I’m counting down the most memorable moments from my teaching career leading up to the one year anniversary of the day I moved on from my life as an educator.
Number 2 on my list is “Teddy” (again, not his real name).
Teddy joined my 8th grade English class not long after the start of the school year. We had already been in school a few days when his parents enrolled him. He was a young man with special needs. While we were a Catholic school and didn’t technically have to admit students with learning differences and other documented conditions, we often did if the required accommodations were something we could realistically implement. We didn’t have resource teachers or other personnel that could work with students like that.
Teddy, though, could be reasonably helped by his every day teachers, like me. If I recall correctly he was autistic and had one or two other diagnoses. He didn’t speak very much. And when he did, his voice was often so quiet that you had to get very close to him to hear what he was saying. His handwriting was terrible for his age and honestly, it was quite a challenge teaching him. At the same time, he was not socially on the same level as his classmates who didn’t have any of the same differences as he did.
I did what I could to help him in class academically and socially. I remember specifically the first week of school when I gave my English students a survey to fill out. There were basic questions about what they liked to read and what their favorite books were. I invited them to share their responses with the class. When I got to Teddy, it took effort to pull out of him what his favorite book was because of his soft voice. But I did manage to figure out that he loved to read Invader Zim graphic novels. Apparently it’s a cartoon show, but there are books too. That evening, I picked the first volume of Invader Zim from Amazon and ordered it.
It was this one:
The next day, I told Teddy that I had ordered it. I got him to tell me what it was about.
When the book arrived, I read enough of it to understand the basic premise. This was obviously not my favorite genre of book to read. In fact, I had never really read a graphic novel before. The kids seem to really like them, and I was an English teacher. It didn’t matter to me what the kids were reading, as long as they were reading.
After I engaged in conversation with Teddy about this book for a few days, it became easier for him and I to communicate. I still had to lean in close to hear him, but eventually, I stopped having to lean in as far. He started speaking louder.
And then one morning, while I was standing in the hallway monitoring the kids while they were at their lockers, Teddy came in and stood next to me while he waited for an opening to get to his locker. When a space had cleared, he quickly put his arms around my waist and hugged me before going up to get his books.
I’ll never forget that moment. When the new boy, who hardly talked to his classmates, but somehow got comfortable talking to me, and who had so many challenges just to get through the day, hugged me, I felt like a lottery winner. It meant he trusted me and felt comfortable enough in my presence to show his true self and how he really felt.
By the time the 8th grade graduation came at the end of the year, there was a very obvious difference between the Teddy who was about to move on to high school and the Teddy who first joined my class at the beginning of the year. His voice was louder. No more leaning in to hear him. There was an apparent confidence in him. No head down out of shyness or uncertainty. So much improvement in just one year that I didn’t worry about sending him off to high school. I felt like he was now prepared to take on any challenges that came his way, despite the ones that he lived with through his diagnoses.
I didn’t see him again after he left my school. And I can’t honestly remember his last name now, but I very much would like to go through my yearbooks and see what his last name was so I can do some internet “stalking” to see if I can find an update on him. I hope it will be a good update if I find one.
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