If you are a Facebook user, you know memories from years past pop up on your newsfeed. This morning, a memory popped up from 15 years ago from an old student of mine. I taught her in the early 80s. She was an interesting person. She loved scratch and sniff stickers, a fad at the time. She always borrowed the same book from the library...Ripley's Believe it or Not Tombstones. She was creative, sensitive, and eccentric. Moreover, she was different and for that difference she was bullied by some. I was a relatively new teacher and found her fascinating. An obligation at the school was to orchestrate a yearly assembly for each classroom. I wanted to amaze everyone with my abilities as a drama/music teacher so I pulled out all the stops to present a musical based on the Hans Kristian Anderson story, "The Ugly Duckling". This young lady was going to be my star so I cast her as the ugly duckling. I made her an elaborate costume with crepe paper, meter sticks, and a white bed sheet. Oh yeah, and flippers from a snorkelling set. The ducklings were dressed in yellow garbage bags stuffed with newspaper to plump out their tail feathers. The students learned their lines and practiced their songs. I designed the set. I was going to impress! On the day of the performance, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The students forgot their lines. The stuffing came out of the ducklings legs. Their singing was barely audible. My star tripped over her flippers and knocked over other students with her meter stick wings. She got into a fight with another student. I was horrified! Then I looked at the audience. The parents were sitting behind the student body. They were giggling gleefully and totally enjoying the performance. After the students returned to the classroom, I reamed them out for their sub par performance and they were contrite. In the fallout from the debacle, I came to realize parents and everyone else were not watching the performance to boost the ego of a cocky young teacher. They were there to see their child on stage and whatever happened in the performance was okay because their pride and joy were up there doing their best. It wasn't about me; it was about them.
Back to my star. I didn't realize at the time that she was autistic. This was before we heard the word, autism, in referent to the movie Rainman starring Dustin Hoffman. We didn't understand. Autistic students were not understood and were thought to be "weird". Thankfully, the part I got right was: I appreciated the unique individual I encountered long ago. And this morning, she wrote something to the effect, "We've come a long way over the years. I am glad that you were my teacher".
