Last week I sent an email to Tyler's main teacher and his Speech teacher. I told them about the event causing the email, but explained that most importantly that this represented an on going problem. I expressed my frustration in what I felt was six years of failed policies. How I felt that bullies get off and victims are left holding the bag. How time and again Tyler gets punished for being bullied while his tormentors go unchecked.
I went on to explain how then people are bewildered when high school students shoot up their schools or commit suicide. How they tell themselves that they had no idea the student was so unhappy or how bad things were for them. It starts HERE. Here in elementary school. We are teaching bullies that it's ok and we are telling the victims to keep their mouth shut.
Bullies even get the green light to physically assault someone, because if the student tries to defend themselves they will get in just as much trouble as the bully...if the bully gets in trouble at all. You can't even call them a bully, or call it bullying behavior. Why? Because it might hurt their feelings? So, I told them they really needed to re-evaluate their bully policies, because their system is clearly broken.
Due to the holiday I didn't fully expect a reply any time soon. Come Monday though... I figured I'd hear something. Well, I never did get an email back...from anyone. However, the email I sent to the teachers made it's rounds through the school. I don't know who all it went to, but I know the counselor got it from the principal.
I got a call yesterday afternoon about two. My phone was in my room though so I missed the call. I didn't notice it until about 3:30. Too late to call back, so I called this morning and left her a message. She called back:
We talked quite a bit. She insisted that things were getting better with Tyler, but it would take time. Funny. She wasn't the counselor here until some time last year. She wasn't there for the two years the school was rejecting Tyler's two separate autism diagnosis'. She wasn't there when the school board came in and said he was, indeed, autistic. She wasn't there when they insisted that Tyler was SO high functioning that he'd be in and out of the program within months (it was the end of the school year and they expected to not have him back into the program come the new school year) and would suffer NO regression. Now it will take time.
She threw out the one thing that makes me SO stinking mad for anyone to mention like it somehow makes EVERYTHING ok. He's such a happy kid. Every time I see him. He's smiling, and just...happy. Umm, that's his personality. He's happy with life, with himself, he's infectious, vibrant, and he just loves life and people. BUT as much as he likes to talk, talking to people about random things is not the same thing as sharing your inner most things with. He will NOT just walk up to anyone in that school and share those things with them. That's my job. That's our relationship. He uses me as a filter, of sorts.
I told her about two teachers who contradicted each other. One who said that oh Tyler loves to talk of course he'd come tell her if there was something wrong. Then the very next year his teacher admitted that yes Tyler loves to talk but that there was no way Tyler would share those things with anyone. That he'd tell me, and I would have to email them. I told her about how earlier this year Tyler had gotten upset in class because of something going on with other students and he demanded to call me. He was sent to the office. He was sent to the Nurse. The Nurse asked him why he HAD to call me. He then explained to her that he had autism and that talking to me just makes him feel better.
I didn't tell her about the whole conversation with the Nurse. Which included him explaining to her that I wouldn't come take him home like he'd like, but that I would tell him it was ok and such. He'd feel better. Then, he'd be ok. But, I told her for myself that I would handle it in just that way.
In some meeting, in some year, they all get to feeling the same... I had explained to the group that Tyler would not just come to you and tell you he was having a problem with a student. He wouldn't come to you and tell you he was having a specific problem with his work. I asked them that if they could just take a moment out of their day to ask him VERY specifically about his day, that it would go a long ways. Ask him if he's having any problems with another student. If you already know of a particular student he's been having trouble with then ask him specifically how things are going with that student. Ask him if there's anything about what you're teaching that he might be struggling with. Just, ASK him.
No one ever did. No one has time for such things. Tyler went back under the rug, and his problems went back to mounting.
I explained to the counselor how Tyler views his days as good or bad based on whether or not he had any trouble with a student that day. I told her how yesterday he came home and said it was a good day because nothing bad happened. She seemed surprised to me to hear that my little sunshine was basing the goodness of his day off these bad events with students. I told her that well, that's just the way he views his school life.
Then, without even knowing all my previous attempts at getting the school to be proactive in figuring out how things were going for Tyler at school, she asked.
What if I talked to Tyler every day to ask him how his day has been? What if I asked him if he'd be ok with letting me be that person for him? So that maybe he wouldn't come home and dump these things on you, and then I could help him start to process those things. Then maybe he wouldn't feel like his whole day was ruined.
:-O I would LOVE it if someone would take the time, it only takes a few minutes, to just talk to him. On a daily basis? He NEEDS that. He needs to be able to know that he has a designated time to sit down and tell someone about his problems. If you read yesterday's post, you'd have seen that this was exactly why Tyler didn't tell the teacher about the boy hitting him.
She said she'd talk to Tyler today and see if he'd be ok with it. Tyler will say yes, if for no other reason than to get the few minutes out of class ;) but I hope it proves useful to him, and I hope it isn't a novelty thing that comes and goes and gets discarded. I hope she asks him the right questions. I hope she sticks with it and forms a relationship with him that makes him feel like talking to her about those inner most things that you don't talk to anyone else about.
*crosses her fingers* Here's to helping the individual child and not trying to cram him into a box!
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