way. Solvieg's smile was radiant. She was the first indefatiguably cheerful and perennially positive person I ever met. Solvieg (Sol, as we called her), was a veritable whirlwind of social work at its finest.

       I taught with many fine teachers up there at Emerson School. Most were young like I was, being closer to twenty-five than thirty-five. We partied at Sunny's pub, twice a month after school, on Friday payday. We told our intellectually disabled kids we were going out for "milk and cookies". Sol never came with us, but she always peeked into our classrooms at the end of those days and told us to have fun and drive safely. She basically functioned as our faculty "mom", in addition to her primary role as a strong advocate for our students and their families. Sol was a persistent detective at ferreting out resources to meet any need that the children or their parents had. I used to tease her about how it seemed she never went home, asking her where the Murphy bed was hidden in her office wall.

        Anyway, what has prompted me to write about Solveig this week, instead of a student, was a Google search I did. Just out of curiosity, I typed in a few Emerson staff names. Up popped a link to Solveig Farseth. It was from the Minneapolis School employees "recently deceased" list. Coincidentally, and sadly, she passed away exactly one year ago today, March 31, 2012, at the age of ninety-seven. My mind started spinning the numbers....that meant that she was sixty-four years old when I left Emerson to be a stay-at-home mom, after the birth of our son Van. We moved to Iowa shortly after that. Whoa...the last time I saw Solveig, she was exactly the same age as I am now. Wait! I was so young then, and as I might have mentioned earlier, she appeared to be so ancient! 

      I started thinking, 'Is this how my twenty and thirty-something peers at school view me now?' Could I appear to be ancient to them? Sure, I forget some stuff now and then, but I make more fun of myself than any of them do about that. I've had three joints replaced, so I don't need to use the stair railing. My hair isn't gray (Thanks, Faith @ Hair To Stay in Johnston). My clothes are pretty standard-issue 'teacher style'. Holiday socks for Christmas and Halloween, comfortable but fashionable shoes, the obligatory sweaters from Von Maur...I confess to owning them all. I don't think they're dowdy.

       I feel respected and completely valued by my co-workers, as I felt towards Sol. Never once did I give her any hint that she appeard elderly to me and never spoke about it to anyone else. I did not make fun of her age, doubt her dedication and skill in her field, or mention to her that it might be time to retire. I wasn't raised like that. I was instructed to respect my elders and I did. Yikes, now I am almost an elder myself!
        No, I'm NOT!  Solveig wasn't old either! After all, my sister Sharon was teaching at Iowa State University in her seventies. I work in Des Moines with a seventy-eight year old teacher. At church, there is an extraordinary woman, also in her seventies, Jane, who  is also actively teaching. All three of them have amazing energy levels and love teaching. I know that I will not be teaching when I am in my seventies, but I salute those who do.
         I especially salute Solveig, who worked with the same challenging students I have been writing about in this blog, but she was more than twice my age at the time. Any kid can drain a teacher, but special kids are particularly good at it. She may have been ancient, but I don't remember ever seeing her look tired. Solveig always looked like she had just finished a great nap, with her bright blue eyes and engaging smile. Any looming crisis or pressing need brought to her attention was immediately transformed into an opportunity to be creative and compassionate.
         You have been gone a year now, and surely earned your rest, dear ol' Sol. I'm trying to remember how you operated when you were my age. My steps might be more spry and my wardrobe may be a little bit less dowdy, but as I strive daily to match your charm and effectiveness, I fall short. I can't promise anything, Sol, but I will truly give each day a good ol' Scandahoovian try. Thank you for your shining example.

The Salad Meltdown Lesson

                                                                                               

        This is exactly what Kathy looked like. She was an extremely angry, explosive little girl. She was sixteen, and tiny; just 4'9" tall. She was perfectly proportioned, very curvaceous, and she really, really, really liked attention from boys. She had classic Minnesota Norwegian coloring: blonde hair, blue eyes, and creamy white skin. Kathy was quite pretty, intellectually challenged, and mentally ill. We struggled daily with her wardrobe, which was always sexually provocative, and with her makeup, which was always more appropriate for clubbing than for school. She had a sweet little bell-like voice and could be delightfully charming. When she became angry, the screams that came out of her mouth could shatter wine glasses. Her second language was profanity.
        My classroom had been moved from Emerson, the special school where I taught, to a regular Minneapolis high school. My students were the highest functioning in the special program, so we were selected to "transition" for the purpose of normalizing their social skills. None of them had academic skills high enough to include in the regular classes, but we were to be in the hallways, the lunchroom, and the physical education classes with the other students. Hindsight has told me it was a huge miscalculation to include Kathy in this project.

        The first indication that Kathy was going to have difficulty came at the end of the initial week of our inclusion in the school.. I was called to the counselors' office on Friday afternoon. Miss Elliot, the lead counselor, informed me there were several accounts from young men who had their rear-ends pinched in the hallways near our classroom. The reports were all similar: the boys felt a pinch as they were walking, and when they turned around, they saw a short blonde girl running away. Guess who?

        I was not surprised, but I pretended to be. I had talked, explained, role-played, and "laid down the law" with Kathy for weeks before we left the security of Emerson. She knew better, but she simply could not help herself when it came to touching the boys. There had been one or two pinching incidents in my room before, but she was not very earnest about going after the boys in my class. Most of them looked handicapped, and she was not at all interested in them as boyfriend material. She had created her fantasy sweetheart from photos in the magazine Seventeen. Being in this regular school, full of normal red-blooded boys, football players, basketball players, and wrestlers, was a male smorgasbord for Kathy.
        The counselor and I spoke with Kathy the following Monday morning. No more hallway pinching. Her reward would be that she could continue to be in the hall during passing time. Her negative consequence, if the incidents continued, was loss of hallway time. She agreed. Monday, there were no incidents; Tuesday, there were no incidents. Wednesday afternoon, I was summoned to see Miss Elliot again. There had been four more reports of fanny-pinching....this time in the lunchroom.
      I promised the counselor I would talk with Kathy again, and she would not be eating in the lunchroom or using the hallways during passing times until we had the pinching under control. This was a relatively new behavior for Kathy, so I had no idea how long that would be. Kathy was basically "grounded" to our room. She was not happy.
      "I need to see the boys! I need to see the boys!", she whined and argued. "I promise I won't do it any more!", she added, stomping her feet several times, like she was putting out a fire, and adding a string of expletives.
      I explained that she and I would eat lunch together in our room on Thursday and Friday. Then we would talk about her going to the lunchroom, under supervision, the next Monday. Rumors about "a crazy little blonde chick" were flying around the school. We needed to lower our profile for a few days.
      Kathy wanted a salad for lunch and she wanted Ranch dressing. My classroom associate went to the lunchroom to get the salad, brought it back to the room, and set it on my desk while Kathy and I were in the restroom washing our hands. We came back to the room. My associate had gone to take her lunch break, and I placed Kathy's salad on her desk. All hell broke loose.
     The associate had mistakenly gotten French dressing. Ranch/French...it was easy to see  how there could be a misunderstanding, especially with the way Kathy had been whining about having to eat in the room.
     The high-pitched screeching started. "I neeeeeeeeed Raaaannnnccchh! I don't want no fu#%*g French!  I neeeeeeeeed Raaaannnnccchh!" I tried to calm her. I put my arm around her, but she started crying.             
      "Kathy, Dorothy thought you said French. I'm sorry. You are going to have to either eat salad with French, or eat the salad without dressing."  There was no way I could take her to the lunchroom, in the condition she was in, and I couldn't go get Ranch dressing and leave her in the room alone. Pre-cell phone days.

