Recently, I've really been re-evaluating what I should be doing with my life. I've gotten no clear answers, no revelations pointing to one dream job. Since my first steady tax-free babysitting gig when I was 11, I have always worked with kids. As I've gotten older, the jobs have continued to become more professional and the goals surrounding each job far surpass a parent's expectations for a babysitter. For almost two years, my experiences have primarily been with children on the autism spectrum. Both of my jobs working with Autistic children have been challenging and frustrating at times, but also rewarding in a way that I've never felt before. At Walden, success sometimes came in the form of first words, an autistic child socializing with their typical peers, or a child learning how to drink from a cup and eat a variety of solid foods. At the ALC, I've seen success come in the form of a 13 year old boy toilet training, a 6-year old finally looking at and occasionally talking to peers over adults, and children picking up language bit by bit and beginning to piece it together into conversation. Successful moments may feel few and far between sometimes, but seeing children accomplish things that people thought couldn't be expected of them, is truly amazing. I don't know that everyone is meant to have one particular calling in life (career-wise), although I know many people say that they do. But I do know that with every life experience, we are meant to learn something. Every thing we choose to do in life adds to who we are choosing to become. By working with children, I have learned that no one is the same. For this reason, no one should be treated the same. Our whole lives we are told that everyone should be treated equally; everyone deserves the same things in life. I whole-heartedly agree with the latter part of this statement, but the first part doesn't seem to make sense to me anymore. I do think that every individual deserves to be happy, deserves to have opportunities, deserves to have freedom to make their own choices. However, when it comes to children and adults with disabilities or disadvantages, I believe we need to rethink how we help these individuals reach the equal opportunities that we promise them. We throw special needs children into "equal education" with their typical peers, not giving them enough specialized attention to help them actually receive an equal chance at receiving a good education. We tend to view the word equal as simply meaning the "same." Society may try to treat them the same, not wanting them to stand out or feel different, when we really need to learn how to embrace their different ways of thinking and learning and develop successful methods of teaching and communicating with them. Many schools like Walden and the Autism Learning Center are of course already doing this, but these schools are still rare and costly. Public education still seems to be lagging far behind.
Stepping out of a college setting and into jobs with special needs children has really proven to me how much I still have to learn. In college it's easy to be drawn into the world of "academia," a sort of academic bubble, separate and undisturbed by the outside world. Berry tried to keep us connected to our community, stressing the importance of community service and helping others, but we were still sheltered. I thought that when I graduated, my adult life would begin. I would magically get into a professional career of some sort. I was a college graduate; I had been sitting in classrooms learning about literature and writing for four years. Surely I was educated and ready to contribute something to my community. Now I realize what people mean when they say that learning never stops. I may have been finished learning in a classroom setting, but I would never be finished learning. Working with autistic children means constantly learning how to reach them, how to alter one method, add to another method, or scrap all proven methods all together and just try something you made up. No child on the spectrum is the same, no child in the entire world is the same. All children learn differently; some typical children are just capable of jumping on the bandwagon and soaking up information no matter what way they are taught. Other children take more time, more commitment, more patience, and more one on one attention. No children should receive the same treatment. They all deserve individualized attention so that they can reach their ultimate potential. Like with typical individuals, special needs children and adults will continue to learn their entire lives as well. We can't give up on them just because we may see their success come in smaller steps than we are used to.
Who knows what job I'll be doing in the years to come. I've realized that I don't need to fill my life with so much stress about the "perfect career." Every job is a life experience, another tool to teach us different ways we can contribute while we are here. As long as I am learning and developing more as an educated, helpful, member of society, than my job title doesn't define who I am or what I plan to accomplish in my life. My job simply serves as another way for me to learn more from others, pin-point personal strengths, develop those strengths, and learn how to use them to have a positive impact on society.
