I had a great experience at my son’s school the other day.
What happened? I took my son to school. After dropping him off, I wanted to
visit my son’s speech teacher to loan her a book (“Ido in Autismland”) that I
thought she’d enjoy reading. I felt a lot of the content of the book applies to
speech.
On the way to the speech room, I ran into my son’s aide.
I used to communicate with my son’s aide on a daily basis. Last year, we decided to let my son tell me about his day
and not the aide “reporting” on it. We wanted to give my son more
responsibility.
As a result, I don’t talk to my son’s aide nearly as much as
I used to. We will occasionally email each other, but, especially this year, we
have gone weeks without talking to each other.
In past blogs, I have written about how it’s important to
talk to your child’s aide. The aide and I took this opportunity to catch up
with each other.
When we were finished, she went to join my son in PE, and I
continued on my way to the speech room. I didn’t get far.
What happened next? I ran into my son’s second grade teacher.
She wanted to ask me about publishing books. She has a
friend who wrote a cookbook and she heard I had published books. She wanted to
ask my advice about publishing ebooks.
I talked with her for a few minutes and promised to email
her some information for her friend (which I did!).
I continued on my way…
Only to run into another former teacher of my son – his first
grade teacher. I asked her about an autism class that had happened at my son’s
school the previous week. (I had arranged for an employee from Autism Speaks to
come to my son’s school to talk to the upper grades and the facility. I will
discuss this further in my next blog).
I like this teacher a lot and know her as a very
straightforward person. I wanted to ask her what she thought of the class. She
told me she thought it was done very well and was very informative. She also
mentioned she didn’t realize that I was the one who had arranged the class.
I was finally in the hallway to the speech room by this
time…I made it to the speech room!
I knocked on the door and talked with my son’s speech
teacher. She knew instantly about the book I had in my hand because
she had recently been given a copy by a family member. She said she hadn’t read
it yet but was going to read it soon. I endorsed the book and said I was glad
it was already on her reading list.
(The next day I handed the book over the school Resource
Specialist who had not heard of it.)
That was my day last Tuesday at my son’s school.
Not a typical day, but a very satisfying day.
Oh, the sad part about the autism class was that I had to
miss it! I was terribly sick that day and did not want to show up to an
elementary school in my condition.In my next blog, I will discuss how I arranged for an
employee from Autism Speaks to speak at my son’s school about autism.