        There was absolutely no consoling her. Her voice went higher and higher.

       "I neeeeeeeeed Raaaannnnccchh! I don't want no fu#%*g French!  I neeeeeeeeed Raaaannnnccchh!"

        She got louder and louder. She threw herself on the floor. I moved the desks out of the way when she started rolling around and kicking her feet and pounding her clenched little fists on the wooden floor. She was shrieking, crying pitifully, cussing, screaming for Ranch dressing, and was totally out of control. Tears were streaming down her bright red face. I could see no way of stopping this. That tiny girl was making an enormous ruckus about Ranch dressing.
       A few teachers peeked in the door, but I waved them out again. No one needed to see her like this. My classroom associate, Dorothy, heard what was going on in our classroom, so she picked up our other students from the lunchroom and took them outside for a walk.
      Kathy kicked, pounded, shrieked, and cried for thirty minutes. I went to my desk after about ten minutes and turned on the tape recorder. I had never seen or heard anything like this. It was like a really bad tantrum a small child might have, and then fall asleep sobbing. That is exactly what Kathy did; after a half hour, she fell asleep on the floor. Salad untouched. Teacher astounded. Student asleep.
       I went to the door, motioned for a passing student, and sent her to go get the school nurse to come to my room. The nurse brought a blanket and a pillow. We gently moved Kathy, who awakened only momentarily, to a cot in the back of the room. She was soaking wet with sweat. We covered her with the blanket, I pulled our portable room divider around the cot, and Kathy slept soundly for the rest of the afternoon. The other students returned and we finished our classes for the day.
       When she awoke, she remembered very little of what had happened at lunch. She said she was hungry and ate her salad, with no dressing. Instead of putting her on the special school bus, I drove her home. All the way to her house, she repeatedly apologized for pinching boys. She didn't really recall what had happened at lunch, but she thought it had to do with her pinching boys. She said she didn't like the way she felt...not being able to remember what happened. I didn't tell her everything she did, thinking it was best not remembered.
       I did tell her she was going to be eating lunch in the room on Friday and she was fine with that. I had to write an incident report. I played the tape I had recorded for Dr. Haider, my principal at Emerson. He looked so sad as he listened to just a minute or two of it. He understood there was no comforting her. Dr. Haider said he was sorry I had to experience that, and he was especially sad for Kathy.
       Kathy's Friday lunch was uneventful; she and I started repairing our relationship.We talked about how touching boys was not a good idea. It wasn't what girls did at school. We sat together in the lunchroom all the next week and watched the other girls in the school. We observed no girls pinching boys, and really very little other touching. Kids still had boundaries then.
        Kathy returned to the halls and the lunchroom without incident. Just to be sure, my associate followed her, at a distance, for about a month, and Kathy did just fine.
        We never discussed the tantrum over Ranch dressing after that. That dressing was really not part of the equation. But, it certainly wasn't the pinching issue that set it off either. What it was is one of the most horrific classroom incidents in all of my years of teaching.
       About three months after this happened, shortly after Christmas Break, the school social worker discovered that Kathy was being sexually abused by a sixteen year old stepbrother. It had been going on for almost two years. He was prosecuted and sent to a juvenile institution.
       Well, that explained a lot; her overtly-sexual behavior, her low frustration level, and her memory loss. The school psychologist said that the "salad meltdown" she had was probably  a mechanism to help Kathy vent her feelings about the abuse.
        Kathy was a tough little girl. She was a tragic victim. She had survived her trauma admirably, given her limited intellectual ability. She deserved so much better.  Her response to counseling was positive, but there is never a good outcome when a child like Kathy is abused like that.
        I teach in an all-girl classroom now. It is my fifth year with only female students, and I am still learning. My girls are strong/fragile. Intelligent/gullible. Brave/vulnerable. They have all had trauma of various kinds in their young lives. We press on together, looking for their future. I try to teach them to be prepared for whatever opportunities may be presented to them in the years ahead. Their caseworkers and counselors from Orchard Place and Child Guidance provide tremendous support for them and their families, and for me. I have not had anything close to a "salad meltdown" with any of them, but we do still have our "moments".
        We tell the girls that whatever "issues" they bring to the room, we will help them deal with them. I strive to foster a positive, nurturing learning environment.
        What I learned from Kathy is part of this nurturing. I now know that a child may have an obvious disability (usually a behavior disability in my room), but that disability is not necessarily their biggest problem.  A student might say that "this" is what's wrong, but it may really be "that", and they might not even realize it themselves....so how are the adults supposed to figure it out? Hmmmm, I guess that's why I can't wait to get to school every morning.

Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!

       I was a brand new teacher. My newly-born pedagogical skills still had placental blood on them. Tossed into a room with fifteen mentally disturbed and intellectually challenged teenagers, I was in survival mode. Oh, for sure, I ate determination for breakfast every morning, snacked on little bites of encouragement for lunch, but I drank a half bottle of wine the minute I walked into my house at 4:30PM every afternoon. I usually didn't even take off my coat or pour it into a glass. I just walked in the front door, went straight to the refrigerator, popped the cork, and drank it out of the bottle. Chateau Ste.Roseline. My own children ate a lot of Spaghettios that first year of teaching.

      My previous blog post subjects, Jeff, Lida, Rosemary, Troy, Scott, Mark, and Corey, were all in my classroom at the same time. And so was Bobby. Bobby was Lida's non-stop talking fishing friend (see Frankenstein or Jaws? post).

       This post is about Bobby. He was medicated with the gold standard of hyperactivity-battling medication back then in the early 1970s....ritalin. It didn't even phase him. Well, maybe it did, but I never saw him in the evenings, when it probably wore off. I only know for certain that it did not slow his speech down at all during the school day. He was the quintessential "motor mouth". I label him with that only in the most affectionate possible manner. He never used foul language and was always in a chipper mood. Bobby just never stopped talking. He couldn't help it, so that made the non-stop nature of  it much less annoying than you would think, but much of it was nonsense. I suspect Bobby wasn't even sure why he said most of the things that came out of his mouth.

        One day, almost everything Bobby talked about was related to trucks. My two teacher associates and I had listened to him most of the morning. Even with him doing most of his talking from his "office", behind a sound-proofed room divider, we had reached our saturation point. Our other students had also heard enough. We all just needed a couple of minutes of peace. I asked Bobby if he would please just stand out in the hall for five minutes....maybe he'd like to be our classroom policeman...."stand guard" at the door. There were windows in the door, so I could still observe him. Well, Bobby was very interested in this opportunity, but was sure he would need someone to talk to while he was out there. Being such a clever first-year teacher, I thought of the lockers in the hallway...the ones with the ventilation slots across the top of them. I suggested to Bobby that he could just  "talk to the lockers". What a great solution! "Pretend those air slots are a microphone! It will be fun, Bobby."

