My Philosophy of Teaching

I began work as a teacher in 1990.  My first job in the classroom, I taught in New York City.  I believed then, as I do now, that all education is in fact, special education, because all teaching at its core, is not about assessment or data or test scores or economic outcomes, but about reaching the heart of a student, and enkindling in the heart, a curiosity about something in the world.

It doesn't matter the subject, so it isn't about STEM or the arts or any other collection of disciplines one might decide to be the most important at the moment. Teaching is about connecting with the students, and that's measured one student at a time, despite attempts by school systems, governments, and those who profit from assessments of all kinds, to assert otherwise.  The goal of teaching is to reach beyond the test.  We don't remember the teachers who taught to the test, we remember the teachers who helped us love/understand/and in some cases, survive/endure  the subject beyond the test.

A school can have the finest technology, and indeed, many have access to more information than ever before, but it is the teacher that reveals to the students, how to use that data, how to rearrange it, make it their own, and compose new knowledge. A teacher is not a sage on a stage, but a teacher is also not a checker of boxes, to make sure each student can check off each of the boxes.  A teacher is someone who conveys not merely knowledge, though that's certainly part of it, but a desire for knowledge.  The goal of teaching, in any subject, is to inspire desire to know more, by experiment, by creativity, by collaborative work, by humor, by projects, by papers, by film, by experts, by pouring out into the classroom and all of the planning, every gift a teacher has to reveal the more of a subject, beyond what is assessed. 

Twenty-three years, I'd been away from teaching, and upon returning, even at a lessened capacity, in the three years I've worked, I know this truth still holds, because it was always truth.  What unlocked Helen Keller from the darkness wasn't data, but relationship.  What gets a student from not reading, to discovering a world of stories at her fingertips, is when she puts down the phone, and picks up a book because the teacher's given her reason to trust her, that this voice she's about to discover, is one that she should know. 

I don't have the lingo of the modern educator, because I often find modern language seeks to cloak information, to hide what it does not like, and the first rule of being educated, is to seek truth. Just so,  the first rule of being an educator, is to profess truth with everything you've got.  Knowledge must be true, or else it is simply fancy, folly and fashion, --popular opinion or trending at best.  Science cannot be science if the laws of science are not constant, as understood by those who study such things.  Likewise, math cannot be math, if the formulas change not because they've been disproven, but because someone decides they're unpleasant.   So also, even in the softer fields like literature, good stories reveal something of the human condition, touch something of the heart and the mind with truth. As seekers of knowledge, whatever the discipline, we are all grasping at what we know of reality, and testing as it were, whether what we know, is universal, and with that understanding, conveying it in a unique way as illustrates our own singular gifts for communication and creating connections.

I tell students whenever we're talking about the purpose of a story, a good story is never just what happened, but why it happened, because a good writer isn't interested in merely entertaining, but in revealing something they consider to be vital and eternal.  The extent to which the story strikes a cord in the heart of the reader, reveals both the quality of the writer and the sensitivity of the reader to the message beneath the plot.  Good stories, great stories, resonate and echo across time. 

If you're wondering, why I've written this little piece, it's because I needed to sort out of my head, what my philosophy of teaching is and what it is not.  I'd been asked, if I had to choose, would I be a Special Educator or an English Teacher, and to me, it's a both and...because again, all education in my heart, is special education, and even in exclusively special education, I'm going to be teaching through stories, and thus revealing hopefully, something lovely that resonates...and that's the English.

Thus we come to the crux of the matter.  What defines me are my loves, and they're always more than I can count.  I don't have a favorite child. I love them all.  I have many, but that doesn't stop me from fiercely loving each of them with my all.  The same reality exists within my heart when it comes to careers.  I love writing, and I love getting works published.  I love creating new works, and hope to continue to do so for a long time to come. Likewise, I love working with students, hoping to help them learn to love stories, and love writing, and love uncovering the truths whatever writer we're reading, laid in there, knowingly or otherwise, for us to discover.  I love figuring out how students learn, and figuring out tricks to help students learn better, and discerning what we need to do to help a particular student thrive.   I love it all. 

Please, See Him as More

When you have a child with special needs, it happens every so often, you forget people think of your son as one of "those people." I don't know if they think the disability of my son is contagious, or just so alien as to frighten them from interacting. We'd gone out to get some needed supplies at a big box store, and had to take the elevator. I know we're supposed to use language opportunities in the community, but the lack of privacy makes my own interactions with my own son in the elevator seem like a made for TV skit, as I ask him to push the up button and he does and then high fives me. The woman who gets in the elevator after us gives an uneasy smile and scoots back a bit.

