Having an Open Mind

The first time I ever really noticed a disabled person was when I was in the 3rd grade. I saw some disabled people before that but I never really knew, or cared about what that person went through. When a new student arrived in my third grade class, I thought it would just be another student, but this student was different. His name was Derek and he suffered from Autism. He would have random outbursts during class and it scared a lot of us because we didn’t know why he was doing what he did. He wasn’t in our class all the time, only during math, but when he sat down at a table kids would shy away from him trying to get away. During recess kids would chase each other pretending to be Derek, and laughing about it. Then one day Derek’s mom came in and did a presentation for us, and that changed a lot of people’s perspective about Derek. “People have the best chance of developing an effective message when they understand and empathize with the other person’s point of view” (lobchuk, 2006; Sorensen, 2009), Interplay page 23. She told us that Derek wasn’t just having random outbursts, he was trying to communicate, and then she showed how hard it was for him to communicate by taking a volunteer and stuffing that person’s mouth full of marshmallows. When the volunteer couldn’t talk, she said that’s what Derek goes through everyday and we all understood her point of view because of how much the volunteer was struggling to try and speak. Ever since the presentation happened, no one tried to make fun of Derek or shied away from him, his outbursts in class became normal, something we all got used to and he became just another classmate. Having a class with Derek has taught me to have an open mind, and not to judge people’s behavior without an explanation and my experience in having an Autistic classmate has provided me with information. Now when I’m with my family at a restaurants, and there’s a family there with an Autistic kid who’s behaving differently, I’m able to share with my family the information I have learned in my third grade class.