The TA and the Non-Verbal Student

Children who are on the autism spectrum present special challenges for teachers and teaching assistants. Teaching non-verbal autistic children was daunting for me but I’m so glad I had the opportunity to serve and work with these amazing children.

When I was assigned to a self-contained classroom with non-verbal students I had no training at all! I knew little or nothing about autism. I had previously worked with one student who had Asperger’s syndrome but he was very, very high functioning. Now, here I was, confronted with students who had apparently no desire to communicate.

I was fortunate to work alongside a brilliant speech therapist who was also trained in autistic behaviors. She was very willing to teach all of the TA’s in the room and we were so willing to learn. Some of what she taught was “off the grid” stuff you might not find in ABA textbooks.

Respect the non-verbal child’s personhood: This was the first thing I learned about working with a non-verbal child. Our speech therapist did not teach this directly, rather, we learned by her example.  It is so easy to act as though non-verbal children are almost invisible and to talk about them in the third person. This may seem like such an obvious offense, but I have seen people talk derisively about the non-verbal child right in front of them.

“Wow! Look at his outfit today!” or “I wish his parents would clean his fingernails!”

Even if that child truly cannot understand you, it is still a violation of their personhood to talk about them while they’re near you. Always speak directly to the child or acknowledge to them that you are talking about them.

“You know I’m talking about you, Bud!” was a common phrase our speech therapist would use when we were talking about a student who was with us. Stop and think…If this child was fully verbal and neurotypical would you talk like this in front of her? If you knew she could repeat each of your words to her parents would you be saying this right in front of her?

In her book, Dancing with Max, Emily Colson recounts how her non-verbal, highly autistic son suddenly began talking around the age of ten. And when he did begin to talk, it was apparent that he remembered every detail of the previous eight years or so. He even remembered an abusive babysitter he had when he was just two years old!

Less is more: This really surprised me. Use as few words as possible when speaking to or working with a non-verbal student. In fact, I often watched our speech therapist go through entire sessions without speaking a single word! I believe that the title “speech therapist” is a misnomer. It really ought to be “communication therapist.” Autistic children have the most trouble understanding non-verbal communication anyway, (facial expressions, gestures, pointing, etc…) so we serve them better by exaggerating those forms of communication while minimizing language.

Autistic children often need a great deal more time to process what has been spoken to them. Less language gives them the time they need to process what has been said to them. When we quickly repeat directions or questions, that processing has to begin all over again and the child will quickly become overwhelmed and shut down.

When you present a non-verbal or low-verbal student with a direction, choice or question, you may have to wait 30 seconds or more to get an answer. For TA’s, this waiting can seem an eternity. I have had to sit tight and count to 30 many times. This also helps the non-verbal child to feel secure, knowing that he will be consistently given needed time to listen, process, and understand.

Remember that it is all about teaching the child to communicate, not just speak: I had one student who was required by the teacher to say, “rice please” while eating his (always rice based) lunch. I was instructed to give him one small bite only after he asked for it. This drove me wild. He was fully capable of eating on his own and having him repeat, “rice please” was completely unproductive and unnatural. Who says, “rice please” 30 times in a row? And, while we’re at it, eliminate “please” and “thank you.” It is abstract language that confuses the child. They might think that a cup of orange juice is called, “juice please.”

Surprise! Non-verbal children withdraw without lots of stimulation and proactive engagement. I loved surprising our non-verbal kids through playing hide-and-seek, or covering myself with a blanket and popping out. One student loved having me sneak up behind him while he was inside his stretchy body-sock. He knew I was going jump around him and say, “BOO!” and the anticipation just thrilled him! He would screech and laugh! I was delighted when he would get his body-sock and come to me looking for some play time. It was communication, initiated by him.

Wonderful!

Testing! Testing! One, Two, Three…

I found this alarming article in the news today. I’m so not surprised that things have gone this far. Really, really shocking but completely expected. Let me know your thoughts…

Albany, NY – The New York State Board of Regents unveiled their bold plan for opening charter schools across the state that will focus solely on testing.

The first of these, Examinare Academy, is slated to open in September of 2016. The test location will be in Fine, NY and will immediately house grades K-12. Its motto is “Tuum Optimum Modo Face (Just do your best).”