        Assigning Bobby to the hall for five minutes seemed like a wonderful idea for everyone. The other students could have a brief quiet time of respite, and the classroom staff could get a few minutes to gather our thoughts before moving to the next activity. Bobby could free-lance verbalize  with unfettered freedom.
        What could possibly go wrong?
        I did not calculate the possibility of the principal showing up.  Sure enough, after Bobby had been out in the hall only a minute, there was Dr. Haider, strolling down the third floor hallway.
       And there was Bobby, speaking in his fast-paced well-articulated voice, yapping into the locker..."Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!"  .....pause.... "Mack Truck!Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!"...pause...."Mack Truck! MackTruck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!".....and on and on and on .
      "Oh! Hi, Dr. Haider!  Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!"
      "Hello, Bobby. What are you doing out here?"
      "My teacher sent me out here. She said I can be the class policeman. She said I could talk to the locker. Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!"
      "Bobby, how long have you been out here?"
      "Only a little time, sir. I only have five minutes! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!" ...pause...."Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!" ...pause...."Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck! Mack Truck!"
        I peeked out the window to see how Bobby was doing. He was doing great. Talking to the locker. Having a wonderful time. I went back to the rest of the class for another couple of minutes, and then beckoned Bobby back into the room.
        The rest of our morning was a little more quiet. All that "locker talk" had worn Bobby out a bit.  The afternoon went uneventfully, the short yellow buses came to take the kids home, and it was quiet on the third floor.
       I went to the second floor, to the main office, to check my teacher mailbox. Seeing me from his office, Dr. Haider called to me, "Terri, please come talk with me."
      He had a thick Pakistani accent, but it was not too hard to get used to. I loved the way he said the word "discipline".  It sounded like "dah sip' a lin". He had several children of his own who were doctors and lawyers, as well as his youngest son, who was mentally challenged. Dr. Haider had been a well-known entomologist in his native country, but when this son was born, he re-entered the university, earned another doctorate in special education, and brought his family to America. He was a very gentle, caring administrator.
      Fortunately, he liked me. He used to tell me that he hired me because I looked like the actress Raquel Welch. I have no idea how that was possible, since she is a brown-eyed brunette, and totally exotic-looking. I was a blond, blue-eyed Iowa farm girl, but I was flattered nonetheless. However, he always made me feel he respected my teaching ability and he gave me many leadership opportunities within our school.
      So, that day...the day of Mack Truck... I entered his office and sat down across the desk from him. He was smiling broadly and shaking his head from side to side.
      The conversation went something like this, "Terri, you are a good teacher and a strong teacher. You are a smart woman. You do miracles with your students every day. This morning I found Bobby in the hall, talking to the locker."
       I didn't know Dr. Haider had been out there. I quickly tried to tell him why I had left Bobby in the hall by himself, "I can explain, Dr. Haider. The whole classroom needed a little break. It was only for five minutes. Bobby had a good time out there."
       "I'm glad it worked out today, but I think I have a better idea. Please call me when your class needs a break. I will listen to Bobby for a few minutes. I have plenty of time and would be happy to help you. Call me, please. I enjoy Bobby; he's a good boy." Then he added, "Why don't you go home early? You've had a long day."
         That great man has been the standard I have used to judge every administrator I have worked for since then. He cared for the kids. He cared for the teachers. He put his personal touch on every part of Emerson School. I will never forget Dr.Sajjad Haider, who taught me to ask for help if I needed it.  He taught me to take a break when I need it.
         Then there is Bobby, who taught me to give my students a break when they need it, or when I need it. He also taught me there are ideas that seem to be good at first, but are not always that good.  In the future, however, Bobby did get more breaks in the hall, with Dr. Haider. They enjoyed each other, and my classroom enjoyed a few minutes of peace and quiet.  Thanks, Dr. Haider, and thanks, Bobby.    

Frankenstein or Jaws?

          Wearing a red plaid flannel shirt and a pair of men's jeans, Lida stepped hesitantly into my classroom. Her Afro was trimmed quite close. With her straight up and down physique, she could have been mistaken for a boy. I welcomed her warmly, but she neither looked directly at me, nor did she return my smile. She didn't want to sit down, choosing instead to stand in the far back corner the entire first day of school.  She was correctly placed in my room, I knew that for sure.
         At sixteen, this sad-eyed bi-racial girl never wore makeup, but always wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt and jeans. It was like her uniform. She cooperated well with instruction and was actually a very bright young woman. Of course, in my class, bright was always a relative term. The rest of my students were all there for the same general reason: each one was normal or near normal intellectually, but functioned at a level that put them in the range of being severely developmentally disabled. To put it another way, they were mentally ill or had another condition that prevented them from performing at their maximum level of intelligence. They were not regular high school material. I called my classroom the "junior college" of our special school for intellectually handicapped kids.
        Like many of the others, Lida had been traumatized. At first, the social worker was very obtuse about exactly what had happened to her. She dodged my occasional inquiries with comments like, "It really won't help you to know",  and "You should speak with her mother about that."  Even these days, with my current students, I generally do not make it a practice to know all the gruesome details of their lives. Too much information can make it difficult to be the fair-handed educator, instead of their therapist. I decided to wait until parent conference time in the fall, and just cover the topic with her mother then.
        I discovered the the extent of damage to Lida the third day of school. The building principal was "making his rounds" and he knocked on my classroom door, peeking through the window in the door.  Because she had insisted that she did not want anyone sitting behind her, Lida was seated in the back of the room,  near the bank of windows on my east wall. Seeing his mustached face and hearing his first three or four firm knocks, Lida jumped out of her desk, nearly knocking it over. She extended her arms at shoulder level out in front of her and started growling; then she began pacing back and forth in front of the windows, marching with large stiff steps, like Frankenstein. The effect she was aiming for was perfectly obvious.  She never took her eyes off the door.  The "monster" was on guard in the rear of my class. 
       Dr. Haider, was a sweet older Pakistani gentleman. He had a developmentally disabled son of his own and was very loving and gentle toward all the students. He heard the loud noises coming from my room and  opened the door.
       Lida shouted, "You need to leave! Frankenstein is angry and dangerous! Get out!"
       Dr. Haider knew exactly what to do. He backed out and closed the door behind him. Lida completed stomping two more lengths of the classroom and returned to her seat; then she crossed her arms on top of the desk and put her head down. I just stood there, not moving or speaking, while this thirty second drama played itself out. The other students resumed their lessons.
       A similar incident occurred two days later. A  male custodian came into the room to examine our wall of windows for their winter readiness. (That's the sort of thing you need to do in early September in Minnesota.)
      This time, Lida abruptly stood up again, then backed a few steps into the corner of the room, with a fixed stare at the man. She put one of her hands on each side of her mouth and started clasping her fingers in  chomping motions, while simultaneously making loud chomping sounds with her own teeth. In a low, almost bass rumbling voice, Lida warned, "Look out for Jaws! Look out for Jaws!" Her eyes were fierce, but also fearful.
      

