Tunnel Reaches from New York to London!
It's true! The impossible, yet again has been proven possible! With exposure to scientific theory and experience with engineering mechanics the world round, a tunnel has been built that SPANS the GaP between New York and London. The costs incurred accomplishing this amazing feat were.....minimal. Or were they catastrophically high?
The tunnel of which I speak was built in the imagination of a 13 year old boy during a basic screening of vocabulary skills, one Saturday afternoon at the public library. To give you a little background, this young person has been raised by his monolingual Spanish speaking father since the age of 7. It was at 7 that his parents divorced. Since his start in school at 4 years old, through his now 7th grade year, he has attended 8 different schools. Four of these in Maryland and 4 in Virginia. One on one, he is pleasant and conversational although to the perceptive observer, language differences are apparent and serious.
As a child identified with a disability and served under IDEA, he did and continues to have the right to a fair and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. The difficulty is that with so many moves between schools over the years, keeping track of services, appropriate goals and objectives and monitoring progress toward these goals has been a challenge. It could be easy for a young man such as this to fall into the cracks or to get lost in a tunnel spanning between frustration and hopelessness.
A question posed to him that day was "Can you make a road trip from New York to London?" The answer came quickly and "confidently." "Yes! If I had a car!" The screener continued without reaction but was drawn back to the question later, out of curiosity more than anything else. Again the question was posed but this time a map was provided. It was obvious that he didn't know where to start to look for either New York or London so he was pointed in the right direction and asked the question again. Again, the answer came, "Yes!" "How?" was the one word response by the screener. For the next few minutes laughs were shared over attempts to find a way to make this road trip. He quickly concluded that a trip via the northern most parts of the world would be far too cold, not to mention the lack of roads and connecting landmass, and a bridge was obviously out of the question because it would have to be "way too long." He then triumphantly stated, "a tunnel!" After all, he had been in a tunnel in Baltimore, so why not?
As the screener considered his reasoning, she began to see his logic. Flawed only by the limits of engineering and construction theory, but completely possible given his limited exposure and experience to the world around him.
As children and adults are judged and misjudged in the community and at school, it is vital to consider their exposure and experience within their environment. From their homes to the world that they occupy, their understanding cannot be assumed to be equal to our own. So with that we are all challenged to believe in the tunnel from New York to London, to believe in possibility and to strive to destroy the tunnel spanning between frustration and hopelessness.
Good luck this new school year and strive to change a life! ruby
