A Safe Place for Joey

by Mary MacCracken

  I watched in fascination as David returned to the bubble and drew curving lines around it.

  “See,” he said. “You gotta be sure to make the bubble all wiggly. That way everybody will know the kid is thinking it, not saying it out loud. I mean like he’s screaming. That’s why you gotta write it big, but he isn’t making any noise.”

  “Is that what he’s saying … screaming, I mean? Help?”

  David nodded.

  “Why doesn’t he just say it out loud?”

  “He doesn’t know … I mean he knows something’s wrong, and he wants somebody to help him, but he’s scared that maybe whatever’s wrong can’t be fixed. So he figures he better not say it out loud – in case.”

  I nodded, not able to find equally good words for an answer. But I knew then that I would – had to – finish this book. Somebody had to say David’s words out loud.

  I lingered in my office after Nan and the last of the children had gone, reliving the day, relishing the time with David, trying to recapture the thoughts I’d had while I sat beside him. He was doing so well. Why? I needed to understand in order to help other children.

  Love, help from someone specifically trained to remediate learning disabilities, ending every session with success, and a safe place. “A safe place,” I repeated softly. I liked the sound of the words. I remembered thinking that this was why the children rushed to our kitchen, lingered there, even bringing brothers, sisters, or friends to wait for them till their lessons were done. The children had made themselves a safe place in our kitchen, and they knew it.

  I pulled a pad of paper toward me, feeling the urge to try to write it down. Could I take the unwritten rules of the kitchen, understand them, expand and translate them into the principles, the ingredients, of the kind of safe place that these children needed in their homes and schools?

  I worked every night for a week, staying in the office after the children left, going back up after dinner, filling page after page with stories of the children – their successes and failures, trying to crystallize their needs – then cutting, paring down the words, until less than a page was left.

  A Safe Place

  In a safe place people are kind. Sarcasm, fighting, backbiting, and namecalling are exceptions rather than the rule. Kindness and consideration and forgiveness are the usual way of life.

  In a safe place there is laughter. Not just the canned laughter of radio and television, but real laughter that comes from sharing meaningful work and play.

  In a safe place there are rules. The rules are few and fair and are made by the people who live and work there, including the children.

  In a safe place people listen to each other. They care about each other and show that they do, with words and also with body language.

  In a safe place the adults are the models for the others.

  I printed the words on a new piece of paper and then read them out loud. Each sentence set off a remembered montage of children, and I walked over to the shelf that held the children’s bins and read the rules of a safe place out loud once more to the absent children. Did I have it right? Were these the ingredients of a safe place?

  I put the paper on my desk, walked to the back window, and looked out over the dark woods and up to the stars above them.

  Which of us doesn’t need a safe place somewhere in our lives? Which of us hasn’t gone searching for it if we haven’t found it in our homes or schools?

  I believe that we must explore and dare and discover.

  But we also need to know that there is a safe place where we can find the comfort, courage, and confidence to conquer our feelings of inadequacy, pain, sadness, and failure so that we can go out and risk again.

  Children with learning disabilities experience humiliation and hurt earlier and more often than most. Their need for a safe place is great.

  I left the stars, and picked up the piece of paper and tacked it to the wall behind my desk. I would keep it there as a kind of creed to live by. A creed given to me by the children.

  Appendix

  Evaluation Summary Sheet

  INTELLIGENCE

  WISC-R: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Revised

  Verbal Section:

  Information – measures acquired knowledge

  Similarities – measures logical and abstract thinking abilities

  Arithmetic – measures numerical reasoning and concentration

  Vocabulary – measures word knowledge and language development

  Comprehension – measures practical knowledge and common sense

  Digit Span – Measures short-term auditory memory and concentration

  Performance Section:

  Picture Completion – measures visual alertness to details

  Picture Arrangement – measures social judgment, perceptual organization, and sequencing

  Block Design – measures perceptual organization and knowledge of spatial relationships

  Object Assembly – measures perceptual organization, spatial relationships, and ability to assemble puzzles

  Coding – measures clerical speed and accuracy, visual motor ability, and short-term visual organization

  Mazes – measures ability in following a visual pattern; foresight

  ACADEMICS ACHIEVEMENT

  WRAT: Wide Range Achievement Test – brief test of reading (word recognition), spelling, and written arithmetic

  SPACHE: Spache Oral Diagnostic Reading Test – word recognition; oral reading of sentences and paragraphs; phonetic analysis

  GATES MACGINITIE: Gates MacGinitie Silent Reading Test – speed, accuracy, vocabulary and comprehension in silent reading

  GRAY ORAL READING KEY MATH – oral reading and fluency math skills in numeration, fractions, geometry, symbols, mental computation, reasoning, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, money measurement, time, word problems

  WRITTEN EXPRESSION – dictation from grade level and spontaneous paragraph

  LEARNING MODALITIES

  DETROIT: Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude – various subtests of visual processing, auditory processing, eye-hand motor speed, and memory

  WEPMAN: Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test – measures ability to differentiate between sameness and difference of forty different word pairs

  HARRIS: Harris Test of Lateral Dominance – determines whether right- or left-eyed, -handed and -footed

  BENDER: Bender Gestalt Test – measures perceptual motor ability and development

  SENSE OF SELF

  H-T-P: House-Tree-Person – drawings of a house, tree, person, and family

  FREEMAN: Freeman Sentence Completion – completions of partial sentences such as “Books are …”