        The custodian retreated to the hall, just as the principal had, saying he would be back after school. Lida returned to her seat, and put her head down for a while.  The movie Jaws had been released the previous summer and most of my students had seen it. They were very complimentary about Lida’s shark simulation, but she did not thank them. It was serious business for her, not entertainment. We had episodes like this less than once a week after Lida became more familiar with the male adults in the building. The females caused no alarm for her, but any unknown man she saw sent her into her Jaws or Frankenstein terror. At outside recess,  I had to make sure she did not venture too close to the six-foot high chain link fence that surrounded out downtown school playground. An unsuspecting man passing by on the sidewalk could trigger one of these episodes. She would still get that fearful wide-eyed look when around the familiar men, but not resort to the scary imitations. Her purposeful androgynous appearance provided some cushion for her; many folks thought she was a boy.

       At fall parent conferences, Lida’s mother came at the scheduled time. We usually wanted to have students at the conferences, but her mom had left Lida at home. When I joined this mother at the conference table, she already had tears rolling down her face. The social worker had her arm around Lida’s mother and was comforting her. Smiling at me and patting the mother’s shoulder, the social worker assured me that these tears were tears of joy. She was so happy Lida was staying in school,  making friends, and not resisting attendance.

      “After all she has been through,” Mom finally explained, “she deserves to feel safe and happy. I know she will never be the same after this rape, but I am willing to do whatever it takes to make her feel protected.

      Why hadn't the social worker told me at the beginning of the school year that Lida had been raped? I had thought all along that the root of her behavior was probably rape, or some other sort of sexual assault.  Within the first week of school, I had seen Lida transform herself into two impervious characters in the presence of unknown men. She was afraid of most men and her adaptive behavior was to transform herself into those extremely frightening creatures. Pretty clever, really. Who is less vulnerable than Jaws or Frankenstein?  Obviously, this reaction seems a little extreme, even for a rape. Rape is horrific crime, and Lida had been raped horrifically, by several men, several times. Lida had lost herself. Most of the time, her eyes looked much like the ones at the top of this blog. She was so full of hurt and sadness. Our experts found that her mental disability made it difficult to counsel her. Still, she had found her own way to defend herself.

       As the conference proceeded, I was able to report glowingly on Lida's progress in all areas of her academics and behavior. She was indeed making friends and making good gains in her life skills. Her grooming had improved greatly, although she still insisted on her flannel shirt and jeans wardrobe.

      One of her best friends from my class was a very hyperactive young man. He was a slim, blond, blue-eyed talking machine. Lida never tired of listening to him. He was so grateful to have her for a friend. They also lived in the same neighborhood, so they became fishing buddies in the local creek. Their weekend jaunts to the banks of that creek gave them both much pleasure, until one fateful Saturday. The young man decided to bring his two brothers with him. They had no ill intent; they just wanted to meet Lida.

      When he went to meet Lida down by the creek, she observed them approaching her. She apparently felt trapped between them and the creek, so as they approached, in spite of the fact that her good friend Bobby was with them, Lida pulled out a pocket knife. She stabbed her friend three times and each of his brothers twice, before she ran away. They were superficial wounds, but the damage had been done. There was more damage coming Lida's way. The police were called and when they came to her house to arrest her, there was a ferocious struggle by some very tenacious police officers before they were able to handcuff the terrified Frankenshark. Lida was hospitalized after threatening suicide in juvenile detention.

       Ultimately, the young men and their parents did not press charges, and it was not even the end of the fishing friendship. However, the part of this narrative that does not turn out happily is the additional trauma inflicted on Lida. She had been traumatized by the fright of possibly  being gang-raped again. Her arrest was a tragically violent one. She had unfortunately wounded a gentle young man she felt true friendship toward. The young man's forgiveness did not comfort Lida. Having her mother accompany them on future fishing trips really took away the sense of independence and adventure that was most of these excursions' appeal. Most importantly, Lida's sense of personal safety had once again been devastated. It was a very dark time for her.

       Lida was in my classroom for three more years. She made tremendous strides in her life during that time. She became an assistant for feeding one of the most severely handicapped younger students in our building. She excelled in her home economics classes. Lida also helped a volunteer from a nearby dental college organize an after-lunch tooth brushing program for all 200 students in the school. At nineteen she transitioned into the vocational part of our curriculum and became trained as a housekeeper at a suburban Marriott hotel. Her mother "teamed" with her and they were allowed to work together. It gave Lida the independence of her own paycheck, while letting her work with the physical security of a trusted partner. By this time, the days of Jaws and Frankenstein were behind her. Maybe not far behind her, but intentionally pushed into the past. She was determined to move forward.

       Lida was what I call a "long-term project". There were times, like the stabbing, when it seemed like Lida's life was on the edge of complete ruin. Still, she persevered, far beyond her limited mental capacity. This accomplishment, in itself, is almost unbelievable.

     My lesson from this was simple. Redemption exists. Coming from an experience that would put most adult women into years of therapy, this teenager survived multiple subsequent traumas, and still prevailed. I don't know what reaching the "lowest point" might be for a teenage girl, but I think Lida must have been close; more than once. She battled back from rape. She struggled with suicidal thoughts. She overcame immobilizing, irrational fear. Certainly, her coping mechanism was not a conventional one, but Frankenstein and Jaws gave her space and time to recover her sanity and find her way to her future. I want to believe that Lida is happy, working, maybe still living with her mother; maybe even still friends with Bobby. I am sure she is surrounded by loving, caring family and supporters, and that she is helping others, volunteering, giving back. She deserves that.
 

Rosemary's Shower

Don’t you love the smell of rosemary? It truly is a delicious herb to flavor potatoes, lamb, chicken, and add a distinctive touch to every sort of gourmet dish. It is also a girl’s name.

Many years ago, I had a student named Rosemary, but sadly, she did not live up to her namesake seasoning. She came from a family of eight; two parents and six children. All six of the children were mentally challenged. Back in the 70s they called it “familial retardation”. Genetic failure. I think I would have quit after the second child was diagnosed, but these parents were poor, and mildly intellectually challenged themselves. By the time social services got to them, they had six offspring.

They did the best they could, but the mother and father really had their hands full. The parents always cooperated with school and with the state agencies, so they never took the children away; at least not during the time I knew them.

 I was teaching half days and spending the other half days visiting the families of our students, in their homes. It was a federal project my school had become involved in. We were trying to find out if we could help parents extend the learning the kids did at school into their homes in the evenings. We tried to teach the parents how to help the children practice their new skills at home.

For example, I taught parents how to teach their children the “back-chaining” way to tie shoelaces. If they taught them the same way we did at school, it would hopefully cause less confusion for the child and shorten the time it took them to master that skill. We tried to transfer many skills to the homes in this way. The grant program went for three years, and I felt it was successful.

Well, my task with Rosemary, and with her five siblings, was to teach them how to properly bathe. We did not teach this at school, but every staff person at school knew this was a skill these parents had not taught their children.  The six of them were extremely “fragrant”, and not in a good way. Rosemary was sixteen and her hygiene was simply abominable. She had fairly curly and closely trimmed brown hair and for a teen, her skin was relatively free of acne. She was tall, with good posture, and could have presented herself as an average girl, except for that awful odor. I will politely describe it as a sour and biting combination of intense body odor mixed with a urine/feces scent. Rosemary smelled nothing like rosemary.

