I'm falling in love...

Last monday was the beginning of the new term.. also.. a new chapter in my life. I am now the special needs coordinator. I will be working with the special needs children and some teacher assistant. So.. this is how it works, each special needs student will have a teacher assistant or shadow teacher.. and I will be guiding and assisting these shadow teacher in working with each special needs children while at the same time.. observing the kids on a weekly basis.

I have to say.. I'm pretty nervous and scared. I haven't done anything like this before.. and if I make a slightest mistake.. the impact will be the devastating for the children and their progress.

However, I'm lucky because there is not much special needs children at this point. Because of the severity of a boy, I'm also a shadow teacher for a 4 year old boy who have lower functioning compared to the others. Due to the confidentiality issue that I am bounded, I can't reveal much about this boy only that he has got no diagnosis yet (pathetic.. yeah I know.. things like this only happens in Indonesia). His parents went to several doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and specialists and all of them gave his parents different diagnosis.

I asked for a complete medical report to bring home and study during the holiday. So last monday was the first time I saw him. If there is such thing as falling in love at first sight.. I think this will be it. He's a lovely lovely boy.. of course, its not easy.. at all!! In fact, he's very difficult to handle, he's not verbal, he doesn't understand anything, very active and basically does everything his own way.. with him not understanding us and us not understanding him.

I am a firm believer of having priorities in life. These past few months, I have been trying to search for my priorities, however it all changes during the past few days. I didn't realize it until I experienced it myself. I was having a very bad headache one night, I decided to hit the bed early and sleep it off. I woke up with an even worst headache than the one I had the night before. Under normal circumstances, I would have reached my mobile and call in sick, but I didn't. I thought this boy will come in today, no one else knows what to do with him except me, and if I didn't come to school, his progress will surely go backwards (since he's at a very critical stage of settling in the new school and getting to know me too). So.. I did what I had to do.. I get myself together and to work.

He might be low fuctioning, but he seems to have some sort of a radar of something. He's very very active that day, very moody, cries a lot, and sometimes run and 'attack' me asking for a hug. I was very veryy tired, at some point he's pulling my hand, asking me to go with him to a play corner. As I got up, I can feel the whole room goes black and I can feel that I'm about to faint. I was about to loose it when suddenly, he sat in front of me, took both my hands and put them on his head and asking me to rub his head. Of course, it didn't last long, only about 5 seconds before he stood up and run around. But he made my day, he's made an excellent progress on his second day!! He feels safe enough, to request for comfort from me. We've already excel the first critical step just on his second day. Now that he trust me enough, the learning process can begin. Just as soon as the class finishes I told my supervisor that I need to go home. I already have fever and cold sweats by then.

I have been trying to search for priorities since the first day I work which is 7 months ago, now.. I finally got one. I've never felt this way before.. and I'm definitelly falling in love .. with each and every one of those children.