A letter to the editor
Dear Editor: I want to respond to the story about the Baraboo School Board member who talked about the uselessness of trying to teach students with “nothing upstairs.”
I taught a class called Interpersonal Communications, often in conjunction with the speech classes I taught at Madison West High. The course helped students learn effective communication skills to build and maintain interpersonal relationships in their world. The class was made up of 10th- through 12th-graders, so many didn’t know each other.
One semester on the first day, I divided the students, as I often did, in small groups, to learn something about each other. One group had a boy who was a “special ed” student. He started to draw wide circles and ramble a bit to himself. The other students drew back with looks at each other, and everyone was very uncomfortable.
I had not been told the student had various disabilities, but that day I went to the chair of the department and told him to find a way to keep “Robert” out of class the next day. Then I asked him to come to my class and tell the students just what Robert’s disabilities were and what the goals for him were. Those goals included Robert being able to find the right bus to take him home, and maybe, someday, to have and keep a simple job. The students listened and learned.
The next day, Robert was back in class, and I asked the students to again meet in groups. Robert’s group said, “Come on, Robert, you’re with us!” From then on, all the students helped him, made friends with him, and all of us saw the joy in his face as he felt part of the class and advanced his communication skills as well.
The lesson for this might be, it is not what you have, it’s what others find in you and themselves. I have a lot of stories like this – and it’s how my young students made my teaching such a gift to each other and to me.
Mary Moen
Madison
Published: June 2, 2006
The Capital Times