It was a steamy, early September afternoon when I visited Rosemary’s home to explain this new program. The front room appeared to be fairly neat, but not at all clean. It was dark, dusty, and smelled like “dog.” I was ushered into the kitchen, where the parents and I sat around a large oval table, where I presumed they ate meals with their large crew of children. It was covered with a clean bright yellow tablecloth. I started explaining my purpose while they smiled and nodded their approval of the idea. They actually wanted me to teach all the children to bathe, stating that they knew they had been having very little luck with their own efforts.

We had only be seated there maybe one  minute, and slowly, an extremely foul and rancid odor wafted up to my nose. I leaned a little forward, then a little to the side, and realized it was coming from under the table.

“Do you have a sewer back-up problem?” I asked, even though that was not exactly the right smell.

“Oh no, don’t worry about that, the dog had her puppies under the table yesterday. We just haven’t had a chance to clean it up yet.”

I tried very hard not to gag, and quickly asked if I could see the bathroom. I just wanted to see the tub or shower arrangement they had so I would know how to simulate their bathroom in the locker room at school.

The bathroom was upstairs. The floor was covered with hair, the mirror was small and cracked, and well, I will spare you the condition of the toilet. The tub was filled with dirty clothes; it was overflowing, and piled high, about three feet over the top edge. It was obvious that this tub had not been used in a really long time.

I looked at the mom. Knowing she could probably read the concern on my face, I tried to mask my distress when I asked, “Where do the kids bathe or shower?”

“They just wash up down in the kitchen sink. The faucet up here don’t work,” she replied, with a helpless shrug of her small shoulders. “The water in the tub works, but I can’t catch up on the laundry for all these kids.” I arranged with the school social worker to get Mom help catching up on the laundry.

 I took Rosemary to the shower at school. We didn’t usually instruct kids in bathing; we only used the tub/shower combination to clean up a child if they became ill or incontinent and needed to “start over” before going home. We kept spare clothes there and normally used it only for emergencies.

Rosemary took off her clothes in the restroom stall and came out with a towel around her, as I had asked. I saw she was still wearing her bra, and she seemed genuinely surprised that she had to remove it. When she dropped the towel to remove her bra, I saw she also still had on her underpants. Again, Rosemary really did not know that it was necessary to totally strip before showering. This girl, at age sixteen, had never had a bath or a shower. She had only done “sponge baths” her entire life. She probably wore her underpants to her “baths” in their kitchen, for modesty reasons.

If you can recall the happiest, most refreshing time you have ever been in the shower; when that water felt so warm and enveloped you in its comforting torrents….multiply that times 1000, and that is the delight Rosemary experienced that day.  She used the shampoo sample first, as I instructed her from the other side of the shower curtain. Then, she got her washcloth soaped up and scrubbed herself top to bottom.  She was somewhat alarmed, as was I, at the fistful of pubic hair she held after washing her private area thoroughly for the first time in her life.  Then she rinsed.

She was a good student. She did the washcloth routine again, and again, and again. She took forty-five minutes and showered four times.  I finally had to give her a sixty second countdown, and then I reached in to turn off the faucets. She stood there and cried, sobbing into her washcloth and begging me to let her do it again. I got her to come out and wrap the towel around her by promising her she could do it again the next day.

We taught all of Rosemary’s siblings to shower.  A male teacher helped with the two boys, and I taught the three other girls. The parents were so grateful and three months later, the tub at home was still being used regularly. Rosemary was able to get a part-time position in our vocational education  department’s Marriott maid program. Previously, her poor hygiene had prevented her from being employed. It was a happy ending for everyone. The bus driver who drove those six kids back and forth to school didn’t have to spray his bus with Lysol every day. The youngsters started to make more friends at school and every other teacher in the building thanked me repeatedly.

I felt guilty. I had been paid to do something that I was sure I would have done for free. Even if I had not been a teacher, and I discovered this family who did not know how to bathe, I would want to teach them.  It was the only humane thing to do. To me, there is something obscene in that kind of uncleanliness. Not pornographically obscene, but the inhumane kind of obscene. In the first twenty-five years of my life, even living on a farm, I had never seen that kind of filth. In the forty years I have lived since then, I have not seen in again. It was appalling, and I fixed it. It was so simple, really, and the simplicity of it still astounds me. It felt SO good to have helped those kids, and it was so easy. All it took was a little soap and water.

I think everyone should have something that horrifies them to the point of taking action to remedy it. I want everyone to have that feeling that I experienced when I taught Rosemary to bathe herself. I’m not talking about trimming your toenails when they get too long. I’m not talking about dropping some change in a red Salvation Army bucket. Of course, we all need to do those necessary and those generous things to be human and to share our bounty with others. I’m aiming at the idea of correcting something that cannot be allowed to exist.

Everyone can fill in their own blank. You each can name something whose existence is intolerable to you.  Go do something to change it. Try to help fix it. Think big. It could be something that would benefit just one person. It could be global, but it doesn’t have to be; just so it makes someone’s world better…it doesn’t have to the whole world. Go get your ‘soap and water’ and get busy. I’d love to hear about it when you get it done.

Hey, Ya Wanna See My "Fried Egg" Face?

Meet Troy. Well, this isn't really Troy; it's a picture I found online, but it's as close as

I could get to Troy. Troy was a young man with Down Syndrome, thick glasses on his perfectly

 round face, Nordic blond hair, big blue eyes, and a killer sense of comedy. Use your imagination.

      Troy had a hard time getting his feet off the floor. He shuffled everywhere, hunched over a little with his arms straight down at his side, and he needed frequent reminders to hold his head up so he could see where he was going. But, Troy was not an "institutional" kid. He lived his life with his parents, and he was an only child. Thus, he was my classroom "preppie". Dressed to the nines every day, well-mannered, always saying his pleases and thank-yous....Troy was a special education teacher's dream student. He loved homework, which was often worksheets with clocks for telling time, or with coins, so he could practice counting money. He carried his "sight word" flashcards around in a fanny pack, so he could practice them if he had a few extra minutes. I actually missed him during the 45 minutes he was out of my classroom to see the speech therapist twice a week. Most of the other teachers in the building greeted him daily with a hearty "Atta boy, Troy!", and he would reward him with the most infectious smile ever.

      If you have read some of my earlier posts, you know I had some extraordinary students in my Minneapolis classroom. Troy was no less special. This kid was an absolute sunbeam. I have known many teens with Down Syndrome, and as a group they are predictably cheerful, but Troy's positive attitude extended far beyond this stereotype. Many times I watched him as he stopped a peer from exploding into a frustrated temper tantrum, or as he brought an extended crying jag to a dead stop. A droopy, depressed classmate would be laughing hysterically in just a few seconds. Troy's secret was his willingness to do whatever it took to stop the negativity and to inject the sad-sack friend with his personal brand of comedy. Mostly, he accomplished this using only his favorite funny face.

      "Hey, ya wanna see my fried egg face?"

      That's all it took.

