Читать книгу A Thunderous Silence. Raising an Autistic child. My True Story - Anna Visloukh - Страница 8

I don’t really remember my first day at school. Do you remember yours? I recall it only vaguely. I only remember a few bright flashes from the beginnings of my education.

My first impression was of being bored. I already knew how to read and write; when we were given the task of writing letter elements it took my classmates an age to do, and I completed it in minutes. I ended up just sitting there idly. Oh, here’s a bright idea! I took a penknife out of my schoolbag, the penknife I had honestly won in an outdoor game, and diligently carved my name, «Anyuta», into the desktop. How cool was that!

Unfortunately, the adults did not appreciate all the virtues of my autograph. Seeing this, the teacher was speechless for a moment, and the next minute I was dragged off to the Principal’s office. They called my parents, and they spent a while trying to decide what to do with me. Should they upgrade me to the next class?

They didn’t, because there was no such precedent in the Principal’s mind, so they chose an easy solution: after completing an allotted task, I was allowed to just quietly read a book. My father took the knife away from me after giving me a hard slap. Then he painted my school desk over.

My second memory is of the public ceremony when I joined the ranks of the Little «October Children» scouts, I was nine then. My mother had ironed my school uniform for me, it consisted of a brown dress with a snow-white apron. She set the alarm clock and went off to work. We lived in a military town, and kids not only walked to the school and back on their own, but were also free to run around the town, and nobody bothered to lock the door of their apartments.

I was wandering around the apartment, waiting for the time to go to the ceremony to become an October child, when I suddenly remembered some important business, and for some reason that business had everything to do with ink… That’s right; I spilt ink all over the snow-white apron and had to go to the ceremony like that. The badge, a little red star, was pinned to my apron over a large purple spot shaped like Africa.

I can’t describe the reaction of my pedant mother, when in the evening a neighbor, the mother of one of my classmates, told her in a patronizing voice, «Masha, why didn’t you even wash your daughter’s apron? I understand that you must be very busy…»

All these troubles were more than offset by my end of year school report card: I was top of class in all the subjects. In short, I was an excellent student. Learning came easily to me, even if nobody knew what subjects I was studying or when I did my homework, especially when I was in high school. Nobody bothered to ask, the responsibility was all mine.

Being good at school was a tradition in our family. We were all excellent students: me, my sister, my husband, my niece and her husband… Our daughter was not far behind when it came to winning medals, as was part of our family tradition. So, we had next to no problems with her during her schoolyears. Even in my wildest dreams I could not imagine that this wonderful family tradition could suddenly be interrupted.

I was so confident that the genes inherited by me and my children coming from mixing the three Slavic bloodlines, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, were strong enough. When I finally realized that my son just would not do what was required from him from his very first day at school, I felt as though I had fallen on top of a hedgehog, hidden in the foliage of the forest. It felt painful and uncomfortable, and I had no idea how to deal with it.

Despite possessing a freedom-loving character as a child, I always did my homework on time without question. Now I realize that there were several reasons for this. First and foremost, I was a very ambitious and sensitive child, so even in my worst nightmares I couldn’t see myself standing before the class with nothing to say because I hadn’t learned the lesson.

I always wanted to be top of the class, not only in studies, but in every aspect of school life: I was the permanent head of the October Children squad, then the head of the school pioneers’ organization, the Komsomol organizer in my class and in my school on the whole. I had unquestionable authority over my peers, including even the bully of our class, Pashka, especially after my girlfriends and I had cornered him under the fire escape and given him a good beating as we couldn’t stand his escapades any longer.

The second reason is that learning was easy for me. I took things on board at a single glance, so once home, I only needed to quickly scan my tutorial books, and… voila! I was free as the wind. I could do whatever I wanted, be it playing in the yard, attending clubs and circles, there were many in my childhood, or read books. I devoted almost all of my spare time to reading books. If you put together all the books that I have read in my life in a straight line, it would possibly go all the way around the planet, or at least half of it.

Finally, there is the third reason that has played a fairly unattractive part in my adult life when my children began to study. Like it or not, however modern and free-minded you may consider yourself to be, every representative of our generation has come out of the Soviet school system, based on the conventions instilled into the young builders of communism.

At the time, to study hard was not just a Soviet ideological mantra (you might remember that Lenin used to say, «Learn, learn and learn»! ). At that time, it was the mentality of an entire generation and the aim of all intelligent people who would overcome all possible and unimaginable obstacles to get there. There is nothing bad about this, and in fact we are even proud of it. The people of the USSR read more than any other country in the world! What discoveries, scientists, and what achievements were made!

