I was a little more prepared for the drop-off student the second time around. I asked the para who dropped him off again if she brought anything for him to work on and again it was a no. I asked the para who was in my room what else besides copying words does he do? She said, "Well I think he really likes copying words, he just does it all hour." A guest lecturer once told a story of when she was working at a center for people with disabilities and visited a workplace that a few of the clients were employed at. She said that the people with disabilities were sitting in a room on chairs all day separating tin foil from other pieces of garbage so the company could reuse the tin. For a whole day, I believe she said they made around 40 cents. Everyone involved at that time thought they were doing those clients a favor by giving them a "job". However, giving a choice between doing something more meaningful and picking apart tin foil all day long we can assume most people, even people with disabilities would choose the more meaningful job. A person with a disability that prevents them from expressing themselves easily may appear to be enjoying an activity when in fact they were never given a choice to say no.
Having this discussion in my mind, I decided to give this student a choice, I asked him what he would rather do... make his teacher a card with words and art or copy words. He chose to make a card. It made me feel incredibly good, because I remembered something vital that sometimes we forget, people with disabilities are no different than than all of us, they want choices too. What was very surprising was how good he was at art. To make his card for the art portion I found a picture of house and a dog online that he could copy. He took a lot of time shading and paying attention to details. He really blew me away with his talent. I cannot wait to see as he is given the ability to attend art classes how his gift will grow and enable him to express himself. Below are the pictures he copied. He chose the dog he wanted to copy. I gave him letter stickers to place next to the dog.
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AuthorSpecial Education major in a university teaching program. Substitute teacher, previous homeschool mom, wife. Archives
September 2019
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