       Troy would tuck in his lips and bulge out his eyes, posing with a dedicated stare, as he jutted out his chin and then took a quick peek to make sure you were watching.

      "Don't it look just like my eyeballs is eggs in a frying pan?"

      It CERTAINLY did. His sad/mad/unhappy target's response would always be the same. A loud laugh, another laugh, and then you would have to beg him to stop. If it did not get an immediate response, Troy would put his hands on his hips and march around to everyone who might be nearby and show all of them his fried-egg face. Any person involved in one of these scenarios would be in on the loud laughing within seconds.

      This was part of his effectiveness. Troy didn't just get the target person to laugh, he would create a chorus of laughter. And he knew when to quit. At just the right moment, with the timing of a seasoned entertainer, Troy would give a satisfied sigh.

   

      "Now that's a whole lot better. Let's just be happy."

       Troy would get back to whatever business he was tending to before his "show".  A bad situation had been completely turned around, and Troy would act like nothing had happened.

       I truly wish I had a photograph of Troy and his fried-egg face. It was one of those things that just had to be seen in person to get the full effect. Only in one of those moments, could you see the pure joy he felt by being able to help someone laugh when they needed it most. It was his gift.

       Troy made it easy to laugh, because he had no problem laughing at himself. He never took the task of making that face seriously. He never worried how silly or strange he might seem to others. People who didn't know Troy might think, "He looks so different already with that funny walk, weird eyes, and thick glasses; why would he make a face like that and make himself look even goofier?"

  

      Why would he do that?  He would do that because Troy cared about his friends and not about himself. He was a giver, not a taker. He never complained, argued, or slacked. He had a life to live and a mission to accomplish. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have more folks like Troy in your life?

       Troy will always be in my life. He is permanently impressed on my brain. Laugh, life is too short to be unhappy. Don't take yourself so seriously. Smile, who cares how goofy you look...it feels good. And it usually makes the people around you feel good, too. Thanks, Troy.

        

       



There Are Worse Things Than Being Hungry

         I don't really know quite where to start, so I will simply introduce you to Mark. Mark was a student in my "higher functioning" classroom of intellectually challenged teenagers. Back then, in the early 1970s, these kids were labelled as EMR, Educable Mentally Retarded. In short, Mark looked normal, but he was smart enough to know he wasn't normal.

      Mark's mother was a prostitute. They lived in the high-rise "projects" on the north side of Minneapolis. He was a little short for seventeen (about 5'4"), very slender, and looked even more slender in his too-small jeans and plaid shirts. He had shoulder-length brown hair with bangs. (it WAS the 1970s) He had a pleasant face with round brown eyes, but rarely smiled. Life was rough for him.
      He had been traumatized, I figured, by living in a situation where his mother would answer their door, let a man in, tell Mark to stay in the living room with the TV blaring, and take her "john" back to the bedroom. One time, early in the fall, Mark missed a whole week of school. The school social worker told me that Mark had been staying in a temporary foster home for the week and was getting some counseling. When Mark returned to class, he calmly relayed the story of what had happened; apparently, he witnessed the suicide of his mother's pimp. The man simply jumped out of the window in Mark's fifth floor apartment.
But now, Mom was back in business and Mark was back at home.
       This created another problem. That now-deceased pimp had been Mark's transportation to and from school. There should have been a school bus, but his mother had been very unreliable at getting Mark up and ready for school in time to keep the bus on schedule, so she agreed to get him there without the help of the school system. Now, he had no ride to school. The social worker was a short-term solution. I needed to teach Mark to ride the city bus. He would need to know how to ride it when he graduated and got a job, so now was a good time to learn.
       Well, I grew up on a farm. I had never really spent much time even walking on a city sidewalk, let alone riding a city bus. Mark and I learned together. He caught on quickly, even doing a great job asking the driver  for a transfer, but he had one looming fear. People in his project neighborhood were regularly mugged. His mother wasn't worried. She was confident that "the folks who live here won't mess with my boy. They know better."  She forgot her enforcer was dead, and sure enough, Mark was robbed of his watch and wallet the first time he rode home alone from school. It was just after Thanksgiving, and Mark's holiday season was about to get worse.
        There was a horrible flu going around. Mark became ill two weeks before Christmas vacation started. Joyce, the social worker, checked on him a couple times a week. She reported to me that although he was over the worst of it, he was still weak and recovering slowly.
         Mark would miss the big Santa Party we had every year.  Our special school had about 200 special education students attending. Right before vacation, a wonderful Santa would enter the gym, where we had gathered all the children. It was chaos. Santa would read each name from a list. The students would take their turns walking up on the stage (or be taken up there in their wheelchair) where Santa was seated on his throne. Santa would bestow each child with a large bag of wrapped gifts for them to take home and open.  The social worker planned to take Mark's gifts to his apartment, so I quit worrying.
        I started worrying again, right after lunch that day, when Mark showed up for school. He could barely walk. We had already finished gathering the other kids around the edge of the gym. The other children were being led in a raucous chorus of holiday songs, so I seated Mark on one of the staff chairs and waited with him for the singing to end and the present distribution to begin. When Santa called his name, Mark struggled to his feet, nearly knocking over the folding chair where he was sitting. I stood up to reach for him, but he fainted, falling at my feet. Miss Pauline, who was the school nurse, along with Joyce and the principal, helped me carry him to the nurse's office. We placed him gently on her padded wooden cot and applied damp cloths to his clammy forehead.
        He awakened after a short time, and had no idea where he was. When he saw the four of us there together, he said, "I came to school."
       Mark was lying on that cot, looking so very pale and incredibly frail. He truly looked like he should have been in the hospital. We phoned his mother, who had no idea he was not in his room at home. We discussed taking him to the hospital across the street, but Pauline concluded that he was not dehydrated or in need of emergency care, so Joyce and I agreed to give him a ride home. I went down to the gym to get Mark's bag of presents and put them in my car. When I returned to the nurse's office to get Mark, he was asleep. We let him rest for about an hour.
        When Mark woke up, I gave him some graham crackers and juice. He sat on the edge of the cot, eating slowly, and we spent a few minutes talking about what had been going on at school while he had been out sick. He mostly listened and ate, then he apologized for being "so much trouble." I assured him that we did not consider him any trouble and that we were the ones who felt badly. I explained that we had hoped he would regain his strength over the two weeks of Christmas Break.
       Then I asked the question. To this day, I  have not forgotten this. It was innocent enough and really, a natural question to ask. I was expressing concern over the possibility that he could have collapsed on the city bus, or on the street....that he could have been injured.
       "Mark, why did you try to come to school when you were so weak?"
       He replied, "I knew this was the only Christmas I would have,"
       Yeah, let that sink in for a minute.  I didn't have a minute. It hit all of us in the room like a brick. The social worker, the nurse, and I. We all moved straight to Mark and embraced him. He was so physically delicate at this point, let me assure you it was a light embrace; much lighter than we would have preferred to have given him.
       Mark said, through his tears, "I love you."
       We replied that we loved him, and the four of us just stood there, together, for a bit longer. Feeling that love.
       Pauline got him bundled up in his coat, adding a warm scarf, hat, and mittens from her closet. Joyce went to her office pantry to get some extra food for Mark to take home. I went to warm up my car.
       It was a quick ride to the near-north side of Minneapolis. I told Mark to stay inside over the break and to rest up. Then, I waited in the car while Joyce helped Mark get inside, and then take in the presents and the food. 
      That was the last time I saw Mark. When Joyce tried to contact them during break, she discovered they had left the day after we dropped him off. The neighbor said they "went to Chicago for Christmas." Despite several attempts, Joyce could never locate them after that.
        Mark, wherever you are, I hope that awful Christmas has faded from your memory. The only part I don't want you to forget is that you are loved. Love can get you through being ill, being lonely, being neglected, even being hungry.  I hope that wherever you are now, you are wanted, fed, cared for, and loved by those around you.
        Mark, wherever you are now, I want to thank you for this lesson in life. It's not the presents, the food, or the festivities that make Christmas or any occasion important. It's love....simply the human love we have for each other. Without love, as the famous book says, we are nothing.