Governor Cuomo worked closely with the Board of Regents to move the concept off the drawing board and into reality. Construction on the ultra-high-tech building has already begun.

“We increased testing to six standardized tests per academic year in many school districts and, still, the scores remained low. We decided to attack the problem at the root and simply focus on testing. In this new charter school, students will only be tested. Our goal is to slash the time now wasted on instruction,” said Dorcas Pearson, assistant to the assistant of the NYS Board of Regents.

Examinare Academy will use the “immersion method” to help students excel at testing. Teachers will only speak in the language of testing. Students will only hear terms such as, “Just do your best work,” “Erase completely,” and “Use a number-2 pencil.”

“We completely expect test scores to be very low at first. But, as a student learns from their mistakes, they will learn how to answer each question correctly by the end of the year. After a year, our students will be smokin’ over Finland with their test scores,” said Pearson.

“It’s only logical that as long as we’re already testing students six times each year, why not just test them continually throughout the year? This helps to eliminate test-anxiety as well, since the student is subjected to testing every minute of every day.”

Parents will play an important role in raising test scores as well. Families will receive packets and software encouraging them to test their child daily on how well they perform basic tasks, such as making their bed, eating their dinner, playing happily, and completely their daily evening test for homework.

No Extra Charge

While TA’s are assigned to a classroom to support identified students, they often bring specific interests or talents that can benefit everyone. When a teacher welcomes the TA and invites him to be a fuller participant in the classroom, she and her students can really benefit from that TA’s peculiar skills.

“Value-Added” TA’s are becoming more necessary in classrooms as our society and family structures continue to change or break down. We are seeing many more children enter school with emotional baggage. More than ever we are seeing kiddos from broken families who struggle with anxiety, depression or poor impulse control. And, budget cuts have made TA’s who can multi-task more and more valuable to any teacher lucky enough to get one.

I know one TA who has extensive training in play-therapy. She is a certified Child Life Specialist. Though she is assigned to one or more specific students, she has been able to support many overwhelmed or ‘just plain sad’ kiddos in the lower elementary grades. I’ve worked with another TA who, along with her husband, took in many troubled foster children and adopted two of them. Her experience and insight is invaluable when a young student is in crisis. We all refer to her as “The Child Whisperer.” I’ve never known anyone who so readily and easily takes on the viewpoint of the hurting child.

Other TA’s in our district are highly skilled in music or art and bring those talents to happy and productive use in the classroom. One of our district’s best TA’s previously worked as a spokesperson for a state senator. He now runs the high-tech, sophisticated TV studio in our high school. Imagine having such experience in your high school’s AV center.

I’ve known many TA’s who have freely given to students in their schools. Needed coats, boots, even snacks appear. Lost-book fees are quietly paid. It’s not unheard of for TA’s to give up their own lunch times to work with students.

My particular passions are literature and writing. I’ve had a few teachers who have taken advantage of this and asked me to oversee one or more book groups. This is a rare privilege and shows a great deal of trust on the teacher’s part which I do not take for granted. When appropriate, I also offer commentary on English grammar, or talk about the Latin or Greek roots of common words. I’ve suggested books to be read and brought in samples of my own published writing for the children to read.

One time I brought in my pasta machine and made homemade noodles with first grade students. I taught a fourth-grade class how to make fake parchment paper and even allowed them to use my collection of fountain and quill pens with which to write as part of their history project. I’ve blown bubbles outdoors in below-zero weather with lots of students. Another time I invited in an electrical engineer to enhance our electrical circuits unit in fourth grade. He showed the students how to create electricity using a nail, wire and acid, and let them use his crank generator so they could actually feel electrical resistance.

I’ve even pulled in my family members. My husband, Jim, has the uncanny ability to draw a map of the U.S.A. perfectly to scale, including state boundaries and capitals, in any size, and on nearly any surface. He offers a terrific interactive lesson on geography. My son is an expert in WWII history and has done classroom presentations showing students how soldiers survived and handled day-to-day tasks on the battlefield. Another TA brings her orthodontist son in to give first graders a lesson on dental hygiene.

