These are some interesting conversations I had when supporting students with special needs.
Teacher: Write down three things a good citizen does.
I asked my student: What do you think a good citizen does?
My student said: Be a hero.
I said: ok let’s put it down.
He wrote: be a house.
I said: You wrote, “be a house”. What do you mean?
He crossed u and smiled at me: Ok. hero.
I said: Now it is “be a hose”….
He looked, crossed s and puts r: be a hore.
I said: now it is ho-re….. still not hero…
then he put a double arrow under e and o -___-
Teacher (angrily): Some students are not using their brains…
My student laughed, I gestured for him to keep quiet
Student: It is funny miss, miss is saying they are stupid.
I: no miss didn’t say stupid (wanted to stop him from telling others that the teacher actually called students stupid.)
Student: Miss, do you know when people say you are not using your brain, it means you are stupid?
The class was boisterous so the teacher stopped talking and waited. After around 20s, the whole class is quiet.
Teacher: Are you all done talking?
My student: YES!
(Only my student would answer such a rhetorical question. I immediately signal him to quiet)
Teacher (Angrily): Who said yes? Raise your hand.
My student raised his hand.
(Luckily, I told the teacher about my student has autism and they realized my student was just having difficulties in understanding the social context.)
My student was unable to focus on the lesson, and kept chanting not ok and looking around…
I took him out of the classroom and asked him what was bothering him.
My student: Miss, you see, our classroom door says “Maths”, and inside the board is the history of world war II and also a map of London, but we are now having a French lesson. It is not ok!
My student lost his way in school, and he was close to tears when he finally arrived in the classroom.
I asked him if he wanted to go to a quiet place to calm down.
He spoke in an extremely tiny voice, “Missss… I … I need … a brain break…”
Brain break now became my favourite term too.
