Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Written by a parent of a child with special needs.

inadequacy

When I started teaching I had a group of twelve very rambunctious (also referred to as looney) third and fourth graders. Two of these students were twins. We can call them C and C. C and C were by far two of the looniest students in our school, known by name, despite them being identical, by most adults in the building.

These two boys hardly ever came to school

When they did come to school they were running around the building (without permission)

They came to school with clothes that were too small (often dirty)

Both boys are at a kindergarten/pre-kindergarten academic level

Both are victims of abuse

Both were born with fetal alcohol syndrome

and I fell in LOVE with these children.

While I don't teach them, it brings me joy to see them in the hallway and it makes my day when they come visit me up on the fourth floor. In such a short period of time, I have seen them grow an immense amount.

This past weekend, one of the boys got hit by a car, will be hospitalized for eight weeks, and is paralyzed.

Being an inner-city school teacher is rough, but in hearing this news, my heart sank. Every day i leave school feeling like I do not have control of anything- behavior, academic achievement, student investment, and the list could go on. Nothing, NOTHING even the worst of days at work, compares to the inadequacy I felt in hearing that my twins were out, unsupervised, playing on a major road, late at night.

The hardest part about this job is not the work it entails, it is leaving work everyday knowing that THIS can happen to our children.

"It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change" - Alice in Wonderland

A few weeks ago I received a care package. It was the best care package I have ever received, EVER. It was so impactful that as I read the card and looked at its contents, I couldn't help but cry a little. An excerpt:

Life is unexpected and things don't always happen as planned, but it's how you react that defines who you are...

This tidbit of advice has served me well in all facets of my life since coming home to this package.

Yes, I go to work every day and within moments of teaching I end up defeated.

Yes, I have never been so tired in my life.

Yes, I often feel alone

BUT then I think of this and it reminds me that I want to be the type of person that can honestly say that regardless of what life throws at me, I can be flexible and I can figure it out.

New Room

Today was the first day in my new classroom. I thought that this change would be great for my students. Finally, they had a space to call their own (regardless of the fact that we are in an office). Let me tell you, I was incorrect. To all my teacher friends- In a 50 minute block my seventh grade class did not complete our DO NOW. Little snapshot into my life.

It has been 15 minutes and we still have not started working on our do now...

It has been 22 minutes and we are not making the progress on our do now that we need to...

(clearly talking over students)

......repeat

......repeat

IT HAS BEEN 45 MINUTES AND I SEE THAT ONLY ONE STUDENT HAS COMPLETED THEIR DO NOW.

not a good sign.

this will get better.