A love letter to my favorite special education teacher
After going through a drive-thru to pick up the salad my sister insisted on having, I arrive at the parking lot of my old elementary school. It is a place rich with my childhood. My mom was a founding teacher of the school and remained on the staff for nearly 30 years. The year she left my sister took her dream job at the school she attended. The very same place where I sat at a desk dreaming of being a pop star, a dancer, and a fairy princess. Now, it’s a place where my sister lives out her future. Today students sit at the same desks we once did and dream of their lives. It’s a place that launches the future for many, but what about those that get left behind?
I walk down the hall with lunch food in hand for my sister and her two assistants. I round the corner to her classroom, and I am greeted by two masked yet obviously smiling faces. They don’t speak, but they rush toward me and attempt to take hold of my occupied hands, leading me into the classroom. I talk to my sister and her assistants as her students eat their lunches.
After lunch, I help my sister entertain her students and I watch her immense control and composure as she teaches. One student repetitively screams as she teaches about being a good citizen. Another student sprints toward the door causing my sister to jump into action. Before I realize it the kids are back on the carpet with their needs addressed, ready to learn once more.
Each day my sister goes to work and teaches kindergarteners, first, and second graders with severe mental and physical disabilities. Each day her students, most with the cognition level of toddlers, go to school to a safe and welcoming classroom. Though they don’t learn at the pace or level I ever did.
I sit here writing this because after watching my sister teach this population my eyes have been opened to see the disparities in the education of the disabled population. The one that bothers me most is one I learned when she first took the position: these kids will not get a high school diploma.
Now, this may be a surprise to you too. It sparked a line of thinking for me spanning between “why not, that’s not fair!” and “I suppose that is fair to the children that go through the standard education channel.”
Currently, I wonder if the population of severely disabled children is not rewarded for their work and attendance at school, why do they have to go? It almost seems like a place to keep them until they mature.
Then I see my sister. I see how she understands what the grunts of her students mean. I see how she can quiz a child while playing airplane with them. I see how her students light up when they see her, and how she loves what she does.
So these students stay in school because teachers, like my sister, help them understand and exist in the world. Though, where do they go after they finish high school without the mainstream documentation?
Admittedly, I don’t know the solution to this, but I like telling people about it. I want them to wrestle with it as I do. Maybe one day I will come across someone who will know what more we can do. Or, I simply get to brag on my sister who sacrifices herself each day for kids that need her.
