Soulmates
3
School
Miss Judy and Emily
JUDY DUNLAP had not been a kindergarten teacher long enough to become jaded and calloused to the ideals that brought her to the profession. She was twenty-four years old, had one year of experience behind her, and had nearly finished her master’s degree in education.
She looked at the drawing young Jaime had done of her and traced the word ‘NICE.’ She could not help but think the child had understood every word in the conversation between her and his father. And printing a word at just five years old, with no formal schooling, was advanced. If it weren’t for his muteness and lack of socialization he could probably have moved directly to first grade.
But how was she going to teach him in a class of twenty children, half of whom lived in non-English-speaking homes. She sat, sipping a glass of wine with her best friend and handed her the drawing.
“Done by one of your new students?” her friend signed. Emily Hearst had been deaf from birth, but it didn’t stop her from becoming best friends with Judy in college.
“He will be my student in two weeks,” Judy signed back. “He is mute—either psychosomatically or physically. I don’t know how to integrate him into the system. He hears and understands just fine, but how will he communicate with me or with other students?”
Emily looked at the picture again and finger-spelled N-I-C-E. Then she held her left hand palm-up in front of her and passed her right palm over it.
“Yes,” Judy signed. “He wrote that while his father and I were talking. I’m just so…”
Emily brought her fist to the side of her head, rapping gently as she scowled at her friend.
“What?” Judy asked. Emily repeated the sign.
“Dumb!”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“You have the tool in your hands. Half your class doesn’t know English. Teach them all sign language at the same time.”
“Sign language! He’s not deaf!” Judy began. Then she realized she wasn’t deaf either. She signed to her friend to be understood. “Oh!”
Judy shook her head and repeated the sign for ‘dumb.’ She sometimes taught songs that had gestures or signs because the children found them fun. It involved more ways to learn than just listening. Why shouldn’t she teach sign language at the same time she taught English? Or any other subject for her kindergartners to learn.
“It makes so much sense!” Judy signed. “I have to make lesson plans!”
Emily laughed at her as Judy gathered her things and headed home. She had two weeks to prepare.
Jaime and Miss Judy and Juan
When Jaime and David arrived for the first day of kindergarten with all the other parents and children, the room looked much different than it had when they visited. The first and most obvious thing Jaime noticed was the alphabet characters posted in a neat row on one wall. When he’d been in the room before, the posters had capital letters and small letters. Now a hand image was beneath each letter.
The other thing that was unavoidable to notice was the chaos of thoughts flying around the room. He couldn’t tell who was thinking what and wished they would all just be quiet. He put his hands over his ears but that didn’t do anything for the inside voices. He repeated the sign to his father and then buried his face against his father’s chest. It wasn’t as effective as sheltering in his mother’s embrace, but it helped. He was soon able to filter out all the intruding thoughts.
The problem was that when he shut off everyone, he couldn’t hear Miss Judy’s thoughts either. She was the only one talking with her out-loud voice and her hands moved as she spoke. She said they would learn both English and sign language in the class.
Some of the adults who came with their children to the first day of school looked confused, but their thoughts weren’t in any words Jaime could understand. Then Miss Judy told the grownups they could leave now. David had talked to him about this and Jaime was prepared to stay with Miss Judy for a couple of hours.
Some of the other children were not prepared for this. They clung to their mothers—David was the only father in the room—and some began to cry. Miss Judy began singing a song and some of the children joined in. She signed as she went. Jaime tried to copy the gestures.
“Bye-bye, Mommy. I will see you soon. Don’t worry, Mommy. You’ll pick me up at noon. I’ll tell you all about my day, and all the things I learned to say. Bye-bye, Mommy. I will see you soon.”
Jaime wondered if the sign for Mommy and Daddy was the same. He would ask Miss Judy when he could understand more. Then she caught his eye as she changed the song to “Bye-bye, Daddy…” She brought her open hand from where it had tapped on her lower lip to tapping at the side of her forehead. Jaime grinned and copied the gesture, earning a smile from Miss Judy.
He worked hard on blocking out all the noise of the other children’s thoughts as their parents left them in the classroom. He had to listen carefully with his ears for Miss Judy’s instructions, as she led the class in other activities. She had two helpers in the class who explained things quietly to some of the children.
Miss Judy led the class in saying her name. She pointed to the letters in her name that were displayed on the wall, then wrote them on a whiteboard. She pointed to each letter on the board and made the letter sign for it while saying the name of the letter. Then she circled her whole name and made a new gesture. She brought her fingers and thumbs together and pointed to either side of her head, then brought her hands down in front of her. Jaime figured out that meant Miss Judy, since that’s what she kept saying.
Miss Judy led the class in the alphabet song, signing the letters as one of her helpers pointed at the letter and sign hanging on the wall. They sang the song several times and the class worked hard at copying the signs.
