My student Philip

I met him when he was 3. He was enrolled in my class, my 2nd year of teaching and we were all captivated by his gentleness immediately. He spoke no words but softly and sweetly sang notes in harmony to a tune only he could hear. He smiled readily, head tilted downward, and giggled frequently to an inside joke. He made no eye contact but followed my movements with his eyes around the classroom and smiled at my jokes, coming near to take my hand when he couldn't reach the toy he wanted. He slowly taught me about Autism and I slowly taught him to speak. At the first parent / teacher conference I told his mother he was my favorite noodle in my soup and he has remained so for the last 10 years.

One of the typically developing students in my class (as if anyone develops 'typically' but it's what we label a child who is without a diagnosed disability) asked me why Philip didn't talk like we did. I gathered my class into our morning meeting area and stood at the chalk board and drew a vertical line down the middle. On the left side I wrote "No words". Then I asked the children to think about Philip for a moment and tell me the things that he could do. I wrote their words down on the other side of the board and the list was enormous! The class couldn't read, they were only 3 and 4 years old themselves, but they could tell by the volume of my writing on the right side of the board that Philip was far more like them than different. They couldn't say enough wonderful things about him! "He's kind, nice, smart, good at puzzles, doesn't hit or grab, doesn't push, shares, let's you sit by him..." the list went on and on. By the end of it we all decided to help him learn to talk to us so he could tell us his thoughts and needs and wants. So we could "know him" said one little girl. And I remember saying "this list shows how well you already know him even without words, because you've listened to his quiet heart". And it was true, they had. And so did I. That was 10 years ago now and I tutor him every day after school and during the summer, 5 days a week, 2 hours a day. The truth is we tutor each other. He teaches me patience and perspective because I think he pretty much lives in the moment. And I teach him to make bread and pizza from scratch, to pet my dog, to skip rocks into the lake, to garden, try new things and to share what he feels. It is still extraordinarily slow going.

He is brilliant. Beyond brilliant in fact. It's hard to measure because standard tests don't work for him (do they really work to measure anybody very fully?) But at 3 he could take a 60 piece interlocking puzzle that he had never seen before, study it for 2 minutes, dump out the pieces onto the floor and, while I sat with him painstakingly hunting for any piece that might fit anywhere, he would reach for the correct piece time after time to reassemble the puzzle row after row, left to right, from the bottom row right up to the top edge. The right top corner was always the last piece he put in. Soon, I learned to get out of his way and let him work his ordered puzzle magic. I search for the last corner piece he'd need and holding it up by my eye, he'd look up and reach for it making a fleeting visual connection before I handed him his puzzle delight. Patiently, mostly his patience with me, we built upon this routine and I withheld the puzzle piece until he said something approximating "puzzle", heavy on the "P" sound, short on "uzzle", but it was a start. Even now he will hold out his palm for me to say "Puh" into and he'll laugh and laugh. He remains as kind and sweet as he was at 3--and he still colors all over himself with a marker just like when he was 3 too!!

It is Philip's mother and grandmother that took me to the lavender festival. In the late evening when returning home on the ferry nearing Seattle, the black sky meeting the black water glisteningly illuminated by the lights of the city, I heard Paul McCartney singing during his concert in the open air stadium near the waterfront. I was struck, yet again, by what a gift this family has been to me, all they have taught me about being human.