My son's still reveling in having pushed the right button but I see it and I can tell, she sees him and she's afraid. I want to yell, "He's six. He's about the size of a four year old. He wears 4T shirts and diapers for crying out loud! He won't bite!" I know he won't bite. He grinds his teeth, they're dull stubs of what a non disabled kid's would be but they're clean. I know because he loves brushing them and I have to stop him sometimes from just walking around with the toothbrush in his mouth for the fun of it. We got him a musical one and he knows when the music stops, brushing is over. But he also knows how to re-push the button.

We get into the store and I wonder what a Special needs mom always wonders after one of these encounters however brief, how does the rest of the world see him? If I weren't here, what would they see? Would they know this little man who brings me my coat from the closet when he sees I have my purse and keys? Would they know we laugh because he slips bread slices under the door when he wakes and gets up on Saturday and we haven't, to let us know, he'd like some toast please. Would they know he dances and can say all of his siblings names but not his own? There are a thousand little things I know because I see them. He says "Hello." to everyone, and waits until the bus drives back by our walk to wave and thank the bus driver at the end of the day?

I can count the words of his vocabulary, but not measure the size of his heart, for he loves all of us without reserve, and constantly touches mine with his depth. He waits for grace and nods when we begin. "Now we can start." he seems to say. He waits to eat when others won't. He turns on the lights in the morning if I haven't, and wants the lights out if we light candles. He understands the tone and the sense of things, if not his letters and numbers or how to use the bathroom.

It doesn't mean he's a saint. He throws tantrums and blocks and wrestles with the best of them, but you always know why he's mad.  It's usually because someone in his family thinks he won't notice if they snitch a fry he'd gladly give if they asked, or takes a toy he wanted. He has an innate sense of worth and stands strong when he feels he's been wronged, pointing at whoever did something and shouting "UDIDTHAT." which usually results in a confession and conviction of whoever did what.

He can't tell the world what he knows, only what he feels. And you can't know it unless you're willing to allow yourself to really see him, to know him beyond the diagnosis and the slanted eyes and flat face. You won't know him by his reading scores for there are none, or his IQ, but if you just stayed here for a moment, and really watched him delight in a puddle or crunching the last of the snow or yipping at a dog, you'd see, he's not so scary. He's a boy, he's my boy, and he'll always be young in spirit and heart, even if not in body. Stay with him a while and you'll remember to take joy in music, in the beauty around you, and the simplest of things. Perhaps that's what scares the rest of the world so much, being reminded of how much we now demand in our lives in order to be happy, and how very little is actually required,

Something

February 1986

“My back hurts.” Becky announced as she sat down next to me after we’d been tagged in a game of duck duck goose at the Saturday morning “rec” program.  She and I were in the mush pot.  I’ve never been a fast runner.

I’d never volunteered with the handicapped before either.  The Saturday before, I’d overheard the table next to me laughing so hard and so loud at lunch that I looked over.  They were all wearing nametags and doubled over in fits.  My first thought was “Drunk.” but they explained they were just a bit giddy from having spent the morning at Logan Center and seeing how excited the clients were when the entire Notre Dame Football team came for a visit.  One guy was even nicknamed “Mr. ND” because of his love for the Fighting Irish.  He’d needed twenty minutes to gain his composure when Coach Lou Holtz shook his hands.  Every weekend they went over to assist with the recreational program and occasionally had special guests, camping trips, dances and parties.  It sounded…fun.  Lent was coming up. I thought about volunteering. I knew I needed to do something more.  I dutifully wrote down the details of how to participate and filed it away as a possibility.

Seven o’clock next Saturday came much too early.  “Maybe I’ll just give up chocolate.” I groaned as the alarm blared mercilessly.  But I got up. My roommate snoozed on and I rummaged for jeans and a sweat shirt, envious as she snored away.  I’d have to hustle to catch the bus or it would be a 2 mile walk in Southbend, Indiana, in February, the very definition of unpleasant.  “I said I’d do this.” I growled aloud as if to will myself forward into the hard dull icy outside.  The air held a strong trace of ethanol from the plant nearby. 

Half asleep on the ride over, my mind ran over why I felt the need to go?  Why did I always pick the hardest book, assignment, job around? Why I felt compelled to add layers of complexity to my life?  Sophomore year was running pretty smoothly. I had a steady boyfriend.  I had a tight circle of girlfriends.  A double major in English Literature and Creative Writing, I had mostly A’s for the moment.   Why was I not back in my warm dorm room dozing away?  Why was I seeking more to do? “Because,” I answered myself firmly, “something was missing.”  “What?” I asked myself, “What is missing?”  “Something.” I decided I was a lousy Yoda, sipped my morning soda and hoped I hadn’t made a colossal mistake.

