New Eyes

I've been out of school now for three whole weeks and it has been wonderful. I feel like I'm just as busy as when school is in. I'm just busy in a different way with everything that gets put on hold the last 9 months of the year. It's kind of my catch-up time, with cleaning my house, errands, exercising, projects, yard work etc. Well, this year I was talked into doing doing ESY, which is a summer program for special ed kids. It's nice because it's only about 10 hours a week and it pays really well. So I thought I'd give it a try. We started our first week this week and boy my eyes were opened. We were paired with another teacher and given 3 aides for our 12 kids. Which seems like a lot of adults, but we needed everyone of them. We've been given K-1st graders with Autism. I feel like my eyes have really been opened to a whole new world in my profession. A lot of these kiddos are non-verbal or if they have language they just repeat words/phrases it has no meaning. They're in diapers, about 3 of them are runners, one who bites (himself and those around him), and others do the whole rocking/self-stemming thing. I'll be honest, the first day was a disaster. Neither me or the other teacher has worked with this ability level with autism. But each day has gotten better. We even had one boy cry for only 2 hours instead of 3. Progress right!?! Well, it made me indeed grateful for my own group of kids that I work with throughout the school year. Sometimes I complain to Stephen a lot about them. But I have gained a great perspective and respect for my profession. : )