A Teacher: "Help Me Stay Honest With These Students"
I want to ask those who care about disabled young people: is it possible to be truthful when you're living two different realities? Let me explain what I mean.
I have many disabled friends. I know their families. I've lived through their struggles with school and integration—from their perspective and from their parents' point of view.
I teach middle school. I live integration in my work every day. I feel responsible for everything we fail to do, everything we can't manage at the middle school level. I've watched special education teachers work miracles in four-and-a-half, sometimes nine hours a week, with a single student—and suffer for lack of adequate resources.
I've read countless progress reports about these students. Words, words, words.
I've seen a teacher hunting for disabled students so he could teach more classes and keep his job.
I've watched students integrated, maybe, for certain lessons—rarely during free time, even after three years alongside their classmates.
I'm talking about the serious cases (and there are many) where school simply cannot discover and develop what the student can do. We force him to sit through lessons he cannot understand, lessons the teacher must teach to respect every student's right to learn. I watch students get middle school diplomas and wonder how honest we're being with "the person."
After middle school, where do parents send their children? How often do they end up back in special schools, only to be told it's too late now to develop their early potential—that time has been wasted?
Why don't we open our eyes and see what's really happening since this law passed? How many students have dropped out of mainstream school and are on waiting lists for "special" schools that can't even be truly special anymore because they're overcrowded and understaffed? Many students need and deserve integration. But let's accept the reality of others too. Respect them. Help them. And above all, let's be honest with them.
I want parents and teachers to give me honest, truthful answers. I know some friends who went to special schools where they learned to read and write, developed their abilities fully, and were brought into integration. When I see similar students in mainstream school (similar, because working with them means constant, individual search for what to do) who, without proper resources, can barely read and cannot write because they lack specialized equipment—I have to ask: what is our responsibility when we damage someone's life in the name of integration and socialization?
How many times have I walked into a classroom as a substitute and immediately seen students making signs to show me that their friend is different—or saying it out loud (signals and remarks that well-mannered people don't normally use)?
Fifteen years ago, at a middle school, some students had minor difficulties, and all the teachers worked with calm and tried to develop their abilities as much as possible. I argued with the principal's decision to refuse more severely disabled students. At the time, I didn't understand his answer: "It wouldn't be good for the student or his classmates—I don't have the right resources or the right people." Now I see more clearly that he was right, aware that you have to will the "true good" of each person.
I could go on, but I only want your help to understand...to help me feel honest toward our students.
F.B.
I'm Ten Years Old
I'm a ten-year-old boy. I ride the school bus. There's a disabled girl on the bus. Everybody treats her very badly, even Aliano, the driver.
Now I always try to treat her as well as I can, but she's a difficult girl, and I haven't been able to make her my friend. Sometimes I've even played tricks on her.
Riccardo treats her worse than anyone: he says Erica bothers him, when really it's the other way around. Erica hasn't been treated well. She lost her mother. She lives with her grandmother. Her father is always away for work, as far as I know. I don't know exactly what Erica's condition is, but when she's on the bus she has the habit of taking off her shoes and throwing them at the children. When the kids get off, she grabs their smocks and pulls them. Everybody treats her badly, like I said. Miss Elide and Aliano think yelling helps calm her down. I think the Carmelite nuns who run the school probably treat her better. There's another boy at Mater Carmeli named Andrea. He's mongoloid. He's very likable. Everybody at school knows him. He comes to visit our classroom often because he knows our teacher well. He's kind and polite. He can accept losing when he plays. The class works well together when he studies with us. Many times he offers his snack to someone who doesn't have one. I think I've explained as clearly as I can how the whole school handles students with disabilities.
E.B.
From "Salviatino"
Dr. Toschi and I are deeply grateful to Ombre e Luci for the four beautiful pages you devoted to the Salviatino Center, highlighting its aims and methods (science plus humanity and common sense) and capturing several of its activities in photographs—above all, the splendid Laura, whose face holds such mystery and hope.
Speaking briefly now of my impressions of Ombre e Luci, I must say I have found light and comfort in every issue I've read. The pages translated from French are most interesting—written by distinguished experts and courageous apostles working among disabled brothers and sisters. But equally moving and inspiring are all the other voices—the different experiences and testimonies—where, generally, a positive emphasis prevails that makes one suspect that the world of suffering, approached with faith, may benefit the one who gives more than the one who receives.
Fr. Luigi Rima
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