10-11-09

I had a field experience in my Secondary 1 class that took place at a middle school in the area, and that was possibly my first time having an actual encounter with a student who had a disability in the context of being a teacher.

She was definitely a character, and my interactions with her gave me a little time to conquer my fear of awkwardness (which will be a frivolous thing to worry about when a child's education is dependent upon me and others in my position). I'm not even sure what her "label" was, to be honest...I just know that she spoke in very incomplete sentences, used "her" instead of "she" when talking about other people as subjects, went back and forth from being very clingy to telling me to "go away", and she got really frustrated during projects.

I think I met her when she tried to make me cut images out of a magazine for her collage, and while deciding whether to do it I asked the teacher, who told me that she was capable of cutting the magazines herself. After that and spending more time with her myself, I was able to encourage her to stay on task and not be overtaken by frustration during projects--in addition to having a better understanding of the way she spoke.

She helped me see that she, as a student with some sort of "disability", just needed someone to take interest in what she was doing, and not give in to her or give up on her.

Here is a piece by one of my heroes, Chuck Close, who at one point was forced to paint with his teeth because of a loss in the use of his hands.