teacher's pet
Reflections on an elementary school experience

by Sarah Stup

Excerpted from Are your eyes listening? Collected works©2007 Sarah Stup. All rights reserved in all media.

With no voice but many thoughts I was part animal and part human in their school. A school for rejects. A school for mostly silent souls inside broken bodies.

It was a place of fear and music and tears and snacks. It was a place decorated with normality, but dozens and dozens of school buses rounded up imperfection and corralled it there. Later I would learn about stares and words that formed fences around regular schools to keep me from trespassing. But then I wanted to escape this special school. I needed to be at my sister’s school instead.

Today I am a high schooler who types to speak, but then I was a kid with autism thought to be a dummy. There were no words or actions coming from my busy body to prove a real girl was inside. My body did what it pleased and hardly ever listened to my instructions. Instead it darted about, squealed, and angered everyone. It repeated actions and could not stop. It jumped from high places and ate dirt. No one heard its silent words that said “I am smart.”

“Have a good day, Sarah,” said Mom as we hugged.

An adult quickly grabbed my hand to escort me to Miss B.’s classroom for students with autism, an awful youth robber that caused us to see and hear too much. I was the youngest of seven in her class.

In familiar places we students with autism feel calmer. But we need to look away from people’s faces where shining lights and shadows move about causing us to feel dizzy and confused.

“Good morning, Sarah,” said Miss B. When she placed her fingers on my chin to force me to look at her face I glanced off to the side. My nose filled with her personal smell . . . of paint brush water mixed with shampoos her students used that stayed on her hands after she touched their heads. I love to smell people, and I know their smells well, but I never wanted to look at their shiny faces.

“Look at me,” she said.

Instead I looked at my favorite object, the United States flag with shapes and colors a kid could really trust. The stars and stripes made no unpredictable movements or sounds, nor did they demand anything of my naughty body.

“Say Good Morning, Sarah,” said Miss B.

I tried, but the words stayed inside.

“Come on, Sarah. You did it yesterday.” Miss B. moved even closer. Her voice was much too loud for me and it kept echoing in my ears joining echoes from my mother’s voice and other people talking and rustling about in hallways.

To keep breathing I rubbed my nose on my sleeve.

“Stop!” said Miss B., pushing my arm down. “Say Good Morning, Sarah.”

“Good Morning, Sarah,” I repeated suddenly with perfect speech.

Miss B. smiled, but not for long, because I ran like a rabbit out the door and down many hallways where echoes could not follow me.

Please forward this piece or reprint it as a handout or newsletter article, so that others may better understand and support individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities.

Sarah’s request is that this piece be used for non-commercial purposes and that it remain in its entirety, with full attribution given.