The list could go on and on. I doubt I could barely scratch the surface of the hidden talents and knowledge that many TA’s bring to their schools. Also, does anyone think about the unseen benefit of having a seasoned TA who can discreetly and professionally “cross-pollinate” between teachers? I have worked with many experienced teachers and have carried their best-practices into other classrooms where they’re picked up by other, often younger, teachers.

Sadly, the extreme pressure of high-stakes testing leaves many teachers feeling that they cannot set aside any time for TA’s to contribute. I really understand this and I think most other TA’s feel the same way. Yet another casualty of our federal education department’s misplaced emphasis on standardized testing.

Paradigm Shift

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is coming up and that means that all our teachers are reading books to their students about the life of this great man. It is a wonderful thing to inspire children with stories about Dr. King but, sadly, the telling of his story also requires us to crack their shell of innocence by exposing them to the harsh reality of racism. Our kiddos, for the most part, lead comfortable lives and blissfully play and learn alongside friends of all races, unaware of prejudice and all the ugliness and hatred that go hand in hand with that.

Today, our kindergarten teacher read aloud a short, age-appropriate book about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to our little ones and I watched as these innocent babies realized, most for the first time, that such an outrageous thing as racism exists. I have witnessed this awakening before and it is simultaneously completely heartbreaking and thoroughly endearing.

Our kindergarten teacher has the gentlest voice you can imagine and she walked the children through this jarring book as softly as could be. The boys and girls were delighted when she read about the little boy, Martin, who loved to learn and play. But her voiced slowed and softened to a whisper when she read the page about the white mother who would not allow 6-year old Martin to play with her son anymore just because of Martin’s dark skin.

Well, to say that our little children were indignant and outraged would be a complete understatement. This was a true paradigm shift for them and they were irrepressible.

“That is SOOO STUPID!”  “What a MEAN mother!”  “She is a BULLY!”  “That’s just CRAZY!”

The teacher agreed, saying, “I know! Isn’t it just so silly? Can you believe that some people could think that way?” She went on to read about other injustices toward black people such as not being able to shop in the same stores as white people, or being forced to give up a seat on a bus to a white person.

I cannot do justice here to the visceral reaction of these precious boys and girls. Children this age don’t always know what to do with very strong feelings and they just wanted to burst aloud and shout and be heard! Some kiddos even got a little silly. Meanwhile, there was one small boy with dark skin sitting on the carpet, looking closely at the skin on his own arm as though seeing it for the very first time. This was clearly a paradigm shift for him as well, and I ached for him. The other children, in their complete innocence, made several references to their friend’s brown skin and how it “just didn’t matter” what color anyone was…we should all be able to play, and work, and eat together and just be friends! And when the teacher read about Martin believing that we should “love our enemies” the children (even those who were quarreling about a favorite spot on the carpet just moments earlier) loudly expressed hearty approval that we should “just love everybody!”

Well, the teacher kept reading this story about how Martin grew up and how he studied hard and how he became a minister. She read about how Rosa Parks was arrested and how the bus boycott began to change things a bit. As she read about Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech the children just bubbled up with hope and relief and the little boy with the darker skin sat up straight and tall and proud as could be!

And then she read about Dr. King’s death.

The book did not elaborate on that event. For five and six year olds it’s enough to just lightly touch on it and move on, but the fact that someone had killed their dear friend Martin was not lost on these tender kids. And that little boy with the brown skin looked as though he could barely take in all this hard truth. Heartbreaking. And the children railed and protested with all the ferocity that kindergartners can muster – which is quite a lot – about the complete insanity and injustice and evil of it all. Endearing.

The children really pressed the teacher and me to tell them exactly how Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed but it was too painful to tell them, not to mention inappropriate. It was bad enough that we had to tell them that he had been killed. How satisfying it would have been if the teacher could have read that, though quite old, Dr. King was still alive and well.

I always have mixed feelings when we introduce children to these hard truths about life. I’m always so grieved to watch them become more aware of just how fallen this world is that they live in and to see a little more of their innocence snuffed out. But I’m also filled with delight at their perfect indignation and their purest sense of how this world ought to be. Sometimes I wish we could just skip it all, pretend it never happened, and let the kids grow up unawares in the hope that prejudice would die out. But it could not be so.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”      Jeremiah 17:9.

