notes for parents

Mr. Richard Lavoie (a special education teacher, director of school for students with complex and severe language disorders, writer,and speaker in the field of learning disabilities) was tutoring a 13 year-old student named Craig,who was described as someone with severe reading and writing deficits but who was a motivated and likable student. Craig was asked to write a 150-word composition, and Mr. Lavoie suggested that Craig write about his dog.

The composition came in on time and Mr. Lavoie took it home to correct. Using his red pencil, he highlighted and corrected every spelling, punctuation, and capitalization error. He made note of errors in handwriting and spacing.

When Craig came to class the next day, he excitedly asked Mr. Lavoie if he liked the essay. Mr. Lavoie returned the paper to Craig, telling him that he did like the piece, but that there were a number of mistakes which they needed to discuss. Looking at the paper, Craig became tearful and told Mr. Lavoie how hard he had worked on this paper and how upset he was to see all these mistakes.

At that point Craig stood up and shouted that Mr. Lavoie had no idea how Craig felt. And that was the truth because most of us that work in the school system were successful in school and we do not know how students like Craig feel every day.

Mr. Lavoie asks us to imagine how it would feel to be like Craig, doing a job every day that you struggled with and often hated. What if your days were filled with failures?

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to a understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this.....

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo of David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... becuase the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.

"There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me."

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