Bookathon - H

 Harry Potter. Hairy Maclary. Hagar the Horrible.

Or Happy, Healthy, Harmonious and High Achieving (motto of Ranui School). Principal Heather liked H words. My author today is one that I think all teachers and those working in primary education ought to read. Torey Hayden.

Torey Hayden has written a few novels, and a few children's books but it's actually her non-fiction that I have devoured ever since I found Silent Boy in one of the pop-up library fridges one day. Silent Boy aka Murphy's Boy is about a boy who's a selective mute and Torey's job was as a special education teacher/social worker to draw him out. He hadn't spoken in 8 years and he was 15 when she met him. Through daily contact and just being present, spending one on one time with him even when he was threatening to knife her, Torey managed to break through the wall of silence. 

Most of her books are like that, about emotionally disturbed children who can't be in the classroom and have problems ranging from defiant behaviour, autism, tourettes, selective mutism, ADHD, OCD or a combination of all. Some are pregnant at 12 years old, some are 6 year old geniuses like Sheila in One Child. Others are just Lost. The parents are either divorced, separated, absent, dead, poor, child molestors, or even closet Satan worshippers. A few are alcoholics and in jail. I remember reading one where the child was so traumatised because her mother abandoned her on the side of the road. Torey became the mother figure for all these children, even God like. 

One way of reaching out to these children after setting up a classroom and bringing in the toys (this is the fun part of special ed) is simply reading with the child to establish bonds, whether it was a She-Ra comic or Antoine de Saint Exupery's Little Prince. Apart from tying their shoelaces and sometimes having to change their clothes and brush their hair of course. Some children never got a birthday party since their parents didn't want to remember them or they had no friends to invite so Torey would bake a cake and they would have a birthday party at school. Or they would make chocolate pudding. 

This is the basis for relationship-based learning, something now enshrined in the pedagogy of many primary schools, since we are now seeing record numbers of children exhibiting complex behaviours, now that parents are working over time to put a roof over their heads and I don't know how many come from completely broken homes. All children simply want to be loved. Torey's special magic was no discipline technique, lesson plan, or reward scheme, it was  nothing more than complete unconditional love. 

Sometimes she over stepped the boundaries a few times, since her middle class upbringing didn't account for what she witnessed when she did home visits. But that was a learning curve for her. Sometimes I think teachers forget that many children don't grow up like they did where they took the basics for granted and then punish children for coping the only way they know how. 

I was one of those silent children who never spoke a word at school when I didn't have to. Who would want to hear what I had to say anyway, and most people just assumed I couldn't speak English. But I think children's voices are very important, if they know someone would take the time to listen. 

My favourite of Torey Hayden's books was one called Just Another Kid, where she has a parent helper who helps out in her special ed class, who needs a  bit of help herself. Maybe most of us in education stay in school because they want to relive our childhoods in a safe environment, around  someone who cares. Torey Haydens books are a gift, have been translated into over 35 languages around the world, and ought to be on every teacher's bookshelf.