The Big Day!

Tyler’s last day came quickly this year! It seems like he just started Pre-K the other day, but now he’s in Kindergarten. We will have a busy summer, full of therapy sessions, tutoring and water fun, but I know it will go by just as fast. Tyler came home with a huge bag, filled to the rim with projects he had worked on throughout the year. His book, “T if for Tyler” was awesome and brought tears to my eyes. At the beginning of the year, Tyler could not draw. If you asked him to draw an object or animal, he would just make a messy, circular scribble. Thinking abstractly is very difficult for him. Also, his name was so illegible. The first page showed a comparison, from August 2010 to May 2011. It blew me away and was symbolic of the incredible progress Tyler has made. I am so proud of how far he has come and how much he will continue to grow, to become the boy and man he was meant to be.

Luke also had a big day yesterday, his first day of school for the summer. His school year program ended last week at Hays Hills. Because I am in Graduate school and constantly writing, reading and working on research, I enrolled Luke in a program so I can have 2 full days a week to work, without his one-man wrecking crew distractions. While Luke is at school, I have tutors coming to our house to work one-on-one with Tyler on his reading and writing. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays will be busy, full of learning and therapy sessions, but it will all be worth it. Luke settled in immediately to his new program and enjoyed playing soccer and painting. He’s so gregarious and full of energy! If I had all of the energy that Luke has, I think I would have to take a sedative just to chill out. He will have a wonderful time making new friends and staying busy.

As I successfully finish my first graduate class, I can’t help but reflect on my time in the classroom and all of the lives I have encountered and touched. I used to have around 130-150 students a year, around 650-750 students in my career thus far. One of my former students just recently told me how much I meant to her, which made me feel even more motivated to get back into the classroom. Then I thought about a student who was an enigma to me and his peers, a social pariah and outcast. I had felt sorry for him; he had no friends and struggled to communicate and when he did, it was awkward. And then I started to put two and two together – poor eye contact, horrible social skills, poor fine motor skills, boundary issues, incredible shyness, odd hand movements and off-the-wall behaviors – this student had autism and had not been labeled. He had an “LD” label (learning disability) and not the “AU” label (autism). He also did not like to be touched by his peers. Looking back, it is so clear that he had autism and for some reason had fallen through the cracks, unnoticed because he was invisible. His parents did not know how to help him and he was 14 when I had him in my class! It made me feel incredibly sad for him; he did not have all of the early interventions that Tyler has had to help him. Had I known what I do now, I could have helped this student even more. But there are future students, waiting in the midst that will reap the benefits of my new knowledge. Wherever he is, I hope he is doing well.