I’m as surprised as you are. This is not the column I intended to write this week. What happened today (yesterday now) was something different. It was just a moment with a little boy, but for the both of us it was an exceptional moment. I have to share some background so you can appreciate just how moving the exceptional moment was.

I’m substitute teaching for School District 25 again this year. A computer calls and offers jobs. Some are single-day jobs and sometimes the computer offers multiple-day jobs. What seems to be consistent is that a high number of the substitute teaching requests are for aides in DLP (Developmental Learning Program) classes.

These are special classes for children who have all sorts of physical and developmental shortfalls. Some of the kids can’t feed themselves. Some can hardly walk. A lot of the children are nonverbal or nearly so. It takes a high ratio of adults to students to control these classes and deliver ability-appropriate lessons.

The past two weeks I have been a substitute aide in DLP classes. As one who is untrained in managing or teaching these children, my duties and assignments were limited. Sometimes I was just there to meet the required ratio of adults to kids. That’s not a bad thing. These classes are dynamic and the need for sudden intervention by trained staff is an ever-present likelihood. Even an untrained sub is a help when things get unruly or multiple students need interventions all at once.

So on this particular morning I was seated at a table with three children I did not know. They were of fourth and fifth grade age. All was just fine with two of the kids as they worked through various cut-and-paste worksheets that reinforced counting to ten and skip counting by tens. And then there was boy-x. With a cute grin on his face he was having a ball kicking me, pounding the table and throwing whatever was within his reach. His grin became a grimace as he struggled with the regular teachers and the intervention specialist all day long.

The day wore on and so did boy-x. Neither lunch time nor recess calmed him down. The afternoon’s regular class time for boy-x just wasn’t going to happen today. The afternoon came and the two of us sat back at the same table considering what to do next. The wise regular teacher casually handed boy-x a spiral notebook with mostly blank pages and I handed boy-x a red, fat-tipped felt marker. Then we were left alone to our own devices.

Finding a blank page boy-x wrote his short name in barley legible sweeping motions. Boy-x tapped on his name until I said it out loud. I drew crude pictures of an airplane and a sailboat with a boy at the controls. “Boy-x,” I’d say pointing to the pilot or captain. As he repeatedly touched the clouds, birds and the sun in the pictures it was clearly my role in the game to say those words. Boy-x then “wrote” the names of a few numbers on a blank page and drew a few geometric shapes.

Grabbing my finger and pulling it to the words or symbols he had drawn one at a time I said the number or the name of the shape. Boy-x became excited. He managed to utter other single digit number words, which I wrote as we passed the marker and the notebook back and forth between us again and again.

I must have had my finger drawn to his written word for “one,” “six,” and “nine” a dozen times and I said the number every time. Becoming even more excited boy-x uttered other numbers and tapped the page. I wrote the number names I could understand on the now cluttered page.

Finally our game changed as boy-x, in a concentrated frenzy, quickly pointed to number name after number name and I tried to keep up and say each number’s name. He’d tap so quickly word to word I had to tell him he was too fast for Mr. Paul.

This went on and on for 30 minutes or so. The announcement that it was time to go home didn’t break his concentration.

Now this may not seem like such a big deal, but it was almost like Helen Keller’s awakening to me. We were having a conversation. Boy-x knew what we were doing and he could tell I knew what we were doing too.

A professional educator may not think too much of this moment in boy-x’s long-term development. Maybe it was for nothing. Tomorrow morning boy-x may be back kicking me under the table and throwing everything in his reach. Be that as it may, together we shared a positive, enriching moment. Sadly I don’t think boy-x’s life is going to be all that packed with those kinds of moments. I’m humbled to be the one to share yesterday’s good moment with him. It may not have changed his life, but it certainly changed mine.

Paul Entrikin is a resident of Pocatello. He grew up in Baton Rouge and has two degrees from Louisiana State University. Following a tour in Vietnam as an Army officer, he began his career in information technology. The last 35 years of his career were with ExxonMobil at a variety of foreign and domestic locations.

Sign up today, or manage your subscriptions, to one of our great newsletters: Special Offers Daily Headlines and much more!

Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.

Check your email for details.

Invalid password or account does not exist

Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.

An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account.

Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.

A receipt was sent to your email.