During this period of time, I have met so many 7-year-olds who have either made my day or left a deep impression:
E:
To be honest, when I saw 'ASD' under E on my requested list of medical conditions of the selected students, I was not thrilled and even worried. Not that I am discriminating any child with medical condition, but professionally, it may affect the accuracy of my research and my tight schedule if he does not warm up to me and quick enough.
However, a huge part of me wanted to converse with him nevertheless. Apart from the challenge of handling Ethan, I am also excited by the opportunity to understand the world of a ASD child. I wrote to the ministry and when they asked if he is able to take the test, I told them I had caught a glimpse of him when he was in class and he looked perfectly fine and my opinion is we should not exclude him just because of his medical condition, which the ministry agreed too.
When I went to his class to pick him up, I was stunned. He did not display any symptoms of my impression of a ASD child at all. He is bright, very outspoken, fared better than most children in the tests and talkative. Indeed getting him to keep quiet was a bigger issue as he loved sharing his thoughts, stories and travel experiences with me! He had observed many things which most children did not notice.
He was sharing his travelling story at KL with me and even drew the following picture:
Artist's explanation: The train (above 'KL') which he took when he was there, with the station with a flight of staircase to the right and the plane which took him there among the smaller ones because those other planes are further away.
Simply impressive to me, E :) For those out there, next time if you want to label any ASD child as any sort, think again..they can be bundles of surprises :)
YH:
When I fetched YH from his class and as we were doing our ice-breaking conversations on the way, he kept requesting me to converse in Mandarin. However, we were told during the training to try not conversing in other languages, so I told him politely I could not.
During our conversation for the research, I realised his lack of esteem in his linguistic abilities. He kept saying '哎呀，英语就是不好，什么都不明白，哎..........' (translation: goodness..my English is bad, don't understand anything) I felt his stress and shaken confidence and I couldn't help but tell him 'YH, 没关系...只要有恒心，铁棒也能磨成针...' (translation: YH, it's okay..as long as you have the perseverance, even an iron rod can be rolled into a needle).
He looked up at me and said '是这样的吗？' (translation: will it really?)
Yes, YH. Yes.
As some of my friends know, recently I have been feeling really down about my status quo - still looking for a job, some arguments with family, etc..sometimes I do feel the lack of strength to continue on.
And I will never imagine that this time round, I am gaining strength from trying to encourage a child.
Not to mention that this child is extremely gentlemanly for his age! Whenever I dropped things, he would pick it up for me and respond to my thanks with 'no need to thank!' and even offered to wait for me when I told him I needed to switch off the lights at the end of the session when we were departing.
On a general level, this society usually tends to attribute the nationality of Chinese to their english proficiency level, is the same going to be attributed to his well manners and gentlemanly qualities then? It always seems like negative things are always more commented upon rather than good ones huh?
Thanks YH, that session with you has revoked a lot of thoughts in me : D
Apart from E and YH, there are other kids who left deep impressions on me, be it for good, for bad, or for simply stirring up some memories in me:
Htet - Seemingly mentally slow and living in his own world. First met him whilst he was in his soiled clothes, and the air around us immediately switched to a strong acrid smell the moment I brought him into the air-conditioned room. Having said that, however, one of the happiest and most active child I had met for the past few weeks.
Sometimes living life in a blur is perhaps better..at least that's what I've always thought~
Z - Has a leg which does not function as well. When I was bringing her to the hall where her classmates were, she nearly tripped twice on her malfunctioning leg while climbing up the stairs. When I tried to help her, she rejected.
'Jan, if people can help themselves, why can't you? Always remember why your scorpion has only one pincer.'
And to top my memory bank up, the following pictures drawn by those cute little men and women : ) whilst they waited for their classmates. Awwwww who can resist those naughty angels :):
