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Blogs by Stephanie Silberstein
Autism in the South 12/15/2008 6:01:56 AM
Some thoughts about teaching autistic children in NC. So on Friday a child bit me during a lockdown drill.
I know there's risks inherent in working as a teacher, but I didn't expect being bitten to be one of them. I really shouldn't be surprised, though. Not only do I work with autistic children, but the school's attitude towards these children is that they are uneducatable. I'm working with no materials whatsoever (everything I've given them is copied off the Internet during planning periods). One of the children--in fact the one who bit me--can communicate through assisted writing--but this has been banned by my principal because it is "impossible" in her opinion that children with this level of disability could be communicating anything.
Anyway, back to Friday. The procedure for lockdown drills is this: the principal announces a lockdown over the intercom. Teachers lock their doors and turn off the lights. The children are supposed to sit quietly, "hiding" from the intruder. And we are supposed to slide a green paper under the door to signal that everything is OK in our classrooms.
The problem is that one of my children's autism includes a complete inability to function if he perceives anything to be out of place. (He has been known to try to put materials away while other children are using them!) And so a paper under the door instead of on the shelf where it belongs is more than he can bear.
I don't blame the child for jumping up and down, hitting himself, rushing at me, and biting my shoulder. He can't help it. He's autistic and deprived of any way to communicate.
He is also twice my size--if he were not autistic, he'd probably go out for football, because at 11 he is probably about 150 pounds, if not more, and tall too. (I am terrible at guessing height and weight).
I have a male assistant in the room for precisely this reason. During the drill he was sitting behind his desk. He did not get up when the kid started acting aggressive. His explanation to the principal was that he didn't have time to intervene.
He would have had time had he been circulating the room like he is supposed to do.
When I wrote Winter's Silence, I thought that the attitude of the administration towards a serious problem was pure fiction. In fact, I was afraid to write it the way I did, thinking no-one would believe anything like the events that take place in Emily's school could really happen.
But this school is even worse than the one depicted in the novel. I've seen the principal threaten an autistic child with a beating and then conclude that the reason he is not performing as she asks is because he lacks intellect. I've seen parents call me a liar and a Satanist because I have demonstrated that their autistic child has abilities. I have seen my job security threatened because I disagreed that these children cannot achieve.
No wonder the mother in Winter's Silence keeps trying to find a doctor who will tell her that her son is not autistic, after all. No wonder the parents in the novel are eager to send their child to a private school.
Not all parents have the money for private schools, let alone doctors.
And not all parents understand what their child's autism truly means.
