A New Kind of Teaching

Well, it has been a while since we've been on the blog. Perhaps it's been because we haven't had much to report, and I am not making any promises that we'll be good at keeping it updated. For now, though, I (Lisa) have had a few things going on that I feel like I would like to share.

I spent the last 3 months or so doing a long term substitute teacher job in the Arlington school system. It wasn't something I was seeking out; it kind of fell in my lap and I felt very much that God was nudging me to take it. Normally, I wouldn't really have to think a sub job over that much, but this one was different. I was working in a classroom with very low functioning special needs kids. This is not something I've ever felt called to before; in fact, just the opposite. I guess sometimes the things you least want to do are the things you most need to work on.

I was responsible for 6 students, but I interacted daily with anywhere from 15-20 of these special needs kids. These are the children who are too severe to be mainstreamed in with "typical" kids. They are too low functioning to be in special education classes. We had 3 classes of these students in our school (only 4 exist in the entire county), and all 3 classes operated in our own little corner of the building. Of my 6 kids, 4 are non-verbal, 3 wear diapers, the other 2 have accidents regularly, 2 have feeding tubes, 2 others have to be hand fed, and all of them have the mental capacity of maybe 3 or 4 year olds. One has Cerebral Palsy, one has Down's Syndrome, and one has multiple issues not the least of which is that he is a headbanger. He wears a soft helmet all of the time, because all of his instincts tell him to hurt himself. Since he is nonverbal, he communicates discomfort through aggression as well, which means I often came home with bruises, missing clumps of hair, and bite marks. I will write more about some of the specific kids later, though. I found I have a lot to learn from them.

As if that wasn't enough, I was sharing a classroom with another class of the same types of kids and that teacher was very tough to be around. She was controlling, manipulative, demeaning, and micromanaging and all of the other teachers I worked with hated her which meant that there was tons of mean gossip going on every day... tough not to get caught up in all of the negativity.

Initially, I was very hesitant to get attached to the kids. Usually, I jump in head first when it comes to children, but I needed time to adjust to the drooling and the diapers and the feeding tubes. My job was so different than any other teaching job I had ever held; in fact, it involved very little teaching because most of the kids can't even hold a pen or marker on their own much less count or say their ABC's. My job was predominantly care-taking. So I learned, slowly, how to take care of special needs children. For the first couple of weeks, that was all I could really handle. Somewhere along the line, though, those kids began to work their way into my heart.

One day I was walking through the halls with one of my students. He can't walk on his own because he has balance issues, and so he has to hold hands with an adult. So we were holding hands, and I noticed that as one of the classes came toward us, they walked in an arc as far away from us as possible. It was then that I realized why God had brought me here. Two weeks prior, I would have been that person walking in an arc away from this child. I was being called to love, tangibly, "the least of these". Not the poor, the sick, the underprivileged per se, but those people that, really, are modern day lepers... misunderstood, rejected, outcasts. The people who, in our culture's eyes, are somewhat "unlovable". And I was struck with the ugliness of my own heart. So I chose to love them. Out of obedience at first, serving them willingly and looking for ways to go above and beyond the job. It surprised me how quickly the obedience turned into genuine love. I really, really love these kids.

As I began to open up my heart to love them, I realized some things. First, special needs kids have no biases. They accept people unconditionally and without judgment, regardless of how you look, what you do or have accomplished, even of how you speak to them. Their faces light up each day when they see someone they know. Secondly, I learned that I have nothing to complain about. Not to minimize hard stuff that I am going through or have experienced, but these kids have a harder life than I will ever understand. This point will come across when I write about the kids themselves, but suffice it to say that if a kid with Cerebral Palsy can smile all day long even though she has nothing to smile about, I need to lose my pity party and find the things that make me smile. Thirdly, it doesn't take much to make people happy. It does, however, pay off to study people and figure out what those little things are. I discovered that one of my students, who can do virtually nothing for himself, loves to staple. He could do it all day long and howl with delight. Seriously. Howl. Loudly. How hard is it for me to sit down and do that with him? It makes his day. Fourthly, there is value in slowing life down. So what if it takes more time to get lunch for the kids if one or two of them comes with me to the cafeteria? They love to go get their own lunch. It is one of the few tastes of independence that they get. Why am I always in so much of a hurry? Lastly, I have realized that I too easily take for granted that my body and mind work they way that they are supposed to. It is not something to be taken lightly. That is just a very short list of some of the things I learned over the last few months, but there is a ton more. I'll spare you the rest, but it's been a rich time for me.

The job is over now; their regular teacher comes back from maternity leave after the holiday. I find myself sad that I won't get to see them every day. They inspire me and teach me and make me want to be a better person. And I can't wait to go back and visit.