A-B-C, it's easy as 1-2-3.

It was a decent first week back to school. The beginning was off to a slow start, but then I worked at a special needs school and a familiar, very diverse public school. 

I have worked at special needs schools before, but even this was a new experience for me. For most of the day I was in a classroom with seven children who have severe cerebral palsy; five of them were in wheelchairs and they were all nonverbal. It is a very different teaching children who have limited capacity to display their emotions and thoughts. More of the teaching ends up being about social skills, very very basic life skills (like older students might learn how to wash dishes), and just generally having routine. A lot of their day is spent with the aides attending to their various care needs - mainly toileting/changing their diapers, and eating. I even had three who don't eat orally at all; they had feeding tubes with some kind of formula. That blew my mind thinking of how much I love food, thinking of how they never get to just enjoy something as simple as a piece of pizza. I've always had good classroom aides, and these women were exceptionally good. It is such a demanding job. If they're lucky, they get thanked with a smile from the children they are constantly helping with every basic need. If they're not lucky, they might get punched or have their hair pulled by some of the older children that can get unhinged at times, when trying to communicate. Anyway, the people at this school are all heroes in my book. I was there for a day; they are in the trenches day in and day out, just so these kids can have some semblance of a normal life and make tiny progress every day. 

At the other school where I worked this week, I am a familiar face. It's one of the few schools where a lot of teachers and students know me by name. When I say it is a diverse school, I mean that very often I am the only even half half-caucasian person in the room. The students tend to come from various countries in Asia and the Middle East. Almost every class has at least two kids that are new arrivals who barely speak English at all. I was in a classroom for two days with a lot of kids I've taught before, and they predictably put me through the ringer for the first day. The second day they were a little more fun and we were able to do cool stuff, like build bridges out of popsicle sticks for STEM. 

I already valued education, but these experiences in my first week reminded me of the importance of ensuring that all children in a community have equal access to education. With the future of education uncertain in the US because of reckless choices being made at the top, I am thankful that I work in a country that has an amazing public school system that really does respond to the diversity and needs of their different populations.