Overalls and Wonder Bread

      This is about Jeff, but first I must briefly explain the times we were in. I was beginning my special education teaching career in the early 1970s, just as they were "emptying the institutions" in Minnesota.  Public Law 94-142 decreed that mentally disabled individuals were entitled to a free public education. State residential institutions began closing and group homes for those individuals opened everywhere. I taught at Emerson School, in Minneapolis, where many group home residents attended. End of history lesson; let me tell you what I learned from Jeff, who was a recent transfer into my class from a closed state institution.

      Jeff was short, chubby, and charming. He had rosy red cheeks and a big toothy smile with a gate-sized gap in the middle. His buzz-cut flat top hair was bright carrot orange and he had an enormous crop of freckles. That friendly grin was his trademark. Well, that grin, along with his striped overalls. They were a carry-over from his first fourteen years of institutional living. Jeff wore overalls every day. Underneath, he donned either a white t-shirt or a gray cable-knit sweater, depending on the weather.

      And then there was that slice of bread. White bread. Wonder Bread; according to Jeff, it was called "Wunnerful Bwead". A single small slice was stuffed into his centered bib overall pocket, right under his chin. Jeff had an overall-type body. You know, a stout rounder physique that was better suited to a pair of overalls than to a belted pair of pants.
     Even though I knew he had a hearty breakfast at the group home before school, Jeff would walk around all morning with his hand held tightly against that pocket.
      "Save for later, when I hungry, " he would say, squishing the pocket even more firmly with his pudgy hand and turning halfway around, like he was protecting it from being confiscated. It seemed enough for him to just have it. It was somewhat like a gastronomic security blanket, and it came into play every day around eleven o'clock in the morning. We would be working on telling time or counting money, and Jeff would start trying to unsnap his front pocket.
     "Wait. I eat, I work good," Jeff would assure me. I would wait. Jeff would eat. Then he would proceed to "work good". Every time. Every day. It was only an hour before lunch, but Jeff was hungry. He could not focus on his lessons at all when he had a rumbling tummy. It was pointless. The easiest thing to do was just give him a minute and let him have his slice of bread.
       This happened at a time in special education when rewards like M&Ms were considered a good reinforcement. Jeff did not want candy. It had to be his magical "Wunnerful Bwead".  The bread wasn't a reward for Jeff, it was essential; he was hungry. Trying to interest him in being a student of time or money was pointless when he was hungry.
      Think about it for just a minute. Time and money are two pretty darn important commodities in our lives. If we could have more time and more money, most of us would be thrilled. Jeff had no interest in hearing about either one when he needed something to eat.
       Students have come into my class over the past thirty years and not one of them as been the same as another. Each student has been unique and special. However, there is one common thread: if they were hungry, they were unteachable.
       As a mother, the thought of a truly hungry child is not acceptable to me, and it's probably not acceptable to you either. I never sent one of my own children to school with an empty stomach, making noises with its own gurgling juices. Who would do that? You would be surprised how regularly it happens. These days, many struggling single moms or dumped-on grandmothers are just lucky to be able to scrape their child out of bed and get them to school in the nick of time.

      And there they sit. Stomachs empty. Maybe with a hunger headache to boot. Not the least bit interested in anything happening in my room. Sure there are free breakfast programs, but sometimes the food is all put away in the lunchroom by the time these tardy, sluggish kids drag themselves through my door.

      I feed them.  No questions asked. A bunch of bananas lounge on the front edge of my desk every day. Just take one; you really don't have to ask. Any time, all day long.  They are not slices of Wonder Bread, but they quell the grumbling tummies and are found on the "approved classroom snack" list. They put kids' minds back in the learning mode, and make them teachable again.

      There is simply no point in a teacher trying to work with a hungry child. Jeff taught me this....he could focus on the lesson, but only when his stomach wasn't demanding his already limited attention. Thanks to Jeff and his "Wunnerful Bwead", I also know this: there is a broad spectrum of reasons which might keep a student from being able to learn under my instruction, but being hungry will NEVER be one. For cryin' out loud, just feed the kids! Bon appetit, Jeff.

PS- This has only a tangential connection to this blog entry, but I include it to demonstrate that even after all my years in the classroom, I can still have "firsts". Last week I received a girl in my classroom, who has only lived in Des Moines since June. She came from Chicago. She had never even held a real banana in her hand before. She had never tasted one. She had absolutely no experience with bananas in the first fifteen years of her life, beyond seeing them in a pile at the grocery store. (We convinced her to take one small bite. She didn't like it.) I keep crackers in my desk drawer now, in case she comes in hungry some day. Nope, I can't make this stuff up!

Before Autism Was An Epidemic

      Corey had beautiful eyes....well, I thought they were beautiful. They were the most charming, warm, brown eyes I had ever seen in a child. You had to look him in the eyes; they just drew you in. But Corey could not maintain eye contact for any length of time. He was a savant; an artistic savant; a savant with autism.

      He echoed what you said, but was unable to construct an answer for any question he was asked, like "What did Corey have for breakfast?" He would just smile and reply, "Corey have for breakfast?"

      He rocked. His arms would flail in mid-air at times of excitement or confusion. When he stood still and was not asked any questions, he appeared to be pretty normal; a handsome, tall, well-built, African-American sixteen year old. His single mother was a hotel maid in Minneapolis. Corey adored her. He very seldom was unhappy. He smiled when spoken to and tried dutifully to follow directions. His mother had raised him to be a gentleman; he opened doors for me and would try to relieve me of any large loads he might see me carrying. I still wish I could have relieved Corey of his burden; and freed him to fully express his monumental talent. Autism doesn't work like that.