The space program is a great example, and I must mention the nuclear one which my parents have made a contribution to. I could not imagine that one day the time would come when there was no longer a need to study. Or if there’s such a need, still studying will not be like the process that we were taught from birth. We were brainwashed over the years into specific behavioral patterns and structures.

Even in recent times, babies were kept very tightly swaddled until they were almost six months old, and sometimes even longer. I didn’t really do that to my son, even if I myself remained swaddled by my hands and feet by the strict principles of a young builder of communism in my head. I believed that a child must learn and be a top student, or he would be a slacker, a lazy waste of space. We were brainwashed into believing that we were all the same, so I tried to do the same thing to my son during his school years.

On the first school day, the 1^st of September, my son, well-dressed and with a bouquet of flowers for the teacher in his hands, crossed the threshold of the educational institution that would become a place of my nightmares for a long time. By then he could already read and write, knew basic mathematics, could draw and played the piano well. The first few days in school when children start learning letter elements went quite smoothly. His teacher was introduced to us as one of the best specialists (according to the school administration).

She had a hard-earned reputation, and was well experienced, she was a Teacher Emeritus. Let’s call her Mrs. Tsvetkova. Maybe she really was a good teacher and a nice person, but she had thirty new arrivals in the classroom. Some were smart, and some were stupid. Some were loud, and some were quiet. Some were skinny and some were fat. Some were timid, and some were not.

Today I am absolutely certain that my son just got lost in that crowd, and the voice of the teacher standing in front of the class was nothing more to him than a continuous buzz in his ears. He perceived the noise like a bell constantly ringing in his head. It prevented him from concentrating on the teacher’s words, he could not understand what was being said.

Just one month after school starts, the first clouds appear on the horizon. It all begins with Tim’s workbooks literally covered by the cobwebs of the teacher’s comments in red ink. Mrs. Tsvetkova writes in red ink, «Here you must leave a space, here two grids, here three grids…»

I honestly try to sort that out because I don’t see any crime in that, so I decide to talk to the teacher.

«Mrs. Tsvetkova,» I begin timidly. «But he did solve the problem…»

«But he didn’t do it in the CORRECT manner.» She looks at me as though I was no more than a grammatical mistake. «We must not deviate from the standards! If everybody started creating their own rules, what would happen then?»

She does not explain what might happen, but merely rolls her eyes theatrically, showing by her whole expression that she doesn’t wish to be around if such a catastrophe is ever to happen.

The torture in red ink continues. Each work my son completes is a violation of the standard and is carefully corrected and written all over directly on top of his childish writing. It is painful to see a living person getting dissected before your eyes. It feels as if Tim’s workbooks were bleeding with red ink begging for mercy.

I cannot bear it.

«Tim, is it really so difficult to count the grids?» I hardly restrain myself. «Why can’t you do it the same way as everybody else? Can’t you count?»

My son looks up at me with the expression of a completely self-righteous person and replies, «Why should I?»

I finally lose my patience.

«Because that’s what you are supposed to do! Stick to the rules!»

«Mom, what is it that you don’t understand? I did everything by the rules. My answer to the assignment came out right!»

I do understand; the only thing I understand is that my brain is ready to explode. I break down and yell. «Are you kidding me? Sit down immediately and write it out as it should be written!»

Tim shrinks down into his shoulders.

At this point my husband intervenes. «In this state of mind he can’t write anything at all! Stop yelling at him!»

«If you’re so smart,» I already feel at the end of my tether, «then you sit down with him and go through the stupid assignments yourself. I am going out for a walk! Let’s see how you cope without me!»

I go out into the street, slamming the door behind me. The cold air cools my burning head, and my mind starts calming down. I slowly walk along without any sense of direction, down a dark street in the autumn evening, asking myself what I am doing wrong, what my son is doing wrong, what we are all not doing right.

I receive the answer to these questions very soon, about a week later, when I pick Tim up from school. Mrs. Tsvetkova comes up to me and with a dire face invites me to join her in her classroom for five minutes.

«Mrs. Visloukh, I would like to talk very seriously to you.»

I feel like a delinquent schoolgirl and instinctively go through my pockets, just in case, God forbid, there is a penknife in there. What on earth is going through my mind? My father took it away from me when I was in the first grade. So what should I expect next…?

«Mrs. Visloukh,» Mrs. Tsvetkova begins solemnly. «We believe that your son needs to be moved to a remedial class for children with learning difficulties.»

«What are you talking about?» I ask her, stunned. «And who are „we“ exactly?»

