Women's Words Ep6/Isabel

This is part of an extended series, Women's Words which tells personal stories of Catholic women from all walks of life. We invite you to hear their stories and to allow Him to speak to you through the tapestry of their lives.

Episode 6: Every person is a child of God

“And they were bringing children to Him so that he might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this; he was indignant and said them: Permit the children to come to me; do not kinder them; for the Kingdom of God belong to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” (Mark 10:13-16).

Sometimes, I remember the words that some people told me in key moments in my life. Today I’m going to talk about two of them. The first of them, it was when I was teenager and I was in my last High School year. As a student, it was difficult for me to choose my vocation because part of my dreams depended on my marks. This issue made me very anxious because I didn’t know what I would like to do or whether it would be possible do it. At that time, I had a teacher that told us one day: “There are many ways to help others in your daily life. You don’t need be far to help others. You can always help others with your job: being a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, an engineer… It depends on you, and on how you use your education”. So, if you are in this situation, don’t worry, you will find your way soon. Be patient and trust in our Lord.

Nowadays, I have graduated from university in Primary Education, specialising in Special Needs. At this point, I’m going to share my second memory. This memory happened when I was an undergraduate student. This memory comes from the professor of my speciality: “Each child is vulnerable and brings sensitive material with him/her because he/she’s a human being who is growing, and your influence in their life will be forever. But you should care and protect children, especially if they have disabilities or learning disabilities, and, join their family because maybe they cannot explain or do the same things in the same way that their classmates.”

Currently, I’m working as a Special Needs Teacher and I work with children that have disabilities and learning disabilities. There are people at this point in time that usually tell me: “Oh, it’s so sweet! You are doing charity job!” or “It’s really hard, I wouldn’t have a child if I know that my son would be born with disability”. Honestly, when I listen to this sentence or something similar, I feel irritated because I don’t do my work for charity. I do it because I like it, and also for humanity and sensitivity.

My pupils don’t need that you look at them with pity or compassion and that you think “Poor them”. Instead, they need that when you look at them you react and try to help them if they need it. My students are those pupils that most teachers wouldn’t like to have in their classroom because they are different or they are outside normative educational standards. As a teacher, you have the impression that if you have pupils with disabilities and include them in your class group you have failed your teacher goals because these students interfere on the result of the education report or evaluation. However, your student will learn about how be a person. We had an educational system that is not inclusive and it’s focused on being productive.

Moreover, in our society, each day we are more superfluous and keep up appearances. We must fight for the inclusion of these children because they cannot communicate or show their feelings like we usually do. In my classroom, there are students who are nine years old and they don’t know how to write their name, and, which their future in our society will be if we don’t humanity and include them. We can’t deny their existence!

Working with these children is difficult because each of them needs something different. From time to time, I can work with them on a few goals for a long time and they never succeed, or sometimes they passed away because they were sick.

Saint Thomas Aquinas said: “We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves."

In my view, as with the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, when I meet my pupils maybe I don’t know how they are going to start because they are like white paper that you can write on. I must start believing that they can improve a little bit if I help them and give them the opportunity to learn. To do it, I will need to be patient and try to take the best of each one every day. The starting point is loving them. They need to find somebody that believes on them. Maybe, if I don’t do it, nobody will do that for them.

In education, as in any job, there are fantastic and terrible days. In spite of this, when your student starts to do something after a long time working on a goal, you celebrate this small success as if your favourite football team had won the Champions League.

Finally, we must learn that each person matters and brings us something. They have so many things to teach us. I learn a lot of things from my students each day.

Isabel is a young professional working as a Primary Education and Special Educational Needs teacher in Spain. She is on to do the world a little better place to live for children with disabilities and difficulties to learn. She hopes to develop an open minded thought among people and share experiences or reflection with everybody about any topic.