Lounge Lizards

There is a lot to love about my job, but my favorite part of the day is my lunch time. There are few places I enjoy more than our staff lounge at lunch time.

Staff lounges in our district vary wildly. I worked in a school for a few years that had a marvelous lounge. It was large, bright, sunny, fully equipped, and very clean. Centrally located, and conveniently placed across the hall from my classroom, this lounge was the place to party from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. every day. Every teacher and staffer ate together, split the newspaper, talked over each other, and brought in food to share. It is no coincidence that this school seemed to have the highest morale of all the buildings in the district.

Other buildings I’ve been to have lounges obviously designed to demoralize, discourage, and spread disease. Dark and dingy with a dripping, moldy air-conditioner, one district lounge is so disgustingly filthy that I have to carefully wrap a Kleenex around the salt shaker before I can pick it up. Teachers and staff enter this lounge feeling tired, hungry, and a bit run down, but leave in complete despair.

But what really goes on in a staff lounge? What do we talk about? Allow me to lift the veil of mystery on the inner-workings of the Teachers’ Lounge.

Food: The number one topic in the teacher’s lounge is food. We like to know what everyone else is eating and why. Lean Cuisines are stacked in the microwaves and Vera Bradley lunch bags clutter the table. While some of us search for a reasonably clean fork, someone else is talking about their diet.

Our Kids: That is, our own kids.  We love to talk about our kids and our families. Photos are passed around, and we talk about our pregnancies, babies, kids’ sports, plans for college, weddings, and new grandchildren. We might discuss our parents or our husbands or wives, and there is an overall, comforting familial concern for the well being of everyone.

News: Educators love to talk about how to fix the world. We also enjoy talking about bizarre news. I remember pointing out an article about a teacher in a neighboring district who was arrested for biting a student in the arm during an impromptu arm-wrestling match in his classroom. We wondered and puzzled about what series of small but poor decisions led to him to impulsively bite a student in the arm. I grabbed a very large sheet of paper and taped it to the wall. We spent all of our lunch time working on a possible flowchart of small, bad decisions and misjudgments that led to his arrest. It was a fun, stimulating, and collaborative effort that I thought showed great promise. However, our principal apparently disagreed as the flowchart disappeared when lunch was over.

TV: The Voice, Bachelorette, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, even The Walking Dead are reviewed with great passion.

Students: Every once in while we might talk about a student. I recall one time when a teacher came into the staff lounge expressing all manner of shock and indignation. One of the second-grade girls had been telling her classmates that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were “having sex.” The teacher was completely flabbergasted and dismayed that this little child would even say such a thing. I completely sympathized as I knew that Selena had broken off with Justin months before. I helpfully pointed this out but the teacher just responded that I was “missing the point.” I merely explained what I had read in a tabloid in the supermarket check-out line just a week earlier but she was unimpressed. I even offered to tell the child that Selena Gomez had kicked Bieber to the curb but the teacher flatly refused, so I dropped it. Some people just don’t want to hear the truth.

An Orange for Kenneth White

One of my favorite Christmas stories is An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco. I cannot finish that book without weeping.

An Orange for Frankie is the true story of Patricia Polacco’s great-uncle, Frankie. It’s set in the mid-west around 1920 when Frankie is just 10 years old. Times are hard and life is very uncertain. Frankie is looking forward to Christmas and especially to the oranges that his father will bring home for Christmas. Each child is given just one orange, an exotic and expensive treat in those days. The cradle for this story is Frankie’s family. He has a big, loud, loving family around him in which each and every member is deeply valued and loved. The story is exquisitely layered with details as Frankie faces many obstacles to enjoying his Christmas, a big one being the loss of his precious orange after disobeying his parents’ orders to “not touch.”

Several years ago, the fourth grade teacher with whom I worked asked me to read this story aloud to our students. I happily agree but was completely unprepared for how choked up I got as I neared the end of the story. What is it about reading sad stories aloud that magnifies the grief of the words? I don’t know, but sad words just hanging in the air seem so much sadder.

