Guess Who’s Coming to Tea!

I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day! When I was six years old, I wanted to give a Valentine Tea. I made and sent invitations to some of my mother’s special friends.

I used Mother’s silver teapot, creamer and sugar bowl. I put her lace tablecloth on the dining room table with lace trimmed napkins and pretty china. I made special tea. I made heart-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I put them on a pretty silver tray.  

The invited guests all came. Some even wore hats and furs to make it special. They drank the tea and ate the little sandwiches and declared it was a wonderful time! Through my six-year-old eyes, it was magical!*

Once (ages and ages hence as Robert Frost said) I planned another Valentine tea. I invited a bunch of moms and daughters to another Valentine Tea. I went all out with decorations, food, planned activities including making each little girl a special apron to wear to decorate the heart-shaped cookies I had ready.


This time the invitations were fancier. There were many more invited guests. I polished my own silver teapot, creamer, and sugar bowl. I cleaned and decorated my house. I put on a pretty Valentine sweater and waited for the guests to arrive. The time came and went, and no one came! Finally one mom and daughter showed up. No one else came. No one else even called. That was it! We had our tea for three instead of 23.

What if my six-year-old self had made and sent the invitations, set the table, polished the silver, made the heart-shaped sandwiches and put on my prettiest dress all ready for the guests to arrive? What if no one came?

The truth is that only one of the other 10 moms and daughters who were invited even bothered to contact me after the fact to say something came up not any emergency – just something trivial.

WHAT IF NO ONE had come to my second Valentine Tea?  What would I have done then?  WHAT IF I had picked up my phone and started making phone calls to the invited guests?  WHAT IF one mom after another gave an excuse especially some silly excuse WHY she and her girl couldn’t come? WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE THEN?

A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷ At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.”

¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, “I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.”

¹⁹ Another said, “I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.”

²⁰ Still another said, “I just got married, so I can’t come.”

²¹ The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”

²² “Sir,” the servant said, “what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.”

²³ Then the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.”     – Luke 14:16-23

About that second Valentine Tea, I’m wondering how those guys in the group home a few blocks away would look in cute little Valentine aprons? OR how some of the guys and gals at the City Mission would take to heart-shaped sandwiches? Well, maybe not so much, but maybe I should plan for them the next time! Just sayin’ – You just never know who might be coming to the Tea Party!

*I have a very, very special mother who was willing to allow a six-year-old who thought she was pretty grown-up to attempt a Valentine’s Tea mostly on her own. It was the kind of freedom and encouragement that largely made me the grown-up person I have eventually become!

 

 

To Include or Not to Include???

To include or not to include? Include in what? Include where?
Basically the term inclusion is used to describe an educational model (applied in various settings) where students with special needs spend most or all of their time with more typical students. The concept becomes difficult in determining how to implement this practice.
I approach inclusion with more subjective than objective thoughts because I have a granddaughter who has Down Syndrome. She attends school in the same building she would attend if she did not have a Downs diagnosis. However, she goes to a single classroom. Her classroom is not bright and cheery. It is a bit dark and, from my observation, more baby-sitting than educating. There are no more than eight others in her "class." There is a "teacher" and an aide. But, from what I can see, the "teacher" doesn't do much teaching.
Vania doesn't get to change classes like other middle school students. She doesn't get the mental challenge of inter-active learning even on a modified basis.
Vania comes to school every day dressed very typically if how the other students are "decked out" is the indicator of typical. In fact, she makes a teenage fashion statement. Truth be told she loves knowing she looks cool!
I don't know what her typical day looks like but from just stepping into the classroom there didn't appear to be anything much going on. There was no music or books. There were no cheery bulletin boards. There were no learning or activity stations. It almost seemed to me like school for Vania is a time warp she walks into each day. The other students - some who appear to have more profound needs than Vania - don't seem to be doing much of anything either. The classroom is off down a fairly long dark hall. It's about as far from inclusion as a classroom setting could be!
I do understand that there are challenges to inclusion in an educational model. Just like for more typical students (whatever typical means) there is a wide range of ability among students, the same is true with students categorized as special needs.
Have you ever seen a truly typical middle school student? Personally I'm not at all sure what typical looks like in a middle school setting! The other day I was just hanging out with some middle school students who would probably pass for typical. There was not one single cookie-cutter kid in the bunch. Some even looked a little strange with all kinds of piercings (tongue, ear, lip, cheek and other unnamed places) and tats anywhere and everywhere. The style of dress can only be described as eclectic.
At home Vania has lots of stimulation in activity, media and family time. One of her very favorite things to do is take care of her new little baby brother. She loves him and he loves her! She gives him very good care. She is very responsible with her baby brother.
There is no one size fits all in any educational model! Inclusion is not achieved with a cookie-cutter mentality. In my opinion, inclusion that is effective requires educators and parents coming together to think outside the box and step outside their comfort zones to maximize the educational experience for every child!
The challenge goes to educators in both school and the church. The challenge goes to parents of both typical and less traditional students! The challenge goes to friends and advocates! The challenge is to dialogue and ponder and evaluate how to include every child in every possible way at school, at church, and in life in general!
I sit in on some special need network parent meetings. Sometimes there is so much pain in the room that I can hardly bear it! The stories Moms tell ................ Moms of mainstreamed kids at a local high school tell about their kids in regular classes for most or all of the day but then ostracized at lunch to sit at a table alone or with their "peers"! It's heart-breaking!
My Vania is very social! She loves people! Whenever I hear these stories, what I hear in my heart is the pain because I know my Vania needs to be included in every possible way! She is being raised by loving parents (and extended family) along with her three brothers and included totally.

We HAVE to find a way to be more inclusive! It matters all the way around! We ALL need each other with all our diversities! That's what gives depth and texture and color to the mosaic of life!

This is a great column by Dr. Jeff McNair, professor at California Baptist University and an expert on disability issues. I love his reference to the movie Babe! It's a fabulous analogy I wish I had thought of!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Opportunities and realities
Opportunities abound for the possibility of doing good. The question is will we see those opportunities, or be distracted by some comparative trivia, some historical reason for resisting change? The "we have always done it this way" as foolish as it sounds remains a powerful argument. We resist change because change moves us out of our current positions of comfort, or prestige, or simple thought processes. "If people with disabilities are suddenly worth my effort, what does that say about my lack of caring in the past?" Well, it says you were uncaring IN THE PAST. The real question is, will you be uncaring IN THE FUTURE?But courage is needed and I don't mean to demean that courage.

Take my favorite movie, for instance (although it is a bad comparison). The reason I love the movie Babe, is not because there are singing pigs and crazy ducks. It is the story of a man, Farmer Hoggett (I think), who saw something that no one else saw. A pig who could herd sheep. He then had the courage to enter the pig in a herding contest, to the laughter and demeaning of the crowd. At the end, the deriders are speechless as they finally see what he had seen. But it takes real courage to act on something that you see, when you know that most others don't see it. If the pig had not herded the sheep before the crowd, the farmer still would have been right, he just would have lost that particular opportunity to convince the crowd of what he had seen, of what he knew. He would have been ridiculed, but he would have been right.We are facing those kinds of opportunities today. We see something that I am hopeful we can help others to see. If we fail, that does not mean that our vision of a church that includes persons with disabilities is not a glimpse of reality. It means that we were simply unable to convince those who need to be convinced of the opportunities that lie before them, before us. I must also realize that I must be subservient to my Master, the Lord, who might be saying that the timing is not his timing. I must submit my will to his.
(Jeff McNair, blog Disabled Christianity, 10/28/2011)