| Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Cody; another tale from school | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 10 2006, 04:41 PM (158 Views) | |
| dolmansaxlil | Mar 10 2006, 04:41 PM Post #1 |
![]()
HOLY CARP!!!
|
My job is .5 Resource and .5 "Other". As part of the "Other", I teach in the developmentally disabled class for 3 hours and 40 minutes a week. There is one boy in the class, Cody, who has Downs Syndrome and Autism. He can be a challenge, but he is one of the biggest joys of my job. He's such a ham, and has the most amazing sense of humour. His speech is incredibly difficult to understand, though those of us who work with him closely have learned "Codyese". This morning was the school talent show. Cody wanted to sing that Celine Dion "My Heart Will Go On" or whatever the heck it's called song from Titanic at the show. He's been practising for a couple weeks. We dutifully created a large cardboard replica of the front of the Titanic for him to stand behind on stage. We brought in life jackets, and laid out the large high jump mat as our "raft" in front of the stage, and assembled the rest of the DD kids on it. We called Cody's mum and told her that he was going to sing for the whole school. She was shocked. They'd never had those kinds of joys as his parents. His dad took the day off of work. We were panicked - Cody changes his mind quickly and violently, and there was a chance he'd just flat out refuse to do it. But this morning, in front of 400 school kids, the entire staff, and a handful of parents, Cody got up there and confidently sang the whole song. The principal, myself, several other teachers who have worked with Cody, and his mother were all crying. It was amazing to see him up there. He's such a wonderful kid, and has really come out of his shell. I was proud of the other kids - they all sat quietly and watched, and he got the most enthusiastic applause. The kids all know Cody, and for the rest of the day, Cody found every excuse to roam the school to get congratulated by the students. It was a very magical moment, and one I know I'll never forget. |
|
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
![]() |
|
| Anonymous | Mar 10 2006, 04:44 PM Post #2 |
|
Junior Carp
|
|
| You may store post snippets, or any other information you need to hand here | |
![]() |
|
| Kincaid | Mar 10 2006, 04:48 PM Post #3 |
|
HOLY CARP!!!
|
That's really great. I'd love to see the video of that. We took the twins to have a bowling birthday party last week and a group of high-functioning Down-Syndrome kids came in and had a great time. It was also nice to see so much more acceptance than I think there was when I was young. I guess that is the result of efforts to mainstream. |
| Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006. | |
![]() |
|
| Optimistic | Mar 10 2006, 05:46 PM Post #4 |
|
HOLY CARP!!!
|
Good for Cody! Glad to hear the other students were a supportive audience for him. Kids can say the cruelest things to each other and have no idea the kind of long-term damage they might be doing. With the Downs/Autistic/etc. students, though, they seem to be surpsingly supportive. (At least, from what I've observed). There is an 8th grader at my school with Asperger's, and although the students in that class can be pretty nasty to each other, they are always supportive, understanding, and inclusive with this student. It's pretty refreshing to observe. |
|
PHOTOS I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up. - Mark Twain We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. -T. S. Eliot | |
![]() |
|
| kentcouncil | Mar 10 2006, 08:32 PM Post #5 |
|
Fulla-Carp
|
I know your job has its many frustrations, dol, but you show that it also has rewards that most of us will never have the opportunity to experience. Great story. |
|
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't. - P.G. Wodehouse | |
![]() |
|
| Larry | Mar 10 2006, 08:44 PM Post #6 |
![]()
Mmmmmmm, pie!
|
Wonderful story, Dol. Loved it. The beauty of it - you gave this boy something he'll have the rest of his life, and you still gained more than you gave. I love this stuff! |
|
Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic » |








4:21 PM Jul 10