Oral description by Wen Huang Meifen
I have entered my eighth year of special education after graduating from the Department of Special Education of the Teacher's College. The classmates and colleagues around them are too hard, lack of a sense of achievement, or not valued... And other different factors, have left the ranks of special education and transferred to ordinary classes.
I have no physical strength and wisdom, but I value my work very much, in which I learn, grow, and find a sense of accomplishment in my work, and a suddenly open outlook on life.
When I graduated from the teacher's college and entered the experimental primary school attached to the teacher's college, the school just started the Enlightenment Class. As a student of special education, I am naturally full of enthusiasm and dedication.
Having been exposed to children with different intellectual disabilities, the enthusiasm and kindness of Down's children make me feel most at ease. One of the most laborious, the most difficult to teach, and the most likely to cause frustration is autistic children.
01
Slowly ease their emotions
At the beginning, the school focused autistic children who are prone to emotional ups and downs in the "emotional disorder class" to facilitate teaching and management. However, the emotional disability class is also recognized as the noisiest and most headache "horror class" in the special education class.
I worked as a fourth-grade emotionally handicapped teacher until they graduated, spending three years with five autistic students in my class.
Five children, five characteristics, some cringing, some passive, some destructive, self-harming. After a period of observation and contact, I gradually learned some ways to get along with them.
For example, when the child is emotional, he must not loudly rebuke, but gently coax him and slowly ease his emotions. When the child runs to let me chase, the more he chases him, the more he runs, he can only not chase him, and when he stops himself, then walks over to lead him, he will obediently come back with me.
According to studies, children with autism are unable to integrate vision, hearing, touch, muscle and joint kinesthesia, and vestibular sensations due to brain dysfunction. There is a kind of "sensory integration training" that uses sports equipment, such as skateboards, to provide sensory stimulation, which can promote the brain development of children with autism and is very helpful in stabilizing children's emotions.
So I listed it as my main teaching goal and often discussed the results with my doctors. Slowly, the child's abnormal behavior gradually decreased, and the mood was much more stable than before training, which made me excited.
02
Everything could go back to square one
But the biggest difference between autistic children and other children with intellectual disabilities is that once children with intellectual disabilities learn something, they will be preserved in the brain, but the ability of autistic children may not be sustainable: learning today is not guaranteed to be in the future.
Maybe it's the weather that changes, maybe it's a change in the living environment, causing emotional instability, everything will return to the original point, and the previous achievements may disappear without a trace.
Before graduation, the degradation of the emotional disability class is quite obvious. Adolescent children become quite violent, and people often scream and even tear their clothes.
I remember one time it rained heavily and thundered, and some people started crying and some people were upset. A child who was punished by his father for breaking a glass kept saying "Don't break the glass" in his mouth, but he picked up the cup and smashed it outside the door.
Good behavior is difficult to cultivate, uneasy emotions are easy to infect, autistic children in the emotional disability class lack the diverse stimulation of other children, coupled with the rare interaction between autistic children, not only teach to do half the work, and even degenerate phenomenon.
Due to the lack of success in this experience, the school changed the way it was arranged. Since last year, mixed teaching has been changed, and autistic children and other children with intellectual disabilities have been incorporated into classes with intellectual disabilities, and classes will no longer be set up independently.
It is only in its second year, but it can be seen that the interaction between students has improved significantly.
03
Parents need "education" more than children
In addition to educating children, teachers in mentally handicapped classes also help the whole family. Because children need education, helpless parents need counseling even more.
Some parents are pessimistic and feel that their children have no hope. I will tell your child through the contact book or when parents pick up their children every day, and tell him what your child has done today and how much progress he has made.
The mother of a child could not accept the imperfection of her child, and the husband and wife often quarreled. The husband then struggles between "wife or children".
So when I used the parent-teacher conference, I let this mother chat with other parents, spit bitter water on each other, also cheered each other up, and also privately found an opportunity to chat with her, and this mother finally gradually came out of the haze and accepted the child. When the child graduated, she also wrote me a thank-you card, which made me quite touched.
Many mothers and grandmothers, after bringing their children to class, will stay at school to help me tidy up the classroom, sweep the floor, and wipe the desk. When attending extracurricular activity classes or feeling integration training, I also help take care of other children. This kind of enthusiastic, grateful parent is rare in other ordinary classes.
Feedback from parents and rewards from the school, these encouragements make me enjoy it even if I suffer setbacks.
04
When he first opened his mouth to call "Grandma"
Last year I took a new class in the first grade, and all the rules have not yet been established, and the responsibility is the heaviest and the most tired.
The new class has a girl with multiple disabilities, a boy with an intellectual disability, and three boys with autism. Among them, Wei Wei and Chengcheng are autistic children with high IQ and behavioral ability.
Wei Wei is handsome and lovely, has no father, and his mother has been working outside the home for many years and was brought up by his grandmother. I remember his grandmother telling me on the first day of school: "This kid is dumb and can't speak!" ”
But I found that he could pronounce, perhaps because the cultural stimulation was not enough, so he did not speak, so he said to his grandmother, "Let's find a way to make him learn to speak!" ”
At first, the children could not sit down for a minute, running around in the classroom, and Chengcheng kept muttering to himself: "Go home to listen to the tape, go home to listen to Ye Qianwen, go home to listen to xxx...", otherwise he would replay the songs he had heard the day before; Wei Wei was obsessed with the tape recorder and tape, and kept crying and playing with the tape recorder and tape, completely ignoring my existence.
Today, when children are in second grade, they can read and write, they can count from one to a hundred, they can do simple arithmetic, and more importantly, they can sit quietly in class.
Wei Wei went from not saying a word to being able to speak simple conversations, and although his tone did not fluctuate, he still surprised his grandmother. Sincerity is clear and correct, and speaks very well.
Some people say that autistic children do not understand interpersonal communication and cannot express feelings, but I appreciate the innocence of this kind of child and will not be fake. They may not know how to please the teacher, but they often have moments of true feelings.
05
Enjoy the emotions of your child when their true feelings are revealed
For a while, when I was on maternity leave, Wei Wei couldn't see me and shouted "Teacher Huang" and "Teacher Huang" every day. Although he could not express himself in full, his grandmother knew that he missed me, so she brought him to visit me, which touched me.
His grandmother told me that once when Wei Wei was going to school, he saw that his mother, whom he had not seen for a long time, had returned, and he just laughed and did not call his mother. When Wei Wei came home from school, Wei Wei immediately ran into the room to look around, and his grandmother knew that he was looking for his mother, and told him: "Mother is going to work again", Wei Wei listened, and the tears immediately fell.
Eight years into special education, from the ordinary class of children called the special class students "crazy", ran to the classroom door to see the bustle, or saw them quickly avoid; to this day, although they have little contact, but at least they can no longer laugh and avoid. Enlightenment education in schools seems to have a little foundation.
For myself, the challenges and tempering of work, the innocence of the children, and the hardships of the parents gave me a completely different life experience than before.
Friends who have not met for a long time will be surprised by my change. In the past, I was introverted, taciturn, sentimental and demanding perfection in everything; now my personality has changed greatly, becoming cheerful, open-minded, and more tolerant, trying to tolerate all imperfect people, things, and things in the world.
Enlightenment, make rehabilitation more effective!