Anyway, elementary-aged kids can become very uncomfortable when they see adults cry, especially when the adult is on staff at their school. Our students tend to see us as rather one-dimensional and can barely handle the shock of running into us at the grocery store, let alone seeing us cry. It’s not uncommon for kids to giggle or make faces or get silly when we cry because they just don’t know how else to handle our occasional  displays of open emotion.

So, I finished the story and stopped to collect myself and some of the kids are looking around and giggling a bit… and I understand and it’s okay. But then I read the epilogue aloud and, seriously, the kids’ faces went blank and the room grew as quiet as empty.

“That was Frankie’s last Christmas.”

I could barely talk after that, and tears were rolling down my cheeks. No one spoke, or giggled, or even looked around. The boys and girls were inwardly grappling with what that sentence really meant. The wintery, gray light from our large windows seemed to add to the quiet weight and uncertainty in the room.

Finally, one kid murmured, “Why was it his last Christmas?”

“Anyone think they might know?” I asked the class.

They all hesitated and then some wondered if, for some reason, the family became too poor to celebrate Christmas again.

I shook my head.

“Did he die?” whispered one girl.

“Well, yes,” I said. “This would be around the time of the influenza epidemic and he probably died of the flu. The story doesn’t say but I’m guessing that’s what happened.”

The kids just could not accept this ending. They completely rejected the idea that a child might have a “last Christmas.”

More silence…more doubt…more struggling.  Then, a boy named Jack offered a hopeful alternative, spoken in a surreal, heartbreaking, yet hilariously monotone voice:

“Maybe he turned Jewish.”

The idea of Frankie, a mid-western, red-headed, freckle-faced 10 year-old, informing his Lutheran parents in 1918 that he was converting to Judaism was so completely absurd yet oddly logical. I hopped off the stool, handed the book to the teacher and quickly left the room for a laugh that bordered on hysterics. It still ranks as one of the top five funniest comments I’ve heard a student make.

And yet, as funny as that moment was, I’ll never forget how completely unacceptable it was to those fourth-graders kids to learn that some small children do indeed have a Last Christmas. They were learning that we do indeed live in a fallen world where some children have never known a happy Christmas.

Kenneth White is safe in the arms of Jesus.

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/books/frankie/frankie.html

Friendly Skies

In my current TA position, my time is split between two classrooms: kindergarten and fifth grade. It was hard for me to decide which grade I preferred but after our flight to Israel, I’m liking kindergarten a lot less.

The kindergarten teacher is as near to perfection as one could ask for. Let me be clear on this point: If every child could have this lovely young woman as their kindergarten teacher, the world would be a much better place. If Vladimir Putin had had a teacher like her in kindergarten, he wouldn’t be invading Ukraine right now. He’d be thinking about his behavior, keeping his armies to himself, and not hurting his friends and neighbors.

She has planned this wonderful unit on “Holidays Around the World” and transformed one large corner of the already cheerful classroom into a real airplane, complete with seat numbers. Yesterday we were flying to Israel to learn about Hanukkah. I had a boarding pass, as did all the children, so I went along.

The first indication that this airline was some “fly-by-night” outfit was that my “boarding agent” was five years old and used a fake iPhone to “check” my boarding pass. I wasn’t fooled when she made a beeping noise with her mouth. There was no TSA screening and the only place to store my handcrafted, construction-paper suitcase was under my seat. I was completely unnerved to discover that our “pilot” was a stuffed animal named Spot.

I found “Seat S” and tucked my suitcase neatly away. Our tour guide, who looked a LOT like our teacher, took her place in the front of the plane and announced that our destination would be Israel. We buckled our imaginary seatbelts and took off. I wanted to point out that we had not actually left the ground, but since everyone else seemed to be okay with that, I kept quiet.

Have you ever been on an airplane and inwardly groaned when you saw a family with small children boarding? Now, imagine getting on an airplane with 18 kindergarteners. The kid behind me wouldn’t stop kicking my seat. Wow…of all rude airplane behavior this annoys me the most. I finally had to ask him to please stop. He pointed out – politely, I might add – that he couldn’t see. Is it my fault that he is 3 feet tall and I’m a towering 5 feet, 2 inches??? No, but rather than provoke an incident of Air Rage, I switched seats with him.

