Interview #2

For my interview I met with a woman who taught me over twelve years ago, my kinder garden teacher Mrs. Shell. I chose her because I have comforting memories of being in her class. She also has a daughter, Christina who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

What are the interviewee’s core values? What does she believe?
She believes children need to be educated to grow up learning how to accept others. Mrs. Shell noticed her daughter being stared at and called hurtful things by others when she was very young. She teaches her students that if we do hurtful things to others we’re hurting inside. When Christiana was first born Mrs. Shell received the most valuable advice, to treat her daughter like any other child. She will go through every stage but it will be delayed. “People with special needs can be regarded as a real inconvenience and a problem but it’s just the opposite. They give you so many incites about yourself. They teach us and we teach them” she told me. Her daughter taught her and her husband an immense amount of information about their values and professional lives. Her husband currently works with a support group for fathers with disabled children, and she volunteers for the Special Olympics. Mrs. Shell expressed her value of patience and how patience has helped her be a successful mother with Christina.

What is a story and/or metaphor that the interviewee used to illustrate her values and beliefs?
When Mrs. Shell notices that a student is having a hard time fitting in they go over recipes about how to build friendships and relates it to making cookies. “You use certain ingredients when you try to find a friend. That seems to work for most children but other children need more intervention” Mrs. Shell told me. This was interesting to me because my mom was recently explaining how kids on the autism spectrum commonly lack friends, and in the highline school district they teach these metaphors in their special education programs to help the autistic students learn how to react to social cues. “But as long as they have one person in the class be it the teacher or a class mate that they know cares about them they’re going to be successful,” Mrs. Shell told me. This makes me think back on the advice Mrs. Shell received about treating her child like any other. Everyone wants to be treated the same as anyone else and shaming people for their differences can lower their levels of happiness and concentration.

What are the “hard questions” about the interviewee’s values and beliefs? How would she respond to those questions?
“Prisons are filled with people who have learning disabilities. We need to address that and concentrate on those with special needs at a very young age so that children don’t turn violent,” she said. My belief is that children with learning disabilities simply need attention but in a different fashion. Instead of focusing on what these students can’t do teachers should focus on what LD kids are good at. Maybe the reason why prisons are populated with so many of our learning disabled citizens is because they believe they aren’t capable of being successful. Most of them grew up being discriminated against by our own public school system and couldn’t learn the things that interested them.

How has your perspective on your own beliefs and values changed as a result of the interview? What was your biggest takeaway that will influence your final credo?
I believe it’s important that people are able to accept our most vulnerable members of society, because we can learn great things from them. “You have a big responsibility now to help continue the formative process; that society has to recognize that people with disabilities are not lacking so much but they are showing us what they have in a different way and we have to have the eyes to see it,” she told me. I took this to heart and I want to help people see how different the world would be if we would accept everyone for their differences and not push them away. We have been gifted with people like Addie and Christina why feel ashamed?