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My Work Experience at the Autistic Unit of an English School
30.06.2006
Last term Lord Williams's School in Thame near Oxford offered the opportunity of doing a work experience in Thame to some pupils of grade eleven at the FEG. This work experience ...
... had been started ten years ago together with the partnership between the two schools. I immediately applied for this work experience and luckily was given a place. As I was interested in the situation of handicapped children in an English school I decided to do my internship in the autistic unit of Lord Williams's School during my stay in Thame in June 2006.
The day before I started to work there I was quite nervous and excited: how would the children react to me? Would I be apt to meet the challenge of working with autistic school children? Fortunately my worries turned out to be needless when the head of the autistic unit introduced me to the other teachers and showed me around. She really was very nice and helpful throughout the time I spent there.
There were three classrooms for the children in the building and one office room. I participated in all of the lessons and was impressed to observe how hard the children tried to work with the teachers. In spite of their handicaps they were able to cooperate although some of them still had difficulties in concentrating and doing what they were expected to do in the lesson. The teacher sometimes had to remind them to listen closely. It was interesting to see how their skills improved and how they coped with their individual limitations. When they did not have any lessons they worked on teaching aids which the teachers had prepared for them in advance. I used to sit next to them in order to help whenever they had any questions.
One day I sat next to a boy called Joarden. He was a really nice and intelligent boy even though he was not able to express himself properly and did not talk a lot. When I asked him any questions, I usually offered two possible answers to him so that he could choose one of them. That was his way of communicating with others. He had been working on one pretty difficult puzzle for a whole week and had nearly completed it. I had admired him for his patience and told him that I would never have been able to put the pieces together so fast. Joarden was also known as a really peaceful and calm boy. But that day, while continuing his puzzle, he did not seem to be in a good shape at all. I think it was because of the terrible heat which made the children nervous. Joarden suddenly jumped up and got aggressive, hitting everybody and everything within his reach. We calmed him by putting him on the floor and I soothed him by singing a French song to him. Luckily, he reacted to this and I finally managed to make him quiet again. He knows the song by heart now and I think he loves it.
On Fridays our pupils met their mates from another school and they all made music together. They sang together or played a drum. Some of the autistic children also attended integrative classes at Lord Williams's Lower School.
The head teacher asked me to do some German lessons with the children. So I had the opportunity to talk to those children in my mother tongue - and learned how difficult it is to teach handicapped children. Before I did that internship I only had a vague idea what autistic people are like. Autism shows on people who are very clever but unfortunately have problems to communicate with others. Autistic children like to play with toys but can also be fascinated by other things. Quite often they are able to fulfil difficult tasks without any effort. They also can remember a song or a text after listening to it or seeing it only once. 90 % of autistic children are male. That was something I did not know at all and it surprised me a lot.
What I have learned during my work experience is that autistic children are lovely, pretty smart and get aware of a lot more things than we recognize or even can imagine. They need our special care and attention because they want to be independent and to grow up in the same way as we do. We can help them to develop their individual skills and to turn out to be as self-confident and as independent as possible.
I found it very hard to say good bye to these children. I only spent a short time with them, but I won't forget the affection they showed to me. Winning their acceptance and even friendship was the best reward I could think of. Working in the autistic unit of Lord Williams's School was a great experience. I am very thankful to the teachers who trusted me and let me take part in everything. Even though I plan to take up a different career I loved to work there. Teaching at such an institution is not an easy job but the children are worth every effort.
Anne-Catherine Stromenger
