MetaChat - I need some fishing line.

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21 September 2005

I need some fishing line. →[More:]

I'm reading a book in which the author describes hearing an Indian doctor talking about an interesting discovery when working with autistic kids.

She says: "The kids were so severely withdrawn that if you stood them up, they'd just fall over. They'd make no effort to stand or even shield their faces when they fell. Then these people working with them discovered that if they ran a rope from one end of the room to the other and stood the kids up so they were holding onto the rope, the kids would walk across the room. So over the months they kept putting up thinner and thinner pieces of rope, until they were using something practically invisible, like fishing line, and the kids would still walk across the room if they could hold onto it. And then --- and this really seems like a brainstorm --- the adults cut the fishing line into pieces, into twelve-inch lengths or something, and handed one to each kid. The kids would still walk. What an amazing statement of faith."

post by: Specklet at: 15:00 | 4 comments

Wow, that's great. I worked with a few autistic kids in a middle school in Japan, and what struck me was that, though they communicated with great difficulty, their questions almost all started with "why" or "how." "Why did you come to Japan? How did you learn Japanese?" Tough crowd, good questions.

Almost all the questions from the regular students were along the lines of, "Do you know Print Club? Do you know SMAP? Do you know Puffy? Do you like me?" Boring questions with lame answers.

I taught 10-kumi (Class #10 - no grades, no grade levels, just eight kids with varying disabilities) only once every couple weeks, and I taught them the same three songs every week for two years, but it was my favorite class of all.

---

I don't know what thread to put this in, but here's an elevator story.

I got in the elevator at lunchtime to go home and make PB&J. It was empty, so I entered it. The doors closed, and the car began to descend.

A few floors below mine, it stopped, and a lady entered. The doors remained open, and the elevator didn't move. She looked at the buttons, she saw that I'd neglected to hit the "G" button when I got in -- her calling the car to her floor made it go -- and she hit the button, saying, "You're not going anywhere."

"I've known that for years," I said with a grin.

posted by Hugh Janus 21 September | 15:29

once every couple weeks

every week for two years

Liar!

posted by Hugh Janus 21 September | 15:56

i love hugh janus

posted by Schyler523 21 September | 18:50

Yeah, he's pretty rad.

Jesus, did I just say rad?

posted by Specklet 21 September | 19:19

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