Perspective

Teaching is not a job that guarantees immediate results. At the end of the day you do not have a set of sales figures, a graph of stock values, a pile of completed reports, or much tangible proof that you were successful. Depending on what grade level you teach there may be the assorted student papers but those are not what teaching is about and they are only a means to the end. The product of teaching in knowledge and growth, it is personal change of a child and that is often difficult to capture and quantify. How much is enough? To whom to you attribute it? What is mastery and understanding?
This past week I have been frustrated with myself and my abilities as a teacher. I expect things from myself that may or may not be reasonable and I demand that I live up to the highest expectations. In other words I am a perfectionist when it comes to the things that I do and prefer to do my best or do nothing. I began to feel that I must be among the worst teachers and that certainly my children were not going to benfit from their time in my class. Self doubt is a best friend of perfectionism. Then yesterday I spent some time with one of my kids that changed my perspective and made me really look at how far we have all come.
One of the newest children in my class is a little boy with autism. When I first met him about a month ago I was amazed by his energy and his continuous motion. I was also puzzled as to just what strategies I would use to bring him into the group and make a connection. The first few days he was a whirly-gig and he did not much care for the idea of a routine, or rules, or anything other than stimming (providing sensory input or stimualtion) with objects like crayons and string. I collected any object he liked to use as a reinforcer, as a reward for things like eye contact and talking and following a direction. Slowly he began to settle into our routine and slowly he began to make connections here and there. Yesterday he sat down at circle time and announced very cheerfully "Is Everybody Happy?" which is the introduction to our slightly bizarre version of "If You're Happy and You Know It" on CD. It was his way of requsting the song. We played it immediately. He is now joining in on some of the actions of most songs. He understands how to request things during circle time - both verbally and with our song choice cards. He knows the days of the week and gets them correct. He announces what day it is correctly when I ask (I prompt the other children in sign language). He correctly identifies the weather and includes things like windy. When his mother came to class she told me that he is doing this at home - telling her what day it is and what the weather is outside and that he never used to do this. Progress and perspective. Later that day we were playing with a toy that had some letters velcrod to it. I pulled one off and asked him, only half-seriously, what it was. To me it looked like the letter "u" but he responded "n" and turned it right side up. He was correct. I then began to present him with some other letters in a variety of positions - upside down, backwards, correctly positioned and he got them all. This little boy at the age of 3 1/2 can identify all of the letters of the alphabet presented in any order and in any position. I then put magnetic alphabet letters on the chalk board in correct order and he walked along them pointing to each one as he sang the alphabet song without any prompting. If he got ahead of his pointing he would correct and catch up to the right letter. Amazing!!!! Perspective. I had thought that the most I could hope for with him would be to establish things like eye contact, a simple turn taking game, a few requests in either sign or verbally, and following a strict routine with prompts. He has reminded me that there is often so much more if you take the time to look. Would I have ever known he was capable of this if I had not asked him to identify that one letter? Does this change how I view him? Does it change how I teach him? Perspective.
I then began to look at all of my children to see what I had not seen before. We may be a jumble and a one-of-a-kind group but we are one group and we have come a long way. I can see where each child has made progress and I can see where as one group we have made progress. No one is where they were at the beginning of the school year - slowly but surely we have taken steps one by one and together to reach new places. Goals are being met, skills are being learned, children are growing and developing, and we are working together to do it. Maybe, just maybe, I am not the worst teacher. Maybe, just maybe, I can do this after all. Maybe, just maybe, it is all in the perspective.