“Sorry, I forgot to get you the pen!” My student confessed on teacher’s day with guilt on his face.
“Oh, my dear! that’s completely ok” Thank you for your willingness to gift me.
No separate bench, Aditya used to sit exactly how other students used to.
His hand ALWAYS raised to answer any math question, no matter what level of complexity it was.
“My child is different”; “He doesn’t understand how to act in a social setting”
“You look ugly” he won’t be afraid to say that to anyone in a party if he feels so.
Says fifth grader Aditya’s mom with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t give him multiple directions ; “Open your book, page 36, para 2 ..” he won’t be able to follow you. Just wait for him to open his book first, before asking page 36…
She met me again towards the end of school year and this time requesting me to be his teacher again the next year, again with tears in her eyes and I directed her to the principal as that was her decision.
What did I do right?
Nothing “special”…
I wanted him to feel absolutely normal in the classroom, so there was no separate bench, no special treatment.
This was my effort to make him feel that there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just like other kids.
I behaved with him exactly how I would behave with any student of my class (ofcourse, with a lil extra perk. I made a very responsible child sit next to him to remind him to note down his home-work. That’s it!)
And, Aditya enjoyed that “no special treatment”, “no labelling”, “no extra attention” and per his mom liked coming to school everyday.
“Nurture” plays a VERY IMPORTANT role in child’s development.
Is your child special?
Try this normalized setting with no extra attention, no labelling and no special treatment at home.
This worked great for me as a teacher, let’s see how this works for you….
Maybe this is not as complicated as you think it is; in fact, the solution is pretty simple and straightforward.
Let’s try to act and behave simple and not “special” with “special” kids.
Try this and let me know in the comment section below how it goes; I’’ll look forward to your comments.
Be a friend, not a parent 😉
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Annie Spratt on Unsplash