The other helpers had names, too, but Jaime was looking at the letters on the wall and trying to figure out what his name would look like. J-A-I-M-E. He practiced spelling his name and almost missed the class being divided into groups. One group went with each of the teachers to a different part of the room. Jaime’s group went to Miss Judy.
A boy sat alone sniffling. Jaime could tell he was upset with the day. Maybe he missed his mommy. Jaime still missed his mommy. He decided the boy needed a hug and went to him. The boy looked at him, but Jaime couldn’t understand anything the boy was thinking; just that he was very sad and upset. Jaime put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and gave him a hug while he led him to the group in front of Miss Judy. They sat together and Jaime could tell the boy felt a little better.
The next thing Miss Judy taught them was how to spell their names. She started by putting a hand on her chest, then tapping her index fingers together like a flat x. She repeated the signs saying, “My name is.” Then she spelled “Miss Judy” again. She finished that with the gesture she created for her name. Jaime could read her thoughts clearly now that everyone was in a different part of the room paying attention to the book one helper was reading and to the blocks the other helper was building with. He raised his hand.
“Yes, Jaime?” Miss Judy said, finger spelling his name.
Jaime copied the hand on chest and tapping his fingers together, then spelled his name. Miss Judy caught her breath and smiled broadly at him. She turned to the other children and repeated what Jaime had said and asked him to demonstrate. He introduced himself to his classmates. He thought only one had understood him, but soon his new friend raised his hand.
“Can you spell your name, Juan?” She wrote his name on the whiteboard.
Juan repeated the introduction gestures and said, “My name is Juan.” He got the ‘J’ correct, then hesitated over the next letter. Miss Judy held up two fingers close together and said, ‘U.’ Juan nodded and then completed the ‘A’ and ‘N.’
Jaime could feel the happiness of his new friend and now he knew his name. He nodded vigorously. He pointed at Juan and then fingerspelled J-U-A-N. Next, he put his hand on his chest and spelled J-A-I-M-E. The two were so involved in talking to each other, Miss Judy had to call their attention back to the class as the others in their group introduced themselves. Some were better or faster than others and some were much slower, but by the time his group moved to the helper reading a story, everyone in his group could fingerspell his or her name.
Jaime was proud of his accomplishment. He had learned how to sign his name and he had made a new friend. When his father picked him up at noon, he gladly signed his name. David was a little perplexed without the words accompanying the signs. Miss Judy intervened and spoke as Jaime signed.
“He is saying, ‘My name is Jaime.’ We’re learning sign language as we learn the alphabet.”
“That’s… That’s wonderful!” David said. “Where can I learn sign language?”
“Hmm. I didn’t think about that,” Judy said. “I’ll ask the school if I can hold a class for parents in the evening once a week. It’s a good idea. I’m so thankful Jaime has brought this new experience into our classroom.”
Jaime’s education had begun and his father began studying sign language at once.
After the first remarkable breakthrough day, kindergarten was kindergarten. Miss Judy and her helpers did all the regular kindergarten activities. They sang songs accompanied by sign language. Each day a child was invited to put the calendar day on the board. Disputes over toys and books were resolved. Discipline was exercised when necessary. Everything was accompanied by sign language.
The classroom volunteers were often no further ahead in sign language than the students were, but the results were so pleasing to Miss Judy that they applied themselves to learning as much as they could. The school approved Judy offering parents a class one evening a week. Many of the volunteers and other teachers attended when they could. Her friend Emily often joined her on those evenings to hold conversations with the parents, getting them acclimated to reading and responding in sign language.
While Jaime was a little ahead of his class, it was not noticeable since he never spoke. He liked to draw and even to print words. His friend, Juan, was often found at his side as they built with blocks, drove trucks around their little cities, and learned ever more English and sign language. Jaime learned Juan was from Mexico and soon developed a name sign that was faster than fingerspelling. He held his fingers in a v-shape and saluted with them. Before too long, his classmates had made up a name sign for Jaime, too. They simply passed their fingers over their lips in a zipper motion. David was alarmed with the sign, but Jaime, who had read his classmates’ thoughts when they started signing his name that way, seemed happy with it and introduced himself to people using the sign.
One of the most important things Jaime learned in kindergarten—though it wasn’t taught as a subject—was filtering out the thoughts from around him.
Miss Judy stopped to talk to David one day after the evening sign language course.
“I don’t know what the exact problem is, but I’ve read a bit about autism and it seems many autistic children are easily overwhelmed by the amount of activity around them,” she said. “I’ve noticed Jaime enthusiastically participating one moment and seeming to draw into himself the next. It’s as if he is trying to hide from the class. Sometimes, he even goes behind the whiteboard or behind one of the assistants to hide. Do you have experience in handling this?”