       (In case you don't know me, let me tell you that I have a grandson with autism. He is also a savant, being hyperlexic, an expert on exotic animals, and also a calendar savant. His art, sense of humor, and creativity are impressive.)
      Corey was my first contact with autism, back in 1974. Educators certainly did not know everything we know now about it. There was very little known. Corey was in my classroom of mentally challenged, mentally ill, higher-functioning high school students. He fit right in. Except for that art thing.
       In those days, copies were made on mimeograph machines. Purple ink, damp stinky paper... the kind of smell we used to pretend to get "high" on. Pretty toxic stuff. There were no Xerox machines or copy machines as we know them today, even though we lived in the Twin Cities, home of IBM. There was certainly no way to enlarge or reduce pictures; unless you had Corey in your room! Corey could draw them exactly like they were printed, any size I needed. He had multiple fancy fonts, also. Flawlessly executed.
      How to channel that talent? Or was it OK to just let him use it for his own amusement? He had no friends, so Corey had never been invited to a sleepover, or a birthday party, or gone on a date. He wasn't going to get his driver's license or go to a football game or the prom. His entire source of  'fun' was his drawing. Maybe we should just leave the kid alone and let him draw. Don't try to turn him into 'something'.
      I was a young, enthusiastic teacher. I had to try.....try something. I entered him in the University of Minnesota "World Law Day" poster competition. He would be competing with twenty extremely talented high school artists from all over the state. I sat him down with a box of markers, showed him the promotional materials from the event, and he began drawing. His first drawing was a beautiful rendition of the globe, with tall white columns all around it, and a collection of multi-cultural faces. He added some of his magazine-ready script, and he had the winning entry done in about twenty minutes.
      Corey was not really public appearance material, so his mother would not allow him to go accept his award. Disappointed, but understanding, I accepted a shiny plaque and the $100.00 prize for him.
      His mother and I, with our school's art teacher, brainstormed ways to spend the money on Corey. Art books? A day at Valley Fair, local amusement mega-park? New clothes? Markers and art paper?

      We chose an exquisite calligraphy set. Corey's mother felt he might be able to help them earn some extra money if he could create handmade monogrammed card sets. He loved to make ornate script letters, but they would be more marketable if they were not done with markers. She bought some high-quality plain cards from a stationery supplier and intended to have him make sets of cards. She would market them in packages of six or eight cards in boutiques around the city. It seemed like a good plan; entrepreneurial, but simple. Almost all the staff at the school bought some. They were really beautiful, but there was a serious problem. Corey started to balk at making them. He was, of course, unable to explain himself, but he made it quite clear; "No." "All done." These were bold self-assertions for an echolalic; his own brief opinions about this repetitive and uninspired task. He had done some to humor us, but this was not the way he wanted to express his art.

      In what seemed to be a dramatic protest, Corey drastically changed his style of drawing. He drew fewer small pictures and almost no script. He began drawing poster-sized illustrations of wild animals, which were subjects he had never done before. When my classroom moved temporarily to the basement of one of the high schools, the principal there insisted on purchasing a drawing of a cougar that Corey had done. He had it professionally framed, and placed it on the wall behind his desk. It looked like it had come from an expensive wildlife gallery. After we encouraged Corey to do a few more similar drawings of other wild animals, he caught on, and switched to pictures of farm animals and Native Americans.

      His mother realized what was going on with his efforts to undermine our joint efforts to commercialize his creativity, and she wisely put a stop to it all. She knew Corey better than anyone else. She realized that despite her (and our) well-intentioned efforts to help her only son find a way that would allow him to generate an income as an adult, Corey wanted no part of it. He just wanted to draw. He wanted to draw what he wanted, when he wanted, and he wanted everyone to stop taking it away from him and selling it.

      Lesson learned.

      Oh, did I mention the name of the school where I taught? The name of the school where Corey taught me this lesson?  The name is Emerson School, just east of Loring Park in Minneapolis.

     This school was named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, that feisty mid-19th century champion of individualism and being true to your "nature".  That's all Corey really wanted to do. His caretaker and teachers wanted to make him into something special. He already was something special; he was Corey.

      Perhaps no one said it better than old Ralph Waldo Emerson himself, "It is easy to live for others, everyone does. I call on you to live for yourself."

      Over all the years I have been a teacher, and as a mother of five children, this lesson has perhaps been one of the most valuable. Kids are all different. A teacher cannot make a student into another student. Sure, you wish all your students could be bright, curious, enthusiastic, and, well, perfect. Guess what? Each student, each child; they are themselves. Our calling is to guide them to be the best "self" they can be. That's what we should be, and that's what we should encourage them to be. Well taught, Corey.

No Thumbs? No Problem!

      
       Richard had no thumbs. Yes, his hands looked exactly like the ones in this picture. He was a slight young man; only five feet tall and about ninety pounds at age eighteen. He seemed happy enough. We mostly judged that by the expression on his face, because he was totally non-verbal. Richard was one of the students at the special school where I taught in Minneapolis. He wasn't in my classroom, but he was in my Boy Scout troop and I saw him every day at lunch and recess. He observed everyone and everything around him, and was almost ninja-like in his movements. He would be standing next to me one minute, and then the next second, he was on the other side of the playground, but I never saw him run.
        Five fingers and no opposing thumbs made practically everything difficult for Richard. Imagine dressing yourself...zippers, buttons, belts....with no thumbs. To eat, Richard had to lace a spoon through his fingers, in an over/under manner like weaving; same thing with holding a pencil. Go ahead, try it. He had no use for a knife and fork, because he could not eat solid food anyway. Richard was born without a lower jaw, so he could not chew. All his food was pureed in a blender by the school cooks and he ate it with a spoon. Not even the best of school lunches can survive that in an acceptable form.
       No thumbs, no lower jaw; neither one of these obstacles seemed to inconvenience this amazing young man; and Richard was truly amazing.The most astounding thing about him, besides his unflappable pleasantness, was his ability to catch flies, bees, and hornets out of mid-air flight,. He could literally snatch them while they were flying past him. One of these insects would jet past and Richard would just swoop his hand after it...ZAP....the little critter would be hanging helplessly by their wings, between his second and third fingers. It happened so quickly, I kept wishing for a slow-motion film of it.
        He was not born with this skill....he learned it, practiced it, and perfected it. He did not do it to show off, although it sure was entertaining to watch. It seemed to be done for amusement and to fill his time at recess. This was in the before "handicapped adapted" playground equipment era. Richard could not grip the chains from which the swings were suspended. He could not hang onto the merry-go-round or climb up the ladder to the slide. Sitting on the teeter-totter and not being able to hang onto the hand grips would have been dangerous, unless we had tied him on like a cowboy on a rodeo bull. We had tried many times to hold onto him to enable him to do these normal kid activities, but he did not like being held as closely and tightly as was required to be safe. So, he made up his own playground game....bug-catching.  He never hurt the ones he caught. Richard always took great care in studying them for a minute or so and then letting them go. I never saw him get stung, either.

       What might be the life lesson to be learned here, from this severely physically deformed young man?

       For me, it has become so plain over the past 30 years since I spent so many recesses with Richard.
It's really true: a weakness can be transformed into a strength. A negative can be morphed into a positive. Serious life obstacles CAN be overcome and turned into advantages.  Lemons can be made into lemonade.
I do not believe I have ever seen a better example of this in my entire career than Richard. He is a glowing example of taking an obviously distinct and crippling disadvantage, and using it as an opportunity to reframe it and develop an exceptional skill. Even with his significantly diminished intellectual capacities.
       Are there students you know who think they have something so horribly wrong with them that it will ruin their lives? Tell them about Richard. Tell them to stop complaining about the school lunch.