I teach middle special education to some seriously amazing kids. All of my students have severe physical and intellectual disabilities and their determination and hard work astonishes me every day.
I want to tell you about something amazing one of the girls, S, in my class did last week. S was born with significant disabilities and due to a spinal cord injury a couple years ago, she lost use of her arms. S is the sweetest, kindest pre-teen girl you will ever meet. She has a big personality and will not be ignored! S was new to our school in July, and came with very little educational history in her records. When S first started, I spent a bit of time pushing her limits to see what she was capable of. She quickly showed us she was a keen listener with some strong academic skills. S caught on quickly to using a speech output device with a switch mounted near her knee so she could activate it.
S's physical abilities were harder to ascertain. As she cannot use her arms, we had to be careful how we lifted her and got her set up in mobility equipment. Once we got her set up in a Rifton gait trainer (large metal frame walker), she took off! S loves to take walks all around the school and show off her skills. Since her legs seemed so strong, her physical therapist and I agreed she could work on "sit-to-stands" (sitting on a bench with someone and standing up from a sitting position with assistance as needed). S was initially resistant to working on this, she would try to slide off the bench, or just snuggle -her favorite past time. We started to think she wasn't as strong as we thought. Finally, a few weeks ago, S stood up in physical therapy! I went to her next session to see her in action and she was standing like a pro! I told her now that I knew she could do it, we weren't going to let her get away with avoiding it in the classroom anymore! After a few weeks of standing up off the bench, it was clear S was doing most of the work while standing and didn't want any help from us except stabilization (keep in mind, if she fell - she would be unable to use her arms to catch herself).
Last week, we had a power outage, a snow day, and a professional development day. The kids were all in a funk and we were getting very little academic work done! I decided to just work on some of the kid's mobility goals instead. S and I sat on a bench together and she quickly stood up. I held her support belt and we were standing for about 30 seconds when I felt her take a step forward. My heart stopped. All the TAs in the room froze and someone said "Did she just take a step??" I replied "YES...but what do we do now??" I was freaking the heck out. If she were to try to sit unexpectedly or decide not to hold her weight and we weren't right by the bench, we would both end up in a pile on the floor. One of my TAs said "She wants to walk! Just let her!"and suggested that she could follow us with a bench and push it under us if she decided to sit. That sounded a little crazy to me but as an educator, I cannot bear to hold a student back. I told S what we were going to do and told her she could take some steps if she wanted to. She took SEVEN steps. S looked proud of herself as we sat and she soaked in our praise! My staff and I stared at each other in shock and I saw tears in everyones eyes (I'm not crying - you're crying!). We had just facilitated and witnessed S's first [mostly] independent steps since her injury.
What an honor. I absolutely could not believe it.
The best part about my job - I get to see progress like this all the time. It's not usually so quick or so major, but my super awesome students make progress like this every day, week, month, and year. It's an absolute joy to be just a small part of their story.
Check out my classroom website here (You will see S standing in the first picture!) : https://sites.google.com/langanschool.org/kevin-g-langan/intermediate-two?authuser=0
Check out MOVE International here (the mobility curriculum we use):http://www.move-international.org/
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