My Field of Dreams Moment

No, it's not a baseball moment... Sorry to disappoint you! Field of Dreams is a movie sooo full of blind faith connections, which is one of the reasons I love it so much. There is a great scene where the wife (Amy Madigan) is attending a PTA meeting at her daughter's school. And then the PTA start talking about censoring some schoolbooks and nobody says anything. And then she can't take it anymore, so, she stands up to say just to make a point, and then it turns into another point and by now she is TOTALLY fired up and her husband (need I really say who this is?) has to take her outside, and she is SO FULL of radical energy, she's PUMPED! I really like that scene, even though its such a small scene in the movie, it really speaks volumes.
I left two chatty posts last night, one with Babaloo and another with Adventures in Juggling, that got me thinking about this scene and because something similar played out in my university class on special education.
Without going into a novel-like post, hear are the two things that are connecting with me and this scene. One, is that I'm going back to school at 39, and I no longer feel the need to sit in the back of the class, take notes, and dutifully answer any questions that come my way. 2) In my 20's, I really didn't care what anybody really said, unless it was directed at me. You could say whatever you wanted, I didn't know any better, and I probably thought since you were speaking up in class about an issue, you were very smart and wanted that 'A'. All I cared about was meeting my friends at the Beer Garden.
Okay, so the night of my last class, we were all presented a case study on a special needs student and asked for feedback. Because most of it is confidential, all I can only say that this girl was from a war torn country, had been staying in a refugee camp and fled here to the US with her father, leaving Mom and siblings behind. Obviously, she comes to the public school system with loads and loads of serious emotional and academic problems. One of them was that she sometimes fell asleep during class.
Here is how my 'Amy Madiagan' scene played out between me and an emergency credentialed young burly male teacher:
Me: "Arrange for the district to place a bean bag or mat of some sort in the back of the class so she has a place to rest. Maybe set a timer for a 5 to 10 minute rest time."
Burly Teacher Guy: "No, that's not going to work. Then everyone in my class will want a bean bag, send her to the nurses office."
Me: "By sending her to the nurses office every time she dozes off, you're not setting up an inclusive environment for her, you keep sending her away from your class, basically saying you don't want to deal with her behavior."
Burly Teacher Guy: No, I don't want to deal with that behavior and nobody sleeps in my class, and nobody gets a bean bag."
Me: "But, that's YOUR JOB to deal with her behavior. It's the LAW. You create the least restrictive enivronment possible for a special needs student, you can't keep sending her out of your class, your'e basically telling her she's not wanted."
Burly Teacher Guy: "Yeah, well the law is on the side of ONE student and I got 25 other students I gotta deal with!"
Me: I didn't shout, I just raised my voice and stood up and said to him:THIS STUDENT CAME FROM A REFUGEE CAMP! SHE CAME FROM (xx) COUNTRY! IT'S THE LAW YOU CREATE AN INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR A STUDENT WITH SPECIAL NEEDS!" YOU DON'T KNOW WHY SHE'S FALLING ASLEEP, YOU DON'T! WHAT IF SHE'S HAVING NIGHTMARES AT NIGHT?
Burly Teacher Guy (now ticked himself) "THEN SHE BELONGS IN SPECIAL ED, NOT MY GENERAL ED, SHE'S GOT TOO MANY ISSUES!"
Me: "Least Restrictive Environment! Least Restrictive Environment!!! (this pertains to the law which states to put special needs children in the least restrictive environment possible, I thought I would just keeping saying it over and over).
Believe me, the whole class was all trying to talk over one another at this point, you don't put a bunch of student teachers in the same room and have it be quiet. It's always loud. Our professor was smiling, know she did her job of encouraging 'discussion.'
I don't mean to paint Burly Teacher Guy in a bad light. He's a good guy just trying to teach his class with the limited essentials given to him. The point of the post is this: You don't have to agree with what I was saying, but don't wait until you are turning 40 to stand up and say what you really believe in if someone is challenging that belief. Life's too damn short.