My new seatmate complained that now he couldn’t see, so I had to switch with him too. This all required much shuffling and whispering as we had to move our personalized suitcases as well.

I know that airlines are cutting back on services but when the five-year old steward, who was as sweet as pie, came down the aisle and offered a Dixie cup with two Ritz crackers for our flight-time snack, I was underwhelmed. And, every passenger had to check and make sure that everyone had been given the same number of Ritz crackers. Even my seatmate, whom I had just met, leaned over to look in my Dixie cup and counted my crackers! I assured him that we both had just two crackers, that it was all “even-steven” and only then did he settle down and stop nosing in on my food.

Our in-flight story was a lovely book about Hanukkah and potato latkes, which was read aloud by our tour guide. I found the story very engrossing, as did most of the passengers, except for a little girl across the aisle from me who would not stop talking to her seatmate. As our tour guide tried to read, this one, very rude passenger kept talking and wiggling in her seat. I spoke to her many times and kindly asked her to be quiet but she just ignored me.

I tried to tune her out so I could enjoy the story. Then, doesn’t the boy in front of me decide to recline his seat! I mean, How Rude! I almost spilled my crackers! He kept tipping his chair on its back two legs and I just knew he was going to fall and crash into me. I politely reminded him to keep “all four on the floor.”

Still, that one little girl across the aisle wouldn’t stop chatting during the in-flight story. I had just about had it with her when I remembered that, as a TA, I was the nearest thing to an Air Marshal. I ordered her off the plane and to her regular seat in the classroom. She complied but was clearly not happy about it.

Well, after that the flight seemed to go more smoothly. The in-flight story was so interesting that by the time it was finished we had landed in Israel…or so the tour guide said, but it seemed to me that we really hadn’t gone two-feet.

Anyway, with all the chatting, chair-tipping, fooling around with empty Dixie cups and such, we ran out of time to make potato latkes, which was the one part of the trip I was really looking forward to!

Next time, I don’t care how much it costs, I’m upgrading to first-class.

Worth, considering

About a month ago, I had the privilege of seeing an original copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the Clark Art Institute. The following Monday, I explained to my fifth-grade class what I’d seen and why that document was so important. In fact, we were to begin studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in class that very day.

Our teacher introduced the topic of human rights by asking the students what came to their minds when they heard the phrase “human rights.” Their answers were pretty spot-on: freedom of speech and religion, freedom to own property, the right to a trial and such were all listed by the children. Then one boy referred to human rights as “privileges.”

Now, I understand why he said that; most kids don’t think of themselves as having rights, and they personally have a lot of experience with what their parents might call “privileges.”

I offered this thought to our kiddos: Your rights are inherent and are not given to you by any government. If a government “gives you rights” they can take them away. I led a quick discussion about the difference between a privilege and a right. I used the family unit as a setting for an illustration; children have the right to shelter, clothes, food, education, and basic care. If the parent allows their child to watch television, or have friends over to play, or buy a new video game, those are privileges. Our teacher agreed and added that parents can get into serious trouble with the law for not tending to their child’s basic needs, which that child has a right to expect.

We have been analyzing the UDHR for three weeks now, and I’m pleased that this has had such a strong impact on our students. I’ve mentioned before in this blog that my school is in an affluent area so the vast majority of our kids are well provided for. It is somewhat of a shock to them to learn, at this tender age of 10 years, that so many people in this world live in countries where their rights are not protected and just ignored.

Today, our class was asked to produce a short video to present to the entire school on what “respect” means to them. As the kids talked about it a bit I was hearing short, common, lazy phrases such as “be nice to others,” “be kind,” and such. This was not good enough for me. I knew they’d been poring over the UDHR for three weeks and I wanted to bring that lesson home.

I told the boys and girls about times when I’d served dinner to the homeless at the City Mission. I said, “These men and women, and yes, even children, are dirty and they can smell really bad. Their clothes are dirty and ragged. They’re unshaven, and they may be rude or have really poor manners. And yet, when we serve them dinner, we call them ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am.’ We serve them with the same basic politeness and respect that we would if they were a millionaire who had just ordered a $200.00 meal.”