We arrived at the center and I was given a nametag and told to wait in the gym.  Within five minutes, I’d been given a briefing on the routine.  Songs.  Arts and Crafts.  Games.  Closing circle.  This recreation program serviced people ages 7 to 70, all having handicapping conditions that ranged from moderate to severe.  There were many that had Down Syndrome, some with cerebral palsy, and a few with multiple conditions that precluded specific classification but always included mental retardation.  After twenty minutes of screaming songs I hadn’t given voice to since Kindergarten, my voice was dying.  Doing arts and crafts was much more of my element, although I’d be scraping layers of glitter and glue from my fingers for a few days. Games included relay races, freeze tag, red rover and duck, duck, goose.  Becky had adopted me from the get go and good naturedly scooted right next to me, presenting her back. “My back hurts.” She repeated.  “Rub it please.”

As I put my hand on her back, I felt the unnatural “C” curve of her spine through the thick Notre Dame sweat shirt. She physically relaxed as I massaged her shoulders.  “That feels nice.” She mumbled.  “You’re nice.”  And she then sprang up and ran out of the circle because her “boyfriend,” a Notre Dame junior who volunteered, had just walked in the gym. 

I sat there holding my hand, thinking about how I hadn’t thought for a moment when she asked.  I’d just done it.  I could still feel the shape of her spine, my hands wanted to somehow smooth it out.  Looking around at the room, here was joy unbridled in awkward gates and full throated off tune voices.  Becky came back to me excited. There was a dance that evening.  Did I want to come?  Did I want to do decorations?  Could I make brownies and did I know how to dance?

The alternative was likely pizza, a movie, or nothing.  So I said yes, yes, Yes! and you better believe I know how to dance.   “Prove it tonight!” she challenged.

That evening came and I was again filled with the “Why are you doing this?” thought line.  “You could be going to a movie, making out with your boyfriend, or have a girl’s night out and go to the dorm where your friend’s boy friends live, they’re in the glee club and that would be cool.” “You could stay home and catch up on your homework or sleep –remember that? You could be sleeping.”  I’d opted for dance casual, black pants, black boots and a glittery top.  I’d made some instant brownies, the kind of slice and bake junk you get at the dorm mini-store that’s only open on weekends but figured chocolate was chocolate. 

The bus ride over, surrounded by people who were going to “real” dances thrown by dorms, by groups of girls planning a night at the dance club above the student center or headed off campus for pizza and a party, I sat with my tray of brownies wondering…”Why did being with these people compel?  Was I feeling sorry for them?  Was I just “trying to be a good person?”  Was I simply caught up in the enthusiasm? What was it they filled, what was it that had been empty?” “Was it the something?”

I walked into the dance hall and was handed streamers to hang up after I put down the plate of food on a table bursting with sweets.  The DJ had already set up and was cranking tunes before we were ready.  “You’re here!” Becky said as soon as she saw me.  “I brought the brownies.” I offered.  She waved her hands at me, “I don’t eat that stuff.  Too sweet.” “But you said…” I started but she was already kicking off her shoes. “Let’s Dance!” She cried and dragged me with her.  

“Footloose” kicked off the festivities and I don’t think Kevin Bacon could have competed with this crowd.  After an hour, I’d not left the floor.  Becky had brought me partners and we’d even broken out some older moves like the hustle, but the best moment came when we all acted like zombies from Thriller.  The differences between those of us pursuing degrees in English or Government or Engineering or Economics, and those who could not read, had fallen away in the moment of the dance.  It was a delicious communal moment of pure fun.  Everyone’s eyes shown with palpable joy as they applauded Vincent Price’s final cackle.  The crowd decided it was intermission time, cleared the floor and hit the snack table. 

Looking around at the smiling faces and hearing the near continuous sound of laughter from all this fun, I knew the absence of barriers was the “something.”  I wanted to do this again, to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. The something became necessary for me.  It was the beginning of a love that resulted in two more years of surrendered college Saturdays and eventually, a Master’s degree in Special Education.  Taking students out of their wheel chairs to stretch their long frozen limbs to Madonna reminded me of her.  Like Becky and her friends at the dance, they smile with a joy unstrapped.  The song Thriller every Halloween still invokes a sly knowing smile of that moment, and my hand can still draw the shape in the air of her back.  I still wish I could pat it smooth.

