The Day He Carried the Flag
By Lauri Brett
Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.
By Lauri Brett
Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.
Veteran's Day is a day for honoring saviors in battle: heroes, if you will. Three months into this 'Year to Save a Boy' – when we pulled our son who has autism from public school and placed him in private Catholic School – he was asked by the school's principal to carry the school's "special flag" during its Veteran's Day Ceremony, the flag that had been brought back from an active-duty parishioner.
The school's principal, while not fully aware of how a child with autism might display a fascination for rituals, had noticed that our son loved to watch the raising of the flag in front of the school: a daily event for him involving a magical combination of paired sixth graders, an unfolding process, a rope, and a very tall pole.
His aide had been preparing him. She was there helping him, then slid in amongst his peers while he began his trip up to the altar/stage where the ceremony had commenced. I sat proudly in the pews clutching my camera, watching him hold the triangulated symbol of our country high in his upturned palms, an offering. Although I am usually more the sour skeptic than the devout believer – and hardly this country's model patriot – I found myself whispering a prayer: "One day may he know, at least in part, the meaning of that symbol he carries: have some inkling of concepts like civic duty and national pride. May he somehow gain the education that will carry him to that moment. Amen.”
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Autism is many things, but none of them is simple. In our Year to Save a Boy, nothing was clear, never mind simple. All was obscure and immeasurably confounding. We were making our way in the dark, trying to rescue our boy. We were literally pulling him out of a public school system that languished in ignorance and false pride, in prejudice and indifference. We were resuscitating him on the battlefield of autism intervention, enacting a unique kind of life-to-life resuscitation. He was only seven years old. Although he'd had hard-won IEPs and descriptions of various pull-out services in public school, the staff had proved inadequate in providing a truly appropriate education. They advanced him to second grade, though he couldn't hold a fluent conversation, stay on a topic, or even draw a picture. They advanced him to second grade while he screamed, threw tantrums and harmed others at home when he couldn't accept ‘no.' They advanced him to second grade without his having had a certified resource room teacher since kindergarten.
The Veteran's Day Ceremony marks one step in many. Steps to hand him back his entitlement to a life of cognizance. We and what army? At our own expense, we'd placed him in Catholic school with a full-time aide who is trained and supervised by a high level specialist in autism education. We might go broke, but we have made it to the front lines as soldiers in his rescue. And now he is in a public ceremony.
Last year I had begged the school to teach him some drawing skills, or at least to help me teach them to him, but they simply didn't see what it had to do with school. As I sat in the pews with that prayer on my lips, I marveled at how he now put his drawings up on his wall as soon as he finished them; and about how much he loved watching Curious George's mission to learn on PBS.
I thought about how far he had already come from his early years of intense autism intervention in our Year to Save a Boy, nothing was clear, never mind simple. I sat in the pews and thought about soldiers and battles, about wars and rescues. I thought about unfriendly terrains and uninhabitable atmospheres. After the ceremony, the local paper took his picture. And the next day, he made the front page. I'd say that's progress.
His aide had been preparing him. She was there helping him, then slid in amongst his peers while he began his trip up to the altar/stage where the ceremony had commenced. I sat proudly in the pews clutching my camera, watching him hold the triangulated symbol of our country high in his upturned palms, an offering. Although I am usually more the sour skeptic than the devout believer – and hardly this country's model patriot – I found myself whispering a prayer: "One day may he know, at least in part, the meaning of that symbol he carries: have some inkling of concepts like civic duty and national pride. May he somehow gain the education that will carry him to that moment. Amen.”
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Autism is many things, but none of them is simple. In our Year to Save a Boy, nothing was clear, never mind simple. All was obscure and immeasurably confounding. We were making our way in the dark, trying to rescue our boy. We were literally pulling him out of a public school system that languished in ignorance and false pride, in prejudice and indifference. We were resuscitating him on the battlefield of autism intervention, enacting a unique kind of life-to-life resuscitation. He was only seven years old. Although he'd had hard-won IEPs and descriptions of various pull-out services in public school, the staff had proved inadequate in providing a truly appropriate education. They advanced him to second grade, though he couldn't hold a fluent conversation, stay on a topic, or even draw a picture. They advanced him to second grade while he screamed, threw tantrums and harmed others at home when he couldn't accept ‘no.' They advanced him to second grade without his having had a certified resource room teacher since kindergarten.
The Veteran's Day Ceremony marks one step in many. Steps to hand him back his entitlement to a life of cognizance. We and what army? At our own expense, we'd placed him in Catholic school with a full-time aide who is trained and supervised by a high level specialist in autism education. We might go broke, but we have made it to the front lines as soldiers in his rescue. And now he is in a public ceremony.
Last year I had begged the school to teach him some drawing skills, or at least to help me teach them to him, but they simply didn't see what it had to do with school. As I sat in the pews with that prayer on my lips, I marveled at how he now put his drawings up on his wall as soon as he finished them; and about how much he loved watching Curious George's mission to learn on PBS.
I thought about how far he had already come from his early years of intense autism intervention in our Year to Save a Boy, nothing was clear, never mind simple. I sat in the pews and thought about soldiers and battles, about wars and rescues. I thought about unfriendly terrains and uninhabitable atmospheres. After the ceremony, the local paper took his picture. And the next day, he made the front page. I'd say that's progress.
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