Acceptance

Recently  I was reminded of a student I taught years ago. When I taught in a small district outside of Commerce I taught a boy with Aspergers. He was extremely high functioning ( when he learned I lived in Rockwall he managed to memorize the Rockwall phone book from A-Z) but he really struggled socially. He had a brilliant mind and was an extremely gifted writer although his writings weren’t appropriate at times. He amazed me. I'll call him Charles and when I first got to this district he was 16 and in 10th grade. His family didn’t have running water at their home so baths were far and few between. His typical school clothes were thin pajama bottoms with whatever t shirt he could find. His clothes were usually too small, he smelled , and sadly he was often the butt of jokes from the other students. My heart broke for him and what made it especially hard was that he was aware that he was different. All he wanted was to belong and be accepted by the “In” crowd but most the school shunned him in a way that was somewhat surprising because of the cruelty especially with the challenges he had . I didn’t understand how they could be so mean to him and I wanted to make a difference. This was something I wanted to change and although I really didn’t know how I set out to try anyway. The first thing I did was get him some clothes that fit and were somewhat stylish. I basically got him blue jeans, polo type shirts, and tennis shoes that had belonged to my husband. Plus I talked to the administrators and arranged for Charles to be able to shower in the mornings before school started when needed. I’ll never forget the first day after he showered and put on his “new” clothes. He came to my room and was beaming with pride. I felt so very happy for him. At least that would cut down on the ridicule about his clothes and his body odor but I couldn’t make the other students accept him so I tried my best to create that for him in my classroom . We worked diligently on some of the behaviors that were causing some of the ridicule. When Charles would get upset he would begin to pace and flap his arms talking to himself. This caused him problems in the lunch room setting as he would pace faster and flap harder the more upset he got . One day some of the kids did something to upset him at lunch and they kept on and on agitating him until he was a wreck. I was mortified and demanded that the students be punished . I just didn’t get why they did this, it was awful to pick on anyone but in my mind it was worse to pick on him because he didn’t have the skills to stand up for himself. That day I took Charles to my room and calmed him down leaving him to type one of his stories as I met the students who bullied him in the principal's office. As the disciplinary session started the sullen boys just sat there as if they didn’t care and I lost it, I completely lost my composure and began to cry for that sweet boy who just wanted to be accepted. This took the boys and the principal by surprise as I begged them just to be nice to him and look past his differences and challenges and try to get to know him a little bit. When I was done I was somewhat embarrassed by my breakdown but surprisingly it worked and the boys apologized to me for being so mean to him promising me they would stop. The bottom line was that they really didn’t understand him , he seemed so smart but acted so different. That was a turning point for Charles and although he was never really accepted he wasn’t rejected and ridiculed very often anymore and some of the students took time to talk to him and get to know him. This was what he wanted ; to be a part of the school in someway and not completely on the outside. I could see a change in Charles after that and although he still struggled socially things were much better and he felt better about himself . As his confidence grew and his social problems lessened he spent less and less time in my room. Charles contacted my through Facebook a couple of years ago happy to hear I was doing well. He knew of my legal problems and addiction from reading the Dallas Morning News and Rockwall Paper. He contacted me again after Alexis died letting me know he was praying for me. He still lives at home with his parents but has graduated from college and told me he was going to start a blog sharing his experience of living with Autism. Charles is who I thought about today when I remembered the life impacting lesson on celebrating our differences, accepting them, and being kind to everyone plus laughing at life every time you can.