Free The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett Page B

for the first time dared to hope that he was rounding a corner. I prayed that the few words we’d been able to coax out of him meant that more would follow, and I was even becoming more optimistic that he might really talk again. But as school started and the weeks passed, my hopes once more seemed out of reach.
    The start of special ed prekindergarten also coincided with a host of new behaviors I found alarming. Most notably, one evening when I asked him to come to the dinner table, Jake lay down on the floor and wouldn’t budge. When I went over to pick him up, I found that he’d let his body go completely limp, so it was almost impossible to carry him. He wasn’t crying or even visibly upset—just floppy. Over time, I noticed him doing this more and more, always when I asked him to do a task he didn’t particularly want to do.
    His teacher came to our house for a state-mandated conference once a month, and the next time she came, I mentioned this new behavior. She laughed and said, “Oh, he must be getting that from Austin, another boy in the class. Austin has cerebral palsy, and when he doesn’t want to cooperate, he goes limp.” On one level, I could see that it was funny, but on another I felt real concern. How much specialized attention could each child possibly be getting if all of them were lumped together into one classroom, regardless of their special needs? More specifically, I found the floppy behavior itself unsettling. The goal wasn’t for him to become
less
responsive.
    Michael was sympathetic to my concerns, up to a point, and he’d patiently act as a sounding board whenever my doubts about Jake’s progress in special ed surfaced. He became the calm mouthpiece for all the same sentiments I’d repeat over and over to myself whenever he wasn’t around: “They’re the experts, Kris. We wouldn’t second-guess a cardiologist or an oncologist. Shouldn’t we trust them to know what the best plan is for our son?”
    I rode that seesaw for months. My doubts would simmer until they boiled over, and then I’d be steadied by Michael’s sensible impulse to stay the course and trust in the experts. But my worries about the school finally came to a head a few months in, when Jake’s special ed teacher gently but firmly asked me to stop sending Jake to school with his beloved alphabet cards.
    That misunderstanding was a clarifying moment for me. Michael and I were sending Jake to school to learn. But his teachers—the people responsible for his education—were telling me they didn’t think he could be taught. As gentle as Jake’s teacher had been with me, the underlying message was clear. She had given up on my son.
    Later that day, while I was taking a chicken out of the Crock-Pot for dinner, I tried to talk it through with Michael. “He’s not going to read?
Ever?
Why not at least try? This is a kid who’s already totally obsessed with the alphabet without any encouragement at all. Why hold him back from what he’s naturally doing?”
    Michael was slightly exasperated with me. “Kris! These people have a lot more experience and training than we do. We have to let the experts be the experts.”
    “What if carrying around alphabet cards everywhere he goes is Jake’s way of saying he wants to read? Maybe it’s not, but what if it is? Do we want him with people who won’t even try to teach him simply because it’s not part of the life skills program? Why would they say no to somebody who wants to learn?”
    I realized that all of my questions—indeed, all of the niggling doubts I’d been unable to squelch in the months since Jake had started preschool and even before that—could be boiled down to one big, basic issue: Why is it all about what these kids
can’t
do? Why isn’t anyone looking more closely at what they
can
do?
    Michael’s arguments for staying the course had always worked to calm my doubts—until that night. Suddenly, my doubts evaporated. As any mother would instinctively