"Your son is incapable of learning."
I sat for a minute, looking at the counselor who had requested the meeting, trying to decide if I had heard her correctly. I felt my left hand press against my pounding heart.
"Did you say, 'incapable of learning?'" I queried. "Yes," she responded, and proceeded to mouth paragraphs of jargon, which my confused brain was incapable of comprehending let alone translating.
Stupefied, near panic, I fought for coherent thought. Slowly, however, a heat began to rise from my trip-hammering heart and to suffuse my face. Rage replaced terror.
"Incapable of learning?" I cried! "Incapable?" I repeated loudly. "How can you say that? How can you doom a child of three years of age to that kind of diagnoses? He taught himself the alphabet at two! How can you say that?" I raged.
I have to admit that there were times when I believed I was either incapable of understanding what was going on in my son's little head or reluctant to admit that there was a problem, but this I knew: Chris could learn. He had indeed taught himself the alphabet. I had purchased a wooden alphabet puzzle in lower case letters. Christopher would bring them up to me, one-by-one, and I would say, for instance, "a - apple." It didn't take me long to realize that he was actually learning the alphabet.
Of course, I realize that I was teaching him. But, the "game" was initiated by Chris, and it demonstrated a desire on his part to know, a wish to learn. This initiation on his part was indeed a form of self-teaching. Chris made the move. Chris wanted to know.
I sat for a minute, looking at the counselor who had requested the meeting, trying to decide if I had heard her correctly. I felt my left hand press against my pounding heart.
"Did you say, 'incapable of learning?'" I queried. "Yes," she responded, and proceeded to mouth paragraphs of jargon, which my confused brain was incapable of comprehending let alone translating.
Stupefied, near panic, I fought for coherent thought. Slowly, however, a heat began to rise from my trip-hammering heart and to suffuse my face. Rage replaced terror.
"Incapable of learning?" I cried! "Incapable?" I repeated loudly. "How can you say that? How can you doom a child of three years of age to that kind of diagnoses? He taught himself the alphabet at two! How can you say that?" I raged.
I have to admit that there were times when I believed I was either incapable of understanding what was going on in my son's little head or reluctant to admit that there was a problem, but this I knew: Chris could learn. He had indeed taught himself the alphabet. I had purchased a wooden alphabet puzzle in lower case letters. Christopher would bring them up to me, one-by-one, and I would say, for instance, "a - apple." It didn't take me long to realize that he was actually learning the alphabet.
Of course, I realize that I was teaching him. But, the "game" was initiated by Chris, and it demonstrated a desire on his part to know, a wish to learn. This initiation on his part was indeed a form of self-teaching. Chris made the move. Chris wanted to know.
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