Becky and her friends prepared me for all that came, not only professionally but personally.   As my youngest son Paul begins pre-school, I look at the people who will work with him to see if their eyes reflect the same knowledge of that infectious joy that I experienced.   I look to see if the love that began me down this road has struck them too.  My little boy has Down Syndrome.  He will need the equivalent of a Logan Center recreation program one day.  Like Becky, Paul teaches hands on, how boundless love can be.  It reaches out beyond speech --he's non verbal.  It reaches out beyond age --he charms every one of his brothers and sisters, even the surly teen girl who pretends that she doesn't belong to this motley noisy messy lot. Like Becky, my son dances with pure abandon and his siblings join in, surprised by themselves, surprised to discover the absence of a difference that is the something that is love.  

Real World Jobs

Yesterday, we were expecting company from out of town for dinner and I had nothing we could legitimately serve.   So, after dropping off my daughter at the orthodontist to get her braces off, I scurried to the local store to get the needed supplies.   When I walked in the store, there sat a young man in a wheel chair.  He reminded me of one of my students from a far away time when I was Ms. Green and taught multi-handicapped high school kids.  He was wearing an apron from the store but turned away from the door, staring at nothing in particular and seeing no one in particular. 

I tried to give eye contact and said "Hi!" He contorted himself trying to turn towards me, but the angle was too much.  I waved and looked around.  A young man was leaning against a stack of water bottles talking on his phone.  I guessed he was the job coach. 

Now as a rule, I know from Special ed, you try to not help as much as possible on a job site, to let the student anticipate and solve problems because the goal is self sufficiency.  But anyone looking knew this was a made up job that had no prospect of being self sufficient and that both the coach and the trainee were bored out of their minds and not actually being present.

Walking up and down the aisles, through the bread, the pasta, the cereal, the meat, I kept coming back into view of the young man in the wheelchair and the coach still on the phone.  I kept thinking about how the philosophy of Special Ed so often got dropped when practicality showed up.  Any job was a good job and better than nothing. I felt mad that this student was sitting bored in a store. This "job" might be what people considered an opportunity for people like my son.  Work sites for people like this young man, like my former students were hard to come by. 

I remembered as a teacher with four kids with Cerebral palsy and severely atrophied muscle mass like this young man asking why we weren't taking these folks to the pool every day to stretch them out and help their muscles relax and release when there was a Y just next door?  It would require too much effort on the part of staff. Wouldn't that be age appropriate in the summer?  No.  Kids their age worked so we had to simulate work.  On one occasion when I pointed out no one pays for simulated work and that it was a waste to pay people to supervise simulated work when we could be doing actual work helping the kids do actual things that would actually benefit I got nowhere.  "You're young and idealistic." I was told.

We had to keep them in a simulated workshop putting caps on pens.  "Why did they need to put caps on pens?" I asked.  It didn't have to be pens I was told, but this was repetitive, it was a possible task, definable, measurable.  A fellow teaching assistant and graduate student chimed in, and said it was stupid, meaningless, boring and unnecessary especially when it meant we had to go to the next room where they couldn't see us undoing all their "work." Inclusion was nice in theory but reality always seemed to require preconditions of somehow not having or appearing to have the handicapping condition. 

I didn't want my son or any child to face unreal work with the equally imaginary benefits.  I believe in inclusion and in meaningful work.  I believe people are included when they do meaningful work.  I also believe if one can't do meaningful work, then the work done to provide comfort and integration should be meaningful play or recreation or therapy.  Surely there was something in between the no effort of this show job and the too much apparently required of a fully immersion based recreation program.  There must be something that is closer to acknowledging the reality of this person's disability (he can't do what they've assigned him to do) and the equally important reality that he interact and be brought into the larger community. 

What this type of job assignment revealed was a dearth of imagination, coupled with good intentions and zero expectations of any outcome or improvement.   I'm no longer young on this point, but I still think if we aren't shooting for the ideal, why are we wasting our time having ideals at all?

Walking through the aisles I wondered what to do.  Should I say something?  Why did I feel compelled to say something? Why did I have to have to have to say something?  I knew I was going to.  Why did it have to be me? "You have the degree and the background and you see it and you will see it again with your own son if you don't." was the answer. "But it might just be the end of a shift. It might be a down day. The kid might be sick or tired or the coach might be a sub." All my excuses weren't enough for me as I came by the sixth aisle, the young man still motionless and facing the ads of a Chevy Chase bank, the coach checking his blackberry.  I knew I was going to say something.  Go back up the aisle Sherry.  Prayers. Prayers. Prayers.  What if this were my son?  the question burned.  Darn it.  I'm going to have to say something.    

Then I saw just the man in the wheelchair, no coach.  This made me nervous so I went to the young man and said, "Hi there! Who is with you?" presuming that I had made a mistake in thinking the other person was his coach.  In bounded the job coach from outside,  "I'm here.  I didn't leave him.  I just went outside to place a call."  

