The Elijah School

Teaching Aspergers Kids the Ways of the World

Asperger Syndrome covers so many different things that it can be hard to describe exactly; it is often described as an autism spectrum disorder and Uta Frith, in her book Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, described AS individuals as “having a dash of Autism”.  Some Asperger reserarchers consider AS as the same as High Functioning Autism, while others feel that it is better described as a Nonverbal Learning Disability.  In any case, there is much we can do to help AS students not just learn academics, but learn their place in the world.  In his book Freaks, Geeks, & Aspergers Syndrome, Luke Jackson suggests

1. Give your child clear and specific instructions about what you want your child to do.
2. Avoid using similes and paryicularly letaphors unless you can explain them accurately.
3. Don’t ever presume that your child can pick up the rights and wrongs of certian behaviors along the course of his or her life.
4. All things need to be spelled out clearly to any child, but a child on the autistic spectrum needs things spelled out to them more than most.
5. Teach them about the value of money and the rights and wrongs of taking other people’s things.  Explain clearly that this is a rule.
6. Explain things in a way that is very clear and use comparisons that your own child is likely to understand.  Analogies from their specialist subject will capture their attention.
7. Keep checking with your AS kid to make sure they have understood.

Great advice from a 13-year old with Asperger Syndrome.  For Elijah School, I think the greatest of these is #1: give the child clear and specific instructions.  This has really helped us communicate more effectively with our students.

Is Technology Corrosive?

At Elijah School our mission of hands-on learning for non-traditional students includes teaching about values, choices, and God’s Biblical demands.  We strive to help young minds think through the logical outworkings of decisions: a small step down one path may eventually lead to ruin – or great success.  And we teach them above all that God doesn’t just love them, He values them: they have worth, and purpose, and abilities all their own. 

I am very concerned about the amount of time young people spend immersed in technology without interacting with real, live, warm bodies.  There’s nothing funamentally wrong with You Tube or Facebook, for example, but there’s lots of ugly, dark, and corrosive materials on both sites.  Sexual content is among the most pervasive.

One of the more worrisome aspects of all this is that it becomes very commonplace and hence young minds can see it and watch it without even really noticing anymore.  Here is an excerpt from a column of David Brooks in the New York Times:

“Across the centuries the moral systems from medieval chivalry to Bruce Springsteen love anthems have worked the same basic way. They take immediate selfish interests and enmesh them within transcendent, spiritual meanings. Love becomes a holy cause, an act of self-sacrifice and selfless commitment.

But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. A coat of ironic detachment is required for anyone who hopes to withstand the brutal feedback of the marketplace. In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act that the choice of an erotic partner.

This does not mean that young people today are worse or shallower than young people in the past. It does mean they get less help. People once lived within a pattern of being, which educated the emotions, guided the temporary toward the permanent and linked everyday urges to higher things. The accumulated wisdom of the community steered couples as they tried to earn each other’s commitment.

Today there are fewer norms that guide in that way. Today’s technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust.”

“…they get less help”  really resonates with me.  As parents, educators, and Christians it is our job to helping young minds make proper decisions and to see things for what they really are; it’s very easy to romanticize or think idyllic certain situations which are bound to have destructive effects on a young life.  We need to be there with the Truth for our society – who else will?

Education – Do You Have What it Takes?

If we don’t mold our children’s character and give them the foundation for a healthy spiritual life, haven’t we failed them?

As part of my preparation to teach essay-writing, I have been reading essays – lots of real essays written by real people for real people (as opposed to essays written by students, to be read by test graders, because they have to do well on their SAT’s).  In “On the Transmission of Christianity”, by C.S. Lewis (from God in the Dock), the author discusses the failure of Christianity to be transmitted to the younger generation.  He proposes that the younger generation had not accepted Christianity because it had never been explained to them.  The onus is placed firmly back on the previous generation.  He states, “None can give to another what he does not possess himself.”

He goes on to say:

                                “We are often told that education is a key position.  That is very false in one sense and               very true in another.  If it means that you can do any great thing by interfering with existing              schools, altering curricula, and the like, it is very false.  As the teachers are, so they will teach.       Your ‘reform’ may incommode and overwork them, but it will not radically alter the total effect   of their teaching.  Planning has no magic whereby it can elicit figs from thistles or choke-pears       from vines.  The rich, sappy, fruit-laden tree will bear sweetness and strength and spiritual      health:  the dry, prickly, withered tree will teach hate, jealousy, suspicion, and inferiority complex – whatever you tell it to teach.  They will do it unknowingly and all day long.  But if we                 mean that to make adult Christians now and even beyond that circle, to spread the immediately   sub-Christian perceptions and virtues, the rich Platonic or Virgilian penumbra of the Faith, and    thus to alter the type who will be teachers in the future – if we mean that to do this is to perform          the greatest of all services for our descendants, then it is very true.”

While Lewis was speaking about the institution of education, I believe that the principle is true on the personal level.   If we are not being  “fed” spiritually, we will have nothing to pass on to our children.  If we are not allowing God to discipline us and build our character, how can we build the character of our child?

Are you spending time in the Word?  Are you spending time in prayer?  In fellowship with other believers?  In corporate worship and teaching?  Do you have people in your life who will hold you accountable to God’s standards?  If not, how will you be equipped to pass these things to your children?

A friend recently asked me if I had thought about what kind of grandmother I would like to be (first grandchild coming in March).  Of course I have.  I want to spend time with this and future grandchildren.  To have fun and learn and make memories.  Most importantly of all, I want to pass on a legacy of faith, which I must first possess.   How about you?  

by Marilyn Groop