An afternoon in Lifeskills

This afternoon I subbed for the teacher in a severely mentally handicapped classroom (officially called the "Lifeskills" class). There are 5 students in the class although one was absent. Of the four students present, only one was in any way verbal and he could only say a few random words. Lots of sign and body language. (If we'd had a more structured "regular" agenda, I would have seen them use lots of photos laminated for the kids to point to to get their ideas across.) But I was a sub and one of the aides was a sub. With only one regular aide there, it was very laid back today. Except for one counting activity, it was mostly just focused play.

I was only there for the afternoon so that the head teacher could go to a special ed teacher meeting at the high school. I played with cars and a ramp with a first grade and a 4th grade boy. I helped that first grade boy listen to audio cassettes with headphones. And I helped the 4th grade boy do a software program on the computer. (Actually he did better than I did because I couldn't figure out how to use the big roller ball thing they use as a mouse.)

I saw total joy when the 5th grade girl (who developmentally is probably only 18 months to two years old) was struck by a fit of giggles when the sub aide couldn't get one of the cabinets shut. The lock broke so it wouldn't shut all the way and it started banging. This girl just started shrieking with laughter. The rest of us couldn't help but join in with her laughing. It was infectious. To be able to find such joy in the simple things in life...

I was thinking about how in the regular classrooms I take so many things for granted with those kids. For these kids today, being able to stand up without adult help is an accomplishment worthy of praise. Counting out 6 toy bugs correctly earned so much praise for the beaming little boy I worked with.

Just Monday I was sitting in a 6th grade classroom reading a book about differentiated education in which they recommended creating tiered questions (3 levels of questions with increasing difficulty per level). I was contemplating comprehension questions like the basic recall details, etc. all the way up to "higher" level questions involving synthesis and analysis of information studied.

Today's experience put the whole concept of "differentiated education" into a new perspective.

Those four children (and the adults who spend their lives working with them) touched me today. And I'm not just referring to all the hugs I got at the end of the day. I am so lucky to be able to have little windows into such a huge variety of worlds. Next time I start to feel stressed or depressed, I'll just remember the blissful face of that little girl as she waved her hands and tried to pop the bubbles blown by her aide.