"I've seen you calling.  You've been on the phone the whole time I've been in the store." 
"I'm trying to arrange transport.  He's a greeter."
"Well he's not facing the people who come in the store."
"Well I can't take him outside, the heat would kill him."
"He's inside, he's still not greeting anyone."
"No one is in the store to greet."
"I came in the store.  He didn't greet me.  There are other people.  You didn't notice them because you're on the phone. He can't notice them because he's facing the wrong way."

He talked about how hard it was to get Metro to come in a timely fashion.  Now this I knew to be true but still, pointed out that the student was obviously bored and that defeated the purpose of having him be out in the community greeting. 

He then motioned for me to walk away with him for a few minutes to talk.  "I'll be right back with you  in a minute buddy okay?" he said in an over enthusiastic tone I suspect for my benefit.  The young man turned a bit and made a noise.

Then in hushed tones like he was disclosing state secrets, the coach explained, "I can't talk about his condition because of state regulations." 

"I don't need you to talk about his condition.  I can tell he has CP, some ataxia, atrophied and frozen limbs, paraplegic and non verbal."

"He's also Chinese, so their culture doesn't always mean they greet or socialize willingly. I've been working with him and his family here at this site for him for three years."  That thought frightened me.  Three years of boredom, three years of staring at walls waiting for someone to talk to him, three years of pretending that this was somehow therapeutic.   Doubts moved into my brain, "Why are you bringing this up?" my hyper critical self was starting in.  But the student looked bored and did not move his head when several people walked in, and that sealed it.  If in three years, he had not come to instantly respond when the cue of a someone coming in  the door to offer a greeting, it was not likely to suddenly start occurring, background culture or no.    

"I don't know about all that, I do know that his sitting staring at nothing as a greeter, doesn't help him and doesn't make you look good."   He apologized, repeatedly thanking me for my concern, and understanding where I was coming from and went back to his spot near the student.  He re-angled the wheelchair so the student faced the entrance and pointed in a manner too animatedly at the next person who happened in the door.   Better.  Nothing to get excited about, but better.

My time was short for shopping so I had to rush through the rest of it.  When I finally checked out, the coach and his charge had left.  The thing is, students get this sort of non job job all the time. It's hard in this economy for students with even only moderate to mild disabilities who are verbal and physically ambulatory and self sufficient to find actual jobs.  Part of it is we are still trying to shake of the old model of simulated workshops found even at graduate school training sites. We still think simulated jobs somehow equal dignity and actual jobs.  We still think inclusion means simply the students aren't locked up and hidden. 

Having a handicapped student act as a feel good prop to a store isn't a job.  Watching a student act as a feel good prop to a store isn't much of a job either.   It's unfair to the students to give them these jobs they cannot do which perpetually frustrate or eventually bore. It's also unfair to the coaches who must sit or stand and facilitate something in perpetuity. They'd both be better served for the Metro bus to take them to the library to either hear a story read or have the coach read to, to go to the Starbucks in the grocery store and split a muffin, to field trip to the pool once a week for exercise and maybe go to a free concert at lunch via mass transit once a month like real people with real jobs and lives might do once in a while.  Inclusion means living, relationships, real stuff like errands, like friends, like eye contact and conversation.  These are not found in staring at the wrong wall when strangers walk by or a room where the work is undone as soon as it is finished.

Maybe we should stop pretending this unideal situation for people with disabilities is the best approximation we can make of what we profess to hold true, that inclusion matters.   Maybe we should start aiming for something higher than tokenism, symbolic work or simulated work.  It isn't enough to park a kid in front of a door and act like a crazed loon to encourage the student to give eye contact every time someone comes in, and it isn't enough to park a kid in front of a door of a place and presume if a the kid makes a sound when someone walks through that they've "greeted" the customers. 

Neither is a true assessment of what is taking place or of what one hopes will occur as an outcome.  What we want, is these handicapped individuals to be viewed as individuals worth knowing and with lives that have zest and fun and relationships in them that matter.  We want people to say, "Hey Eddie," or "Hi John" when they walk in the door and see their friend who greets people.  Honestly, if I'd seen the kid loving greeting everyone that came in the door, I'd full on shop there just to see that moment of joy; but here was the dullest form of dutiful drudgery being mistaken for charity and outreach and being maintained under the theory that it was inclusive and a job.   It was as real as the workshop here you put the caps on the pens task.   They can do it but so what?

I don't have a perfect solution or answer other than if it feels fake, it probably is and shouldn't be acceptable; that at least, these jobs should not be considered better than nothing.  These jobs were nothing but well intentioned nothing.