I felt fantastic as if I had just been crowned the world's best teacher today!
I have been working with Lisa, a twelve years old girl diagnosed with autism, for the past few months. She comes to our house for some social activities once a week after school. Today, she came at around 4:15 p.m.
Today's session went really well and I reflected on the activities I have planned for her:
1. Feeding a hungry child before he/ she start learning - I knew that Lisa would be hungry right after school. Therefore, as soon as she came in, I demonstrated how to slice some cheese using a plastic knife and putting them on crackers. Then I asked her to do the same thing.
After arranging the crackers topped with cheese slices on a plate, I showed Lisa how to warm them up in an microwave oven for about 20 seconds to melt the cheese.
I was glad that Lisa loved the cheese cracker snack and devoured them in no time!
2. Know your students and teach to their strengths - Although Lisa appears to be a quiet and passive student, I discovered in the last few lessons that that she likes singing.
After satisfying Lisa's hunger, I wanted to teach her reading and made it fun for her. Knowing that she loves singing, I asked her what songs she would like to sing.
These were the songs we sang along with the lyrics on the screen:
a.. We wish you a merry Christmas - As soon as we started singing, Lisa started to shake the shaker. She responded and sang along well!
b. A white Christmas
c. Sister Act's - I will follow him
3. Outdoor activities and fresh air are important - I truly believe that outdoor activities are helpful to students. In every one of my teaching sessions, I always involve my students in some outdoor activities. Today, I took Lisa out for a neighborhood walk and picked up some beautiful colourful autumn leaves.
4. Craft activity - With the leaves collected from our walk, we went back to our house and started putting them in a magazine with paper towel separating the leaves. I also showed Lisa how to flatten the leaves in the magazine by placing some thick books on top of them.
5. Game time - Everybody loves playing games. Instead of teaching Lisa reading with books in the traditional way, I always make it fun for my students by using games or other strategies. For this session, I used a matching card game with some simple sentences written on the back of each picture card.
To my surprise, Lisa responded to my questions in this game. Normally non responsive to questions or rarely speaks when spoken with, Lisa responded to everyone of my questions and spoke!!!
I was so pleasantly surprised and delighted at Lisa's responses that I video taped some of her responses.
6. Reinforce and reward positive/ desirable behaviour - As soon as Lisa finished the reading game activity, I rewarded her with some icecream. We sat in the kitchen and reviewed the video I took earlier. Lisa laughed as she saw herself reading and responding to me .
It was 6:15pm when Lisa's dad came to pick her up at the end of our session. I was so proud of how it went and couldn't wait to show him what Lisa did in the lesson. He loved it and was absolutely delighted to see Lisa's progress.
Since retiring from teaching, I couldn't remember a day when I felt so good about teaching others.
I love teaching and it felt so so good to taste a little bit of success achieved by my students!
Toronto, Ontario
Autumn of 2022
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