Individual Stories - Cynthia

Our eldest child attended a special school for most of his primary school years.  As a member of STAR Victoria, information on a range of topics expanded our horizons and expectations.

We learnt that we had the right to send him to a regular school. Coupled with State Government recognition that integration was a social justice issue and with the encouragement of supportive individuals,  we began the process of finding a regular school that would permit his enrolment- initially part-time (all that I was game to request) and subsequently full-time for another three years.

 In the beginning I maintained that if integration didn’t work, that he could go back. The special school predicted that “he would be persecuted into the ground and be back in the next 6 months.” At his new school the teachers’ anxiety that ‘we’re not teaching him anything’ nearly brought about this prophecy. He was almost a failed integration statistic.

 Yet as his parents, we could see him experiencing a huge learning curve and argued for him to stay, drawing up a long list of skills he had achieved, just by being there, amongst which were that

• his language and the ability to make and maintain eye contact developed expeditiously.  His classmates all used more than a few word sentences and engaged in  the usual range of adolescent social interaction  and this had a  major impact on his development and emerging individuality and maturity
• being in a class on time and organising his belongings became important to him and he learned responsibility and the consequences  of not being prepared  or organised
•  the realisation that he had a memory and could demonstrate (verbally) that he retained factual information increased his confidence  and enlightened and encouraged him and us 
•  by purchasing items at the canteen, he learnt ‘money’ and maths concepts that previous specialist teachers  had struggled to teach him
• personal hygiene issues (such as marking his underwear) were resolved because his classmates disapproved, and his emerging sexuality ( at that time becoming a concern) was steered onto a path of normality, self awareness and respect for others

There is no doubt in my mind that these years in the mainstream school provided him with opportunities and choices (previously non existent) that changed his life - from someone who, over a life-time, would have been constantly dependant on support services he is now a non-dependant taxpaying man, with a lifestyle not dissimilar to his brother and sisters- working in regular mainstream employment, living independently in his own home and managing a mortgage!

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