Words

Today, I'd like to speak a little bit about something related to my job. If you do not yet know, I deal with children with mild special needs and I help both these children as well as teachers teaching them, to hopefully try and make their lives a bit easier and better.

In this post, I refer specifically only to children with behavioural issues. Behavioural issues arising from Autism, ADHD and others.

In my line, it is an everyday occurrence for teachers to come to me and share a problem they have with a student with special needs in their class. Sometimes, they are seeking extra help, a solution. Other times, they just need a listening ear, a place to unload their frustrations. After all, anybody who has dealt with a child with special needs, especially those with behavioural issues, whether you're an educator or a caregiver, would know it is not an easy task. Fatigue, frustration, anger, helplessness and hopelessness occur more often than usual, especially if you're new to the whole thing, and even if you're not new to the whole thing.

I know that these teachers face extreme stress sometimes, just dealing with these children in their class, together with 30 other students. In addition, in my school, it is not just 1 child with special needs in 1 class. It is often to have 2 or 3 in one class. Imagine that stress!

Thus I can understand when teachers come to me frustrated, spewing words of anger and such. However, though I understand, these words still makes me feel sad, angry and frustrated. I know it is not healthy to absorb these words but I simply cannot help it. Many a times, I want to hide in a corner in school and cry or to take leave for one day just to get over it, but I can't. Blame my over-sensitive emotions if you'd like to!

Some words makes me feel frustrated and sad. For instance, "He/She's very naughty!", "He/She just don't want to do it!", or simply, "Tsk! *Sigh*" Then there are words that plainly makes me feel angry. For instance, very rarely, "Can they get out of my class or not?" If you're a caregiver, you might feel rather angry or offended. "How can educators say things like these?" you might ask. I don't think I can say if any of these words are right or wrong.

Over this short year, I've learnt that amongst the many reasons for these words, there is one which I've repeatedly found to be true: Fear because of lack of knowledge.
If you think of "knowledge" simply as knowing what the disorder or disability is about and then viola, you're an expert, then you're wrong. It isn't just knowing the theoretical knowledge, of which you still do need a lot of. It's also the experience of dealing with these children.
It's knowing how to change your teaching style to fit, not just that one child, but all of the students in your class.
It's knowing how to shift your attention from checking how many children have finished their work, to deciding what to do with those who've finished early or need more time, to a child asking for permission to go to the toilet, to deciding how best to do the next activity, to breaking up a potential quarrel between 2 children, to checking of the time and then to check that the child with special needs is OK.
It's also knowing the details of what made the child flare up, and the reason may be different every time by the way, and then trying to figure out what to do. On the spot.
It's trying to retrieve possible strategies from the depths of your brain to help this child while you're highly anxious and dealing with about 10 other decisions you have to concurrently make.

Really, it's about exploring something new and unknown. The same way the rest of us feel when we have to do something new and unknown, and when you have to be really good at it on the first try.

So I cannot blame the teachers for the words they say and their frustrations.

Nevertheless, the words still hurt me and I write this post because those words hurt me. And though I know where they are coming from, I still wish people can be a little kinder and mindful of what they say.

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing all of you a

Merry Christmas!

Ho ho ho!

Kindness Boomerang

Kindness begets kindness! The acting is a little sucky, but still! Doesn't it describe how it feels sometimes? Yes, I have been kind to someone else before just because someone else had been kind to me that day. Being kind really brightens up one's day, why not try to be kind just once daily?

A "conveniently plastic" culture

See that picture on the left? That bunch of cheaply manufactured plastic bags that won't put a dent in the pockets of the shopping mall's management?

It bugs the hell out of me.

For overseas friends and others who don't know what's it for - Whenever it rains, the stand magically appears. It's for shoppers  entering the mall, to bag their wet umbrellas so as to prevent, I presume, either the floors of the mall getting dirty or the possibility of shoppers slipping and falling. It can be seen at various malls across Singapore.

This stand appears outside Hougang Mall whenever it rains - even a drizzle. Then you know what happens? The bin outside the mall gets stuffed full of these plastic bags.

 It doesn't matter whether shoppers are holding a huge, long umbrella or a small, foldable one, I see both groups grab these plastics off the stand anyway. I will not comment on those whose umbrellas are huge, long ones though it's something to be improved on, but is it really so difficult to keep a small, used plastic bag inside our bags for our smaller sized wet umbrellas? The same plastic bag which can be aired at home and then used again? How about a re-usable ziplock bag?

In the mall, there are shops which give out reusable shopping bags, all the name of being environmentally-friendly. NTUC gives 10cents off if you purchase more than $10 worth of goods and do not need a plastic bag. The Body Shop just there in the background of the photo boasts of being environmentally-friendly. Out here, the mall's management puts out a stand with free plastic bags, which Singaporeans with our kiasu attitudes, takes and uses like nobody's business, then throws it away some 30 minutes later when they leave the mall.

Which is more telling of our attitudes towards being environmentally friendly? Those reusable shopping bags from shops (which we barely use, by the way), or the simple act of placing a stand of plastic bags outside the mall?

So disappointed and angry.

We truly have a "conveniently plastic" culture.