Our teacher jumped on that. “Boys and girls,” he asked, “why is that? Why would Mrs. M. treat people who are dirty and homeless with the same respect as she would a millionaire? Think about the work you’ve done on the UDHR. Why should we treat the homeless with respect?”

Hands shot up in the air and I knew we’d gotten their attention and their hearts. One girl said, “Because they have worth.” Other kids offered similar truths. The teacher and I were delighted.

I added that any one of those homeless people could just as easily be me. We spent a few minutes discussing why some people end up homeless and eating dinner at the City Mission. But the point I kept driving home was, “It doesn’t matter. They still have worth.”

The teacher handed out slips of paper and asked the kids to then write one or two sentences about what “respect” meant to them. They wrote passionately…and I do not use that word lightly. Just about every kid wanted the teacher or me to read what they’d written. I read a few and had to stop… I’m not being melodramatic here, but I was deeply moved by what they’d written:

“Respect means that all people have worth.”

“Respect means to me that I should treat all people as I would want to be treated, even if they’re homeless.”

“Respect means that I should help people who are less fortunate than me.”

I could not have been more pleased and actually had to stop reading because I was getting rather choked up.

At a quiet point, just to give the kids a point of personal application, I wryly said to the class, “By the way, ladies, listen up. If you’re ever out to dinner with a young man and you see him treating the wait staff rudely, drop him like a hot rock!”

Everyone, especially the girls, had a good laugh but they knew I was serious. The teacher added, “And, don’t date anyone who treats his mother badly, either!” More tittering and giggling, but in the end, I think our kiddos came home with something substantial to talk about with Mom or Dad at the dinner table.

All teachers and TA’s come into classrooms with their own presumptions and worldviews.  As representatives of our public school district, it is not appropriate for us to share deeply personal beliefs. Yet, even after sharing all I can within those bounds, I so badly want to ask the ultimate questions: Why does man have worth and where did it come from?

Our classroom lessons on human rights can only walk up to the front steps of those questions and may go no farther. I can only hope that the students will seek out the answers for themselves.

The Worst Gift

Here is one last story about Christmas gift-giving and this has nothing to do with school. I just have to vent.

One night my husband, kids, and I were sitting around, all happy and enjoying our Advent Season in front of a cozy fire when the doorbell rang. FedEx was pulling away. A large box sat on our front porch and when my husband brought it inside and placed it on the dining room table I was overjoyed, OVERJOYED, to see that it was from Omaha Steak Company! OH MY WORD!!! My husband was working four jobs to make ends meet so steaks were a complete luxury! As Jim went for the scissors I hopped around, clapping my hands, and began planning the menu for our Omaha Steak dinner.

We cut open the box and there, in all its glory , was that huge, beautiful, important Styrofoam shipper with the promise of dry ice and Delmonicos. Cutting the tape and lifting the lid…I can’t remember when I’ve been so breathless…we marveled at the dry-ice and gave it to the kids to play with. Then we realized that underneath the dry-ice lay, no joke, a tin of mixed nuts.

Let us be agreement that whenever anyone , ANYONE, anyone,  gets a package with the Omaha Steak label, they will always, ALWAYS, always be bitterly, BITTERLY, bitterly disappointed to find a can of mixed nuts inside, even if they are “deluxe.” Even vegans would reject this “gift” on the grounds that it came from a company that makes it filthy-blood-money-millions from meat. In fact, I can’t think of a single person who would be happy to open that package and find a can of Deluxe Mixed Nuts. I challenge my readers to think of one person on this planet who would be thrilled to open a box with the promise of delicious, juicy steak only to find a can of mixed nuts. Even the giver of this gift would not have liked that.

I want to point out here that my deep disgust lies not in the fact that someone gave me a tin of mixed nuts. It lies in the fact that they came wrapped in the promise of luscious steak. And, the dry-ice layer just added injury. Who ships a tin of nuts in dry-ice??!!

In order to maintain my sanity I had to pretend that these nuts were actually steak for awhile. I laughed about how I’d season and grill them, who I would invite over to share them with us, and imagined myself sitting at the dining room table cutting into my hot cashew with a fork and steak knife. I brought the tin out on Christmas Eve with much hoopla and to great fanfare!