«We, dear lady, are the Board of Teachers!» the teacher blurts it out angrily meaning to immediately put me in my proper place, to remind me who I am and what the Board of Teachers is. «It is for children with learning difficulties and poor speech development,» she explains generously.

«But who… and when…» I am starting to stutter. «Who’s diagnosed my child with such a condition? Do you even know that he draws perfectly, that he has been attending music school for the last two years?»

«That is, of course, all wonderful,» Mrs. Tsvetkova replies looking as unruffled as the Statue of Liberty. «That does not mean that he can learn alongside… normal children. He is not psychologically ready for school yet.»

«What evidence do you have for that?»

I feel my old friend, Panic, creeping up to me saying, «Hello, long time, no see.»

«He lags disastrously behind the class with all the work he is given!»

Nevertheless, the teacher softens her attitude, apparently after seeing my facial expression. «For example, in the time it takes his classmates to complete three or four assignments, or several writing exercises, Tim only manages one!»

A silly smile is frozen on my lips. I still hope that the teacher will say something nice about my child, but the word «one» sounds to me as if she were holding a big figure «1» meaning the lowest grade possible in her hands. I realize if I do not stop smiling immediately, she will slap my unprotected smile with this big figure, so I clench my lips together.

«Don’t you ever open your son’s workbooks; don’t you see what is written in there, and what the assessment is?»

The compassion that flashed in her eyes a moment ago is replaced by genuine disbelief.

«Of course I do. I look through them and I actually try to help him with his homework. I thought he was just a little slow and somewhat absent-minded… But he does understand how to solve problems! And he can spell well enough.»

I can feel it in my bones that the teacher doesn’t hear me.

«A little absent-minded! You call that a little? It sometimes takes me half an hour to get through to him! I call him by his first name, then by his surname, but it’s only when I walk up to him and shake him by the shoulders that he finally wakes up! He stands up with a look on his face that asks who we all are and what he is doing here!»

Mrs. Tsvetkova is so full of indignation her face gets covered with red spots, and I am surprised to catch a plaintive tone in her voice, as if she were complaining, «Look at the stress that I have to go through because of your son.»

I pretty much fall into a state of stupor.

«He has problems with writing, too! All of his words run into one another, so that you can’t tell where one word ends and another begins! He cannot divide a word into syllables. He even uses capital letters in the middle of a sentence, and starts a sentence in lowercase!»

She continues talking at me, but I have had enough.

«This is only the beginning of the second quarter of the school year,» I say trying to appeal to her intuition as a teacher. «This is only his first year in school! He will learn! You don’t know him like I do…»

«One thing I do know for certain, dear Mrs. Visloukh.» The teacher returns to her calm retouched voice, and every word of her speech is like a nail hammered into the coffin lid. The coffin where I bury any hope for my son’s problem-free education, like I had with my daughter.

«Your son is not able to work in a classroom environment. We will send him to the medical and psychoeducational commission for evaluation. I will inform you of the date later. I strongly recommend you to listen to what I am telling you! I recommend that you take him to be seen by a series of specialists, including a speech therapist.»

I snatch at a familiar word. A speech therapist…

«We have been visiting the speech therapist of our school for the last two years already!» I am still trying to get out from under the debris of the information that has fallen on top of me. «But there has been almost no improvement. I do not know who else to turn to…»

«You will find answers to all your questions at the meeting with the commission. They will tell you everything you need to know!»

Mrs. Tsvetkova begins to shuffle around the paperwork on her desk, making it clear that this conversation has come to an end.

Of course, everything that I have heard is unpleasant, but I am not yet aware of the full extent of the tragedy. I find it hard to believe that these learning disabilities have developed in the same child who has studied a popular medical encyclopedia in addition to an astronomical map of the sky. He knows all the planets in the solar system, has read every book about dinosaurs, paints in oils and watercolor, composes music…

He can play any Beethoven symphony by ear, he imitates foreign languages just by hearing them, even Chinese! He also puts together sophisticated models, he is always creating and inventing things, and playing with his Transformer robot toys! How could she describe him as slow-learning?

I walk home, Tim trailing beside me. My head is swarming with thoughts: I’m having a heated discussion in my mind with the teacher, with the Board of Teachers, with the commission. I do not know yet that every peculiarity of Tim’s character I am aware of and everything I have heard from the teacher point to Tim’s having autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

These signs are obvious to real specialists at once. However, such a person will not appear in our lives anytime soon. My son will finally be diagnosed (however, not officially; we have not got any certificate), but nobody will be able to tell me what to do next. I am in for a long and difficult fight alone, banging my head against a blank wall.