The first time I met Andy, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Talk to him,” his mom told me, “he’s listening.” So I talked, about anything and everything. While I talked, Andy spun in circles and flapped his arms. He never made eye contact, but his circles would occasionally bring him close enough so that he could brush his hand against my arm. At the end of our meeting, as my words dwindled, Andy began to screech and hit his head. His mom smiled. “He likes you,” she told me. We arranged to meet again the next day.
Working with Andy and his family for the next three years changed my life. Diagnosed with Autism at an early age, Andy had been neglected by his birth parents and abused in foster care. When I met him he was eight years old, living with his adoptive family, and just beginning to move past the traumas of his early childhood. Doctors had predicted that Andy would never be able to communicate, and early evaluations had labeled him profoundly retarded. Working with a team of caregivers assembled by his parents, I helped Andy find ways to successfully interact with his community. Time and time again I saw him struggle against the limitations detailed in his initial prognosis. I read to Andy, and watched him emerge into language and begin to write poetry; together we practiced facilitated communication, and I saw him type love notes to his first crush. I witnessed Andy’s parents fight to prove that their child belonged in a “regular” classroom, and I saw first hand how a misdiagnosis, a label, could be overcome with passionate advocacy and tireless effort. I learned how teachers and parents, therapists and respite care providers, could come together to provide a child with the tools and opportunities that he needed to succeed, in the classroom and beyond.
I took the lessons that I learned from Andy and his family with me as I worked with a variety of children in a number of different roles. As a special education assistant teacher, I saw how special-needs children, lacking the advocacy and support Andy received, could slip through the cracks of public education. As a para-educator in a behavior disorder classroom, I learned how simple things, like patience and consistency, were sometimes the only tools I needed to connect with a child. As lead teacher at a private preschool, I worked to prove that a small group of typically functioning children could successfully be educated along side their special-needs peers.
I have worked with children in various ways throughout my life. I have been everything from teacher to nanny, from soccer coach to respite worker. No matter what my title, however, I have always been an educator. A child’s education is a process comprised of innumerable influences and countless opportunities. I want to provide children with the tools they need to take advantage of these opportunities at an early age, and I believe that your M.Ed/Initial Licensure Program in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education can help me achieve that goal. I want to anchor the hands-on experiences I have accumulated over the past ten years in the research based methodology and best practices that I will learn through your program. After completing your program I will be able to provide special-needs children with the opportunities and tools that Andy never had as a young child.
Sunday night ended with me leaning against a bar, drinking a beer and discussing the intricacies of breast augmentation with a drag queen named Veronica Cummings.
The evening began much more innocently. My sister K just turned 20, so B, K, and I celebrated by getting tickets to Avenue Q. The show was so great!! If Rent and Sesame Street were to meet and make sweet sweet love, Avenue Q would be their slightly off kilter progeny. The musical stars puppets and live actors, and features such classic songs as "The Internet is for Porn," "It Sucks to Be Me," and, my personal favorite, "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?"
The story follows Princeton, a recent college graduate, as he navigates his introduction to the “real world.” We witness the naïve young puppet deal with issues common to many in their mid-twenties; the pain of crushed hopes and dreams, the pros and cons of casual sex, and the bitter shame of having to borrow rent money from your parents because it turns out your English degree only comes in handy when you can no longer afford toilet paper. Tell it like it is, Princeton, tell it like it is.
Before the show started I ran into S and J, two people I recently met here in Madison. S is the cousin of a good friend of mine. A few weeks ago we got set up on a blind-friend-date, an event comparable to a blind-date in that it was complete with multiple wardrobe changes and palm sweat (at least on my end). S brought her roommate J along when we met for drinks, and the three of us had a great time. It turns out that J knew somebody that knew somebody that knew the cast of Avenue Q, so they invited me to go out for drinks with everyone after the show. The practical, Miss Marie side of me said you're exhausted already and you have to work tomorrow and you're not particularly socially adept even at the best of times so don't go and be all awkward. Party Marie told me to shut the hell up and say yes because it's not everyday that I get the chance to steal a fancy puppet. So I agreed to go.
Let us sidetrack for a moment here to ponder the wonderful things that can come from saying yes. I've made it a practice in my adult life to say yes as much as possible, especially to things that are outside of my comfort zone. Want to sing karaoke? Yes. Want to be a part of this anti-war dance? Yes. Want to move to Australia without a job and no money and nowhere to live? Yes yes yes. I've made it a practice to say yes when I can and then see where it gets me ... and while nobody ever again needs to hear me try to turn "Papa Loved Mama" into a ballad, "yes" has gotten me to some pretty great places.
On Sunday it got me to Club 5, Madison's premier gay dance club. While fog machines churned and disco balls spun, I learned the minutiae of puppetry from none other than Robert McClure, the actor behind Princeton's angst-filled journey. He told us about puppet-camp, where stage actors were trained in the art of puppet manipulation. "You'd figure the first step is opening their mouths so that it looks like they're talking," he said of the puppets. "It's not! The first step is drawing the puppet back, so that it looks like it's inhaling before it speaks ... there are millions of mannerisms to learn before you even get to talking."
I learned puppeteering tips from Robert McClure, I drank Pepto-Bismol colored drinks with new friends, I danced to techno-remixes of old Cher hits ... I even got a high five from Lexy Fridell for a well timed Mariah Carey joke. I had a weirdly wonderful time.
The night ended with me leaning against a bar, drinking a beer and discussing the intricacies of breast augmentation with a drag queen named Veronica Cummings. "I want mine to look exactly like yours," she said. "Can I feel them so that I know what consistency I'm going for?"
That, dear readers, is when I explored the benefits of saying "no."
~M
I love kids, and I love working with kids. That being said, the line between "Miss Marie" and "Party Marie" (OK, "Party Marie" is a stretch, but go with it) is sometimes blurred in odd ways. When I was a teacher in Iowa, for instance, I had a toddler car seat in my back seat. I often come home with used kleenex in my pocket and graham cracker crumbs in my hair. I know an embarrassing number of lyrics to Wiggles tunes, and I can sing the ABC's in 13 different voices. These are all skills that come in handy in the workplace, and, once I have children of my own, I'm looking forward to being the goofiest mommy ever. Sometimes, however, Miss Marie needs to take a rest and stop stepping on Party Marie's toes. I don't have kids! I'm a single young woman with 5 tattoos and a well developed tolerance for alcohol. A working knowledge of breast pump technology isn't appropriate bar talk for someone in my situation. Today I found myself making diaper rash cream recommendations to a parent, and a little piece of Party Marie died.* With all of that in mind, I bring you the Top Ten Things I'm Spending my Money on Instead of Diaper Rash Cream.
Top Ten Things I'm Spending my Money on Instead of Diaper Rash Cream
or Marie Asserts her Single, Childless Status in the Face of Her Job
10) Hookers and blow
9) Rated R movie tickets
8) Breakable, decorative objects that I plan to place at floor level around my apartment.
7) Porn. The dirty kind that you have to throw away once you have kids because they'd be scarred if they stumbled across it.
6) Toys for my cat.
5) Another cat.
4) Frames for pictures of my cat.
3) The rights to the domain name cr8zcatl8d.com
2) Non-Wiggles, Disney, Raffi, etc. music.
1) Sexy clothes that will help me land a baby maker. Ahemm, I mean loving life partner.
~M
* Boudreaux's Butt Paste! It's the best!
