Sixteen years ago, I began the process of creating an alternative school.
Three years later, it opened its doors.
I was there again this morning, as a classroom assistant, as I have been lucky enough to do for so many years, week after week.
So I accompanied Louis, then Charles, and now Jonathan. I am a direct witness to their development, their challenges, their bonds, their needs.
In the creative process, while I was very actively (every week I was moving forward; I literally devoted three years to this project) and passionately bringing together interested parents to inform them, surrounded by specialists who enlightened us, and presenting to the School Board our common need for a different school, I was invited to join a private movement instead. No, I believe in the public. AND I was right to believe in it. I do not believe that quality is reserved for exclusivity. I am for the opposite, without denigrating those who choose otherwise. I was confronted with the international program. I was very emotional at the time and in a packed assembly, I took the microphone: "I went to the private and the international, I was at the top of my class, at the end of my studies, I did not know myself, I was completely lost, this is not what I want for my son." Let our children be children. Let's not impose our desire for performance, rigidity, and overly busy schedules on them. The alternative has narrowly won. Performance is the fashion. The absence of homework, exams, and grades leaves parents feeling helpless. We must trust.
After a year, with a director, two teachers and another parent (all still there!), drawing the underlying values of the desired environment for our children, we met two by two with the parents who wanted to enroll their children in our alternative school. And here is the great beauty, very moving: all backgrounds joined, from the doctor to the truck driver, from the artist to the scientist, all the parents wanted to get involved and support their children in this framework (yes, a well-designed framework, freedom does not mean letting it go).
I wrote all this about this reality:
2013 - The Alternative School
2014 - Dream School, How to Found It
2015 - My school and my teachers
2018 - The Alternative School
2018 - The Railway Workers' School in a few points
2018 -The Railway Workers' School, continued...
2018 - The Railway Workers' School, Multi-Age, Bullying and Learning and Behavioral Disorders
2018 - To answer your questions about alternative schools
Today, week after week, even every morning as I meet one and the other, big and small, 13 years later, I am also overflowing with emotions. This dream could not have been better realized. Hey: different adults work within our school , rub shoulders with children and adults instead of being isolated in a dark environment of assembly line work. See in the film I produced for the scope of sharing these possibilities how much meeting them touches, each time. My eyes fill with tears each time. Like when a mother tells that her 5th grader, after he started at our school, said to her that evening: " Did you know I was smart? "
And I also see the effect this different program has had on my grown-up children. Their sense of responsibility, their autonomy, among other things, is astonishing, and... they know themselves. What a time saver. What a gift that even adults today don't have.
So much for the long intro and background, here is the subject of my new impulse of the heart.
A person in a position of authority summons me to tell me that my son probably has ADHD, also mentioning ASD a few times. Insisting even in the face of my incomprehension as if I were not capable of facing reality. Read me carefully here: I am not reacting by the diagnosis but by the fact that this person is not in a position to make a diagnosis and who, moreover, makes a wrong diagnosis!
How angry I was. I know my son and I know he has neither. It took me a few days to calm down: allowing ourselves, after a few meetings in a completely different setting, to diagnose him, to label him, and to suggest medication, triggered the lioness. The next day, I happened to meet with a cardiologist and his family. During our discussions, I shared this abuse of role while expressing my concern for the bereft parents who would listen. Immediately, the cardiologist joined my quiet revolt, mentioning that he and his colleagues are trying to sound the alarm about the heart problems, once they are teenagers, that can be caused by the medication prescribed to children with ADHD. I am obviously stunned. It seems to me that we don't hear about it.
Let's be clear, I have no objection to medication, which is sometimes essential and vital.
Let me continue.
A new year is beginning. I know my guys, and I also know that they are very active. I am in class with Jonathan, and I also notice that he makes rockets with his pencils during the explanations, but in the end, he understands and applies himself to the task once he has started. I often meet with his teacher; it's like this, in turn, the door doesn't close on our children, so I know his daily challenges, which have repercussions for everything. And yes, he is always hot.
Then, a grandiose, revealing proposition that will change our lives. An informed, curious, well-intentioned psychoeducator, invested in her work, who sees beyond the norm, makes a supposition with the aim of offering tools to Jonathan: what if he were hypersensitive? Immediately, unlike the rejection experienced with the label maker, it rings a bell. AND we start the conversation: well yes, sometimes when we laugh it's too much for him, sometimes certain food textures generate disdain, yes he touches everything... AND how can this resonate in a classroom situation? Already our classes are atypical, the desks move, the equipment is not fixed, the groups are multi-age, we can read lying on a sofa or in pairs, etc.
But when a hypersensitive person - and this is only one situation for a specific personality, so many scenes are possible from this premise - does not satisfy his need, he can then embark on the bubble of others (and become annoying), speak loudly, make noise, ask questions repeatedly, have itchy skin because his senses demand it.
What if we tried to invite him to two quiet periods each day, alone with a TES with whom he would choose objects and activities allowing him to find himself and at the same time, to play with elastic bands?
Magical. It can then be concentrated.
What if we gave him 4 little sticks for 4 questions he can ask?
Magic. He stands up, looks at his staff, turns back, looks for the answer himself, and sits back down with great pride.
What if we established a language with him, one that only he and the teacher know? He has four tokens on the board, his challenge is to keep them. When he "disturbs," without making him feel guilty, without ridiculing him, without belittling him, the teacher removes a token. She doesn't even have to go that far. She positions herself underneath, simply watches, and our child understands.
Magic. On his own, he will move his desk to get away from whatever is distracting him.
In the class council, the other children aged 6, 7 and 8 tell him that he has improved (without knowing what, why or how), that he is brave.
In the two-person work, we now want to be with him.
Overall result, while he didn't like going to school, he told me at bedtime: "I give school 8/10, I'm learning, I have friends."
No, but. I was right to be outraged last year.
And with all my heart, I am forever grateful to this high-level professional who was able to recognize and then offer revealing tools, all this in a public school, with staff (teacher, psycho ed, TES) involved and so caring, who take the time, not only with my Jonathan.
A few months later, we saw each other again and we all realized: he now knows - already at 8 years old - how to take care of himself and develop, with great pride AND he blends in like all the others with their beautiful differences.
Interested, I wanted to know more: "Sensory hypersensitivities in children and adolescents." And no, hypersensitivity is not an ASD.
The idea here is not to sow controversy, nor to make those who have to take the medication feel guilty. We know it's beneficial, and specialists know how to support their patients.
The idea, as with everything I've done since writing "Breathe Happiness" and the film "Grow Happy," is to leave this information for the parent who doesn't recognize themselves in what we're offering them.
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