“Yes,” David admitted. “I hoped it wouldn’t become an issue in school. He seems hyper-sensitive to noise and commotion around him. Sometimes it catches up with him after the fact. He comes home from school and immediately goes to hide in his room. He puts on headphones I originally got him so he could watch TV or listen to music while I was working. Now his headphones are programmed for classical music that I download for him. The music seems to let him calm down and breathe.”
“Hmm. Headphones might create a problem in the classroom. He might not be able to hear instructions,” Judy said.
“That’s true, but he understands more sign language than I do already. I’m sure he can read your signs as you are instructing,” David said.
“Let’s try it. If it becomes a distraction to the other students, we might need to curtail their use. But it’s worth a try. I don’t want to lose him into some inner cavern where I can’t reach him.”
David explained the use of the headphones to Jaime before school and stressed how important it was to only use them when he was feeling overwhelmed. Jaime agreed and was happy to have his music when he needed it.
It was the beginning of Jaime’s quest to block out the mental sounds around him. He had used it in his home and sometimes when he was with his father shopping or going out to dinner. The music itself did not block out all the thoughts around him. It was focusing on the music that let him escape from the ever-present cacophony he was subjected to.
Solid objects had often been a refuge as it seemed most people did not have much range to their thought broadcasts. The whiteboard in his classroom was made of metal that the teacher could attach magnets to. Jaime found it was effective at blocking other people’s thoughts. When he hid behind a teaching assistant, she seemed to absorb the thoughts of others and he could only hear her thoughts.
But music was different. If he broke his concentration on the music, the thoughts of others were right there waiting for him. But as long as he let the music occupy his mind, the thoughts were kept at bay.
What was most puzzling and heartbreaking for Jaime, though, was that no matter how he thought to another person—any other person—that person ignored him. The only person who had ever spoken in his mind had been his mother, just moments before he lost her. He felt his father sometimes thinking love or pride to his son, but he never used words to express himself inside. He always spoke out-loud, and now used sign language with his son.
Even Jaime’s new friend, Juan, didn’t talk to him when he thought to him. Jaime wrote much of that off to Juan’s inability to communicate in English, though he was learning slowly. Jaime was learning some Spanish, too. As Juan learned English, he associated the Spanish word and Jaime learned from that.
Nor was Juan the only Spanish speaker in the class who was learning English. That group became close friends, separate from the kids who came to kindergarten knowing and speaking English.
Jaime missed his friends during the summer and David tried to arrange a meeting with one or more of them each week. He sent Miss Judy a thank you note.
Jaime
First grade was another new experience for Jaime. His teacher only knew a smattering of sign language and used it irregularly. While some of Jaime’s classmates understood sign language, many more did not. He was forbidden to use his earphones in class and it was frowned upon at recess and lunch. His teacher talked through her class, so students had to stay focused on what she was saying or what she assigned them to do. Many found that beyond their ability.
At least the uniform activity of the class kept most of the randomness of students’ thoughts at bay. There were those in the class, though, who simply could not maintain focus for more than a few minutes at a time and their chaotic thoughts disrupted Jaime’s concentration. He had to focus harder on blocking out their thoughts.
When his teacher found out he didn’t talk, she started badgering him to say something. David came to the school and put the teacher straight with the help of Miss Judy. Mrs. Connelly did not appreciate it. By this time, Jaime could print out responses quickly and had even begun to learn to type, so Mrs. Connelly pretty much ignored him from that point onward.
As if I don’t have enough problems to deal with in this class, Jaime heard her thinking.
He tried not to be a problem. He passed the tests she gave him and that was all that was required to advance him to the next grade. Her final report, however, stated that he lacked socialization and should be in a special needs class.
With the number of friends Jaime had, it wasn’t obvious that he lacked socialization, but the school responded with an assessment. The State of Oregon required that the school accommodate all special needs and the Federal Government provided funding. They hired a sign language interpreter, not to interpret to Jaime, though she signed everything in the class, but to interpret Jaime’s sign language to the teacher.
This teacher was more accommodating and called on Jaime in class, waiting for the interpreter to tell her what he was saying. Jaime didn’t need the interpreter’s signs to understand the teacher, but paid attention to them anyway. Other students began picking up signs and occasionally asked the interpreter what a sign meant or how to sign something. By the end of the second month of second grade, nearly everyone used Jaime’s name sign and spoke his name as Zipper Lips, or just Zip.
As juveniles often do, they frequently asked for the sign for naughty words. The interpreter declined to give them the sign, but Jaime was now proficient enough on his computer at home that he could look up signs for anything he didn’t know in the internet. He often supplied the requested sign to his classmates. He was happy his friends who had been in his sign language kindergarten class had continued to use sign—at least when around him—and learned more sign language as they progressed in school. Only Juan and four others from his kindergarten were still in his class by the time he reached third grade.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
