Blown Away

This week I have been blow away by several of my students. When I think about where they have come in just a few short weeks of school I am both excited and overwhelmed. I am excited because there is so much potential and some of my students are finally showing a desire to learn and interact with those around them. I am overwhelmed because my task of trying to unlock that potential has increased in difficulty considerably. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the responsibility that has been given me. I have three short years to try to unlock as much potential in these students as possible. I am thankful that this responsibility is not mine alone, but is shared with staff in my classroom, others in my school, student families, and friends.

Yesterday I saw a joy that is beyond the joy I usually see in my classroom. At one point, a student was running around my room, clapping his hands, and smiling in a way that lit up the entire room and had the adults in the room fighting back tears. All this from a text to mom .... here's the backstory.

I have spent the last several weeks completely frustrated by this student. He is so smart, yet chooses to pretend he isn't. For example, on day one of school he indicated he wanted to change from wearing pull-ups to underwear. This is not something we usually do on day one ... but we figured we would honor his wishes. Well, he stayed dry all day! Then in the coming weeks he would go into the bathroom right before lunch (multiple days) and choose to urinate in his pants while standing by the door in the bathroom.

He wanted help with everything and would act like he wasn't capable of doing anything on his own. I knew this was not true, as I had been in his elementary school classroom and spoken to his teacher. He seemed to thrive on the attention he got (negative or positive). When frustrated, instead of pushing through, he tended to just give up. One of the most frustrating things for us was seeing that he likely knew more than he pretended to know (he acted like he didn't know the alphabet or his numbers), but having a difficult time getting him to actually be willing to show us what he knew. 

To compound his challenges, he is non-verbal. Even so, he has an uncanny ability to express what he wants through signs, facial expressions, etc. He has started carrying a classroom communication device with him everywhere he goes (including taking it home in the evenings). He is quickly learning new words, of which his favorite are bike, mom, help, granola bar, hot dog, chocolate milk and bathroom. Each day seems to add at least one word to his expressive vocabulary.

This week has seemed to be a turning point for him.  We figured out that his greatest motivator is his mother. He loves to share things he does with his mom and is willing to work to make her proud. He will point to our cell phones when he is working to indicate that he wants us to send a picture to mom via the Seesaw app that we use in our classroom. His second greatest motivator is the exercise bike. He loves riding it and will work to earn classroom dollars for a chance to ride.

We work on spelling and dictation in small groups in our classroom. Up until yesterday, he had refused to participate. However, yesterday he sat at the desk and as I said letter sounds, he wrote the letter that made the sound. Due to physical challenges, he has to have someone provide some support over his hand when he writes. However, my instructional assistant providing the support was not the one moving his hand. He wrote every letter correctly. We then moved on to spelling words. He wrote each word that I said correctly as well. 

At the end of the day, he took his spelling paper out of his folder and stuffed it in his backpack. I then told him how proud of him I was for his work and proceeded to text his mom. As I was typing the message, I was reading it aloud so he knew what his mom would be receiving.

The message I sent included ".. worked great today. He wanted to bring home a paper we did today. ... As a result, we are realizing he knows how to read and spell." When I got to this part, he clapped his hands, got a HUGE grin on his face and started running around the room out of sheer excitement. I pulled him over and told him that we would continue trying to find out what he knows and making it harder so that he could keep learning. He took off running around the room again. I'm hoping he continues his quest for learning and doesn't go back to wanting the easy way out.

This was just another reminder of the power of positive reinforcement and not underestimating the potential of my students. Some of the hardest (and most rewarding) students I get to teach are those who refuse to do work if it is something they already know. It makes it extremely difficult to figure out where to start and what to work on next. Although I am overwhelmed at times, I am also really excited to see what this school year will bring in our lives.