Beautiful Child: The story of a child trapped in silence and the teacher who refused to give up on her. Torey Hayden
Читать онлайн книгу.
keeping everyone as physically separate as possible.
Venus repeated her previous day’s performance. She sat, completely oblivious of the boys.
When the recess bell rang, the four boys leaped up and dashed for the door before realizing that none of them had shoes on.
“Hold it!” Billy cried. “What we gonna do?”
I lifted down the box with the shoes in it and started taking them out. I handed Shane his sneakers.
“Can’t tie,” he said.
I looked at Billy. “Please tie Shane’s shoes for him.”
“Huh?”
“He’s not touching my shoes!” Shane cried.
“And Jesse, you tie Zane’s for him.”
“No way!”
“Well, I guess nobody’s getting recess then,” I said and put the box back up on the cupboard.
Loud shrieks of protest.
“You can’t go out, if you haven’t got your shoes on.”
“Not fair,” Billy cried. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“Neither did I.”
“Or me!”
“Well, you four figure it out among you then. No one’s going until Zane and Shane have their shoes tied.”
“You tie them. You’re the teacher,” Jesse said.
“No, I’m going to help Venus put her shoes on. When you’ve come up with a solution, let me know.” I grabbed Venus’s shoes from the box.
“Go outside without shoes,” Shane suggested.
“Nope, sorry, that’s not an option.”
“Oh fuck,” Billy said in a most world-weary way. “Give me the god-damned shoes then.”
I put a finger to my lips.
“I don’t care. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I didn’t say anything but I pointed to the clock to indicate the passing minutes of recess.
“Okay. Give me the god-darned shoes then,” Billy said. “Come here, poop face. Let me tie your stupid shoes.”
I lifted Shane’s shoes out and gave them to Billy. Then I took out Zane’s. “Jesse?”
With a heavy sigh, Jesse accepted the shoes.
Defeated, the boys finally left for six minutes of recess.
But all was not over. As we hurried down the stairs for what remained of recess, Shane accidentally bumped against Venus. Big mistake.
She metamorphosed right then and there. Grabbing him by the shirt, she flung him down the remaining stairs, then, fists flying, she launched herself after him with the vicious grace of a leopard. Fortunately, it was only a few steps, so he was not hurt, and a passing sixth-grade teacher was able to help me subdue Venus and get her into the school office, where she spent the rest of the break sitting stonily in a chair.
When class resumed after recess, I made everyone take off their shoes again, collected them in what became known as the “shoe box,” and put them back on top of the cupboard. I knew better than to try a group activity at this stage, so I endeavored to introduce the children to their work folders. Because I had always taught children who were at different levels academically, I was accustomed to putting each child’s work for the day in a file folder. At the start of class I handed out the folders and the child did the work in it. While they were working, I circulated among them and gave help as needed. The system worked well once everyone figured out what was expected, but often during the first few weeks of a new school year there were teething troubles, usually because some children were not used to working independently.
I explained the system and let the children look through their folders, but I didn’t want to push the itty-bitty bit of order we’d managed to create in the ten minutes following recess. Consequently, I suggested that for today they might want to decorate the front of the folder with their name and things they liked so that I’d know whose folder was whose.
The boys all tucked into this activity with relish, and because I had them so far apart, they managed to start it peacefully enough, if a little noisily. Venus, however, just sat. I came over to her table and knelt down beside the chair. “Did you understand what you were supposed to do?”
Blank look. She wasn’t even looking at me this time. Just staring into space, the same way she did when sitting outside on the wall.
“Venus?”
No response.
What was up with this kid? If she could hear, then why did she not respond? Not even to her name? Was she brain damaged? Did she hear but not process what was said to her? Or did she hear, process, and then not be able to turn it into action? Or, as I was beginning to suspect, was she so developmentally delayed that she wasn’t really capable of much response?
“You and I are going to work on something else,” I said. I pulled out the chair next to hers. I picked up a red crayon. I put the crayon in her hand. Venus didn’t even pretend to take it. The crayon dropped through her fingers to the tabletop.
“Come on, now, Venus.” I picked up the crayon again. “Here, put this in your hand.” I uncurled her fingers and placed the crayon into it. Holding my hand over hers, I drew a straight line down the paper in front of her.
“Can you do that?” I asked.
Venus let the crayon drop through her fingers to the tabletop.
Taking the crayon myself, I made another line. “Now, you try.” Venus just sat.
I leaned very close to Venus’s face. “Wake up in there.” I said it quite loudly.
“Woo! What you doing back there?” Billy cried, whirling around in his seat.
“I’m talking to Venus.”
“Well, I don’t think you got to shout. She’s right in front of you.”
“I’m trying to get Venus to take notice.”
“I can do that!” Billy said cheerfully, and before I could respond, he’d bolted out of his chair and trotted over.
“Ah-ah-ah!” he screamed in Venus’s face and bounced up and down like a chimpanzee.
“Billy, get back in your seat this minute!”
“Look at me, psycho girl! Look at me! Ah-ah-ah-ah!” He was shouting at the top of his lungs and pulling stupid faces.
Venus responded to that all right. She went shooting right over the table after Billy, who hooted with fear and tore off. Stimulated by the excitement, the other boys leaped up. Shane and Zane ran, shrieking loudly, their movements wild and uncoordinated. Jesse, seeing a chance to get even, tripped Billy up as he ran by. In a split second, Jesse was on top of him pummeling him. A few seconds later, Venus was on top of both of them, ripping at Jesse’s shirt, biting his hair.
Wearily, I pried everyone apart and forced them into chairs.
The rest of that week passed in relentless chaos, and I spent most of it in damage control rather than teaching.
Every time the children came into the classroom, they had to remove their shoes. Of course this made getting ready for recess, lunch, and going home a pain, as only Billy and Jesse could tie their own shoes. However, it gave me the first small way to force bonding upon them because I made Billy and Jesse responsible for tying the twins’ shoes and nobody