THE THINGS THAT THEY COULD DO

I spent almost 40 years teaching students with Autism… and almost every time I welcomed new students I found this to be true: I’d be told by some parents and former teachers…all the things they could not do. They could not communicate…they could not sit…they could not understand… Whatever lessons you prepare, they’d shake their heads, they will not go as planned. I don’t believe they meant to be negative…I give them my appreciation and respect… They just wanted me to know what I was in for…with each student what to expect. This attitude was pervasive…but I found it to be a bit disjointed. On the one hand…if you have no expectations…you can’t be disappointed. But on the other hand if you have no expectations in the mindset you’ve created… you never have the chance to feel joy…and you’ll never be elated. So early on I stopped listening to and reading negative reports… those disjointed points of view…and decided together with my students we’d discover the things that they COULD do. I had my share of successes…my share of failures too… but I never stopped trying to help my students discover the things that they could do. Some people were amazed…every now and then a parent would cry too… when they came to observe their child…and saw the things that they could do. You might say my teaching career…with it’s ups and downs… went the way that I suspected For sometimes: It is the people who no one expects things of… who do the things no one expected.