Bk Review: Raising Blaze: A Mother and Son’s Long, Strange Journey into Autism

Raising Blaze: A Mother and Son’s Long, Strange Journey into Autism by Debra Ginsberg
Harper Perennial Reprint edition, 2003.
2002 title. Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World by Debra Ginsberg HarperCollins, 2002

Nonfiction

Blaze is not your typical child. In fact, because of his extreme behavioral issues, he is a child in need of great support in a modified educational program. He has a strong family support system: a mother, Debra Ginsberg, a writer who willingly gave up her own job and personal success to ensure that Blaze had at least a fighting chance to get a fair and balanced education of his own. The book details the emotional journal of Blaze, his mother, and his extended family (grandfather, mother’s sisters, and a brother) all of whom pitched in to help when the school system proved to be too much for Blaze.

Ginsberg ran the gamut of regular teachers, special education teachers, aides, psychologists, therapists, principals, meeting them all in and out of classrooms and Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings held to determine the course of Blaze’s school life. Multiple attempts at a proper diagnosis and thus a handicapping condition label left school personnel and family members frustrated. Blaze did not fit neatly into a DSM-IV (the catalog of handicapping conditions labels and descriptors), not that the label would have helped anything. After years of frustration and major disappointments with the educational system, Ginsberg threw down the gauntlet and got a legal advocate for her son.

The book covers Blaze’s life from conception, his difficult birth, the years of doctor’s visits and tests, through year after year of educational crises. Fifth and sixth grades provided a measure of relief in the form of an exceptional special education teacher who was even willing to take Blaze on the annual sixth grade camping trip, a potentially traumatic event for an autistic child.  The book ends after an abortive beginning in seventh grade. Ginsberg and her family begin to home-school blaze in a team effort, with the plan for him to eventually return to school.

Ginsberg wrote this book because she could never find one to read herself when she was in the throes of Blaze’s chaotic school years. She says,

It is true that every human story is unique, yet it is also true that there are qualities we all share as humans. Among those qualities are our differences and thus our sameness. My hope for Raising Blaze was that others would find themselves in this perspective and in our story.

I connected with this book in three ways, first as a mother of a special needs child (I remember those IEP meetings well!), as a special education teacher, and as a school administrator. Because I had sat in the parent’s seat at the IEP meetings for my daughter, I felt I had a better understanding of the parents’ feelings and goals when I sat in the educator and administrator’s seats for their children’s IEPs. Each role made me a better fit for the other roles.

Debra’s book does some of that, too. She tells the truth when she relates the discomfort a parent feels in IEP meetings. As a frequent parent volunteer and a special education classroom aide, she realized that she not only has to teach these children, she needed to touch their hearts. These children well know that they are different, and they need teachers who will treat them as the special persons they are. They are not just a collection of behaviors that vary from the norm.

Teachers and parents of all children should read this book for insights into the world of special education. As an administrator (if I were not already retired), I would have my entire faculty and staff read the book, and then share it with the school community. The book has messages for each person who reads it.

Blaze was in seventh grade at the end of Ginsberg’s book. Now he is in his twenties, and he has written a book about his experiences: Episodes: My Life as I See It. I am looking forward to reading this book, too.

T is for. . . Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo Needs a Pronoun

Tuesday, April 23,  is T-Day in the A to Z Challenge.

For this day, I want to share a favorite childhood story, one that I have used many times in my teaching career.

Tikki Tikki Tembo, by Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent

Tikki tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo has such a long name because he is most honored as the first-born child in this traditional Chinese family. Translated, his name means, “the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world.”

The second son in the family merited only a short name, Chang, meaning, “little or nothing.”

One day, while their mother washed their clothes in a nearby stream, first son, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, and second son, Chang, went up the hill to play.

Mother warned them not to play near the well, but did they listen? No.

Chang fell in the well, and Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo raced to tell his mother and the sleepy old man with the ladder. The sleepy old man with the ladder rescued Chang, and all was fine.

But did these boys learn their lesson? No.

Once again, first son, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, and second son, Chang, went up the hill to play near the well. But this time, Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell in the well, and Chang had to run to mother to get help. But he had to tell her what happened over and over again because she could not hear him over the noisy stream.

Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell into the well.
Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell into the well.

And Chang had to say it a third time because he hadn’t said his brother’s name honorably enough on the second try.

Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo

By then, some time had passed. And then he had to wake up the sleepy old man with the ladder and repeat his message three more times til the old man understood him.

Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell into the well.
Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell into the well.
Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo fell into the well.

At this point, quite a bit of time had passed. Eventually the sleepy old man with the ladder rescued Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, and all was well again.

After that, Chinese family started to give their children shorter names.

***

Now wouldn’t it have been easier for Chang to simply use a pronoun instead of Tikki’s whole name?

He fell into the well.

Ah, but then the beauty of this story would be lost. Part of the enchantment is the rhythm and repetitiveness of the story. Children love to chant Tikki tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo as you read the story.

***

Click on the next link, and you can see and hear the complete version of Tikki Tikki Tembo narrated by Peter Thomas.

The Last Meow

Not to be outdone by Tikki, our honorable Mr. Very Handsome White Cat has recited his own version of this story. Well, at least he tried. Better luck next time!

Hey can you say this three times without messing up?

Tikki tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-cari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo. . .

Meow for now. 

=[^;^}= 

Do You Remember This Poem from High School?

English class was always my favorite class in high school.

I enjoyed the required readings, at least, most of the time. But I especially remember a number of poems we studied, and sometimes bits of them pop back into my mind.
I remembered one poem on my way home from meeting with our tax man the other day. On a backwoods country road, we passed a white clapboard cottage with a weathered, split-rail fence surrounding the yard. And under the fence was a multitude of daffodils, the first of spring. I had my husband stop the car so I could take a picture.

When we got home, I looked up poems about daffodils and found the one I remembered: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth. Then I found a video of Kevin Geary reading it. It brought back lots of memories of my favorite teachers and the wonderful poems they taught us.

YOUR TURN

Do lines of poetry that you learned in high school pop into your mind from time to time? What memories do they trigger?