To make matters worse, when I went to school the next day, one of my coworkers started chatting about the Omaha steaks she had received and how extremely delicious they were! I told her about my can of deluxe mixed nuts and before the week was out coupons for Omaha Steak Co. were filling my work mailbox. Thanks, Friends!

Jim is no longer with that boss. Too bad. There go my hopes for the Jelly-of-the-Month-Club.

Empty Hands, Full Hearts

In my school district the supermajority of parents are well-educated and pull in high incomes. They are also very interested in supporting our schools. PTO meetings are well-attended and these parents pay close attention to every event, including the “small things” like holiday parties.

We also have students who come from low-income households where the parents may not be nearly as involved in school.

Here is a fact of poverty: Poverty is exhausting. Living in poverty sucks up a lot of a parent’s time while it also drains away their emotional and physical energy. In many ways, it costs more to be poor than it does to be middle-class or wealthy. I often judge the poor on how they’re spending their time or money, but the fact is that I just don’t know until I’ve walked two moons in their shoes (and I haven’t…but only by the grace of God).

Our school district is highly rated in our state, and we have had some low-income parents make sacrifices to move here just so their kids can attend our schools. It takes guts to place yourself and your family in a culture that is markedly different from what you’re comfortable in the hope that your child can have a better future.

But these families usually remain separate from the higher-income families; They don’t meet up for play-dates, they don’t have a pool membership or maybe they can’t afford to play community soccer or baseball. Maybe they have just one car so they can’t drive their kids all over town like other parents do. They probably don’t feel comfortable going to PTO meetings and maybe they’re working two or three jobs to make ends meet…who knows?

Chances are they aren’t even aware that the other kids will be bringing in gifts for their teachers on the last day of school. It’s not that they’re “bad parents.” They just don’t know, or, if they do, they lack the time, energy, knowledge, or money to help their child give a gift. Who knows?

One year, on the last day before Christmas vacation, most of the students in our room were placing gifts on our first-grade teacher’s desk. As she excitedly opened several of them, I was watching one little guy squirm in his seat. I could see that it was dawning on him that the other kids were lavishing the teacher with gifts while he had nothing. He was clearly uncomfortable and I ached for him. I knew his family situation well enough to not be surprised that he came empty-handed.

More than the gift, it was perhaps the first time he was realizing how “different” he was from others. He probably wasn’t consciously thinking it through, but now life was introducing a new insecurity that – for whatever reason – his mom or dad did not have it together enough to anticipate and meet this need of his. Actually, he most likely assumed it was somehow his failure.

He slipped back to my desk and whispered to me that he did not have a gift. Imagine what he might be thinking; “The teacher will not like me because I didn’t give her a gift,” or just, “I am not as good as the other kids.” Who knows?

Heartbreaking.

I whispered something like, “Oh, Dear! You forgot! It’s all right! I have something you could give her!”

I wish I could remember what it was but it escapes me now. It was such a fast, hurried moment. It was something like a small ornament I had decorated my little work area with, or something like that. I found some wrapping paper and cut out a square of construction paper for a note.

He wrapped it up and signed his name to the small note. He smiled from ear-to-ear, so relieved.

{Note to self: This is how I feel when my hands are filled by Jesus with gifts for my Father!}

Now, this teacher had a huge heart and – seriously – he could’ve wrapped up a single Lego brick and she would have been truly thrilled. When she opened his gift she showered him with hugs and thanks and you’d have thought he’d given her the Hope Diamond! That little boy was enormously relieved and satisfied.

So, here is the final lesson in What to Give Your Kid’s Teacher for Christmas:  In the end, it really is all about the kids. It’s not about What to Give the Teacher. It’s about How to Help Your Kids Give. They want to give and they want to express their love. Teachers don’t care what they get as long as it’s from the kids. I’d truly rather receive a handmade card or anything as long as the kids themselves are giving it. It important to us that the kids enjoy the giving! If you have a choice between giving a $25 gift card that you picked up yourself, or a handmade card drawn by your child…trust me, get out the crayons and paper. Everyone, especially your child, will be happier!

Tomorrow:  The worst Christmas surprise ever.