  SOCIAL HISTORY

  Background information form and parents’ perception of child

  Additional and alternative tests and procedures

  (Used when a child is under age six or when additional information about specific areas is needed)

  WPPSI: Weschler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence – measures intelligence of children ages four to six and a half

  McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities – measures overall development of children ages two to eight and a half

  Goodenough Harris Draw-a-Man – measures intellectual maturity and ability to form concepts of abstract character of children age three and up

  Gates MacGinitie Readiness Skills Test – measures listening comprehension, auditory and visual discrimination, visual-motor coordination of children in kindergarten and beginning first grade

  Zeitlin Early Identification (ZEIS) – short, multidimensional screening instrument for children ages four and five to detect strengths and weaknesses in learning abilities

  Slingerland Pre-Reading Screening Procedures – to screen for difficulties in auditory, visual, and/or kinesthetic modalities and first-grade academic needs

  Slingerland Screening Tests for Identifying Children with Specific Language Disability – to screen for spec
ific language difficulties in grades one through six

  Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) – measures receptive vocabulary

  Progressive Matrices (Raven) – measures ability to reason by analogy and to organize spatial perceptions

  Purdue Perceptual Motor Survey Revised Visual Retention – measures perceptual and motor skills

  Test (Benton) – measures visual memory, visual perception, and visuo-constructive abilities

  Peabody Individual Achievement Test – measures academic achievement for grades kindergarten through high school

  Moved by Joey’s story?

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  Read an exclusive excerpt now.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Wait just a minute, Mary. I want to talk to you.’ The Director covered the phone and nodded towards the coffeepot. ‘Pour yourself a cup. I’ll be right with you.’

  I hesitated, juggling the armload of books and old magazines I’d brought in. I didn’t want to stop now. This was the first day of school and the children would be arriving in a few minutes. I wanted to get down to my room, put away these last things, and make sure everything was ready.

  ‘Well, now, everything set?’ the Director said as she hung up.

  ‘I think so, except for these books and maybe a few travel posters that I’ll tack up until the kids get some paintings done.’ Our children were even more sensitive than most to the climate of their surroundings. I wanted no rush, no hurry, no helter-skelter when they first arrived. The Director understood this as well as I did. Why was she keeping me here, diddling around and chatting?

  ‘Uh, Mary, I wanted to tell you … there’s been a change in your class.’

  ‘A change? What do you mean? What’s wrong? Has something happened to one of my children?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve rearranged things a little.’

  I was instantly on guard. Euphemisms from the Director were always a danger sign. ‘Rearranged things?’

  ‘Yes. Last night when I went over the class lists I decided to put Hannah Rosnic in with you and move Carolyn –’

  ‘Hannah Rosnic!’ I interrupted. ‘How can that work? Brian and Rufus are almost ready for regular school – Brian’s twelve; this is his last year – and even Jamie is able to sit long enough to do some reading. Carolyn will fit in beautifully, I know she will. We took her on trips with us last year. I know she’s withdrawn, and her fantasies –’

  ‘I’ve put Carolyn in Ellen’s class,’ the Director interrupted in her turn. ‘I realised last night that it was asking too much of Ellen to take on Hannah. Ellen’s too new. She’s right for her other three and she’ll be good with Carolyn. But Hannah will be better off with you.’

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘what about the boys? And I don’t even know Hannah – except what I heard from down the hall last year. I don’t have any rapport with her. How am I going to get anything going between her and the boys? What makes you think they’ll accept her at all?’

  The Director sipped her coffee and lit a cigarette, fanning the smoke away from her eyes. She looked exactly as she always had, cheerful, dynamic, the strong sinewy cords in her neck softened by her feathery white hair. ‘I’ve thought about it. The boys will be good for her, give her a nice balance.’ She paused and smiled at me. ‘And Hannah’ll stir them up a little – give your room a little more excitement.’

  ‘Excitement? What do we need with excitement? We’ve all come a long way, but it’s possible that we could lose everything we’ve gained so far with Hannah in there.’

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ the Director said coolly. The phone rang. She picked up my untouched coffee and her half-empty cup and headed back to her desk, nodding to me and dismissing me at the same time. ‘Well, that’s set, then. Fine, I’ll send Hannah down when she arrives.’

  I gathered up my books and magazines and went out into the hall. What was I going to do? All I knew about Hannah Rosnic was that she had come to our school sometime in the middle of last year and had been in Shirley’s class at the end of the hall. I’d seen her, fat, dumpy, and dirty, on the playground, and I’d heard her, screaming and howling from her classroom. But that was all, except for a few dim memories of discussions at staff meetings. And now she was going to be one of my four!

  A last-minute change like this was unprecedented. Ours was a school for children with severe emotional disturbances. Each of our children was unique, with such individual problems as well as strengths that what was planned to help one child deal with anger and hurt and isolation would be useless to another. What I had prepared for Carolyn would never work for Hannah.

  And yet, this was what was going to happen. Once the Director had made up her mind, she wouldn’t argue and there was no point in trying to discuss it. If she had decided to move Hannah into my classroom, Hannah would be there.

  I opened the door to my room and immediately my spirits rose. It was a beautiful room, facing south, large, sunny, and bright. One of the school’s trustees had arranged for us to use this church building, rent free, while we waited for our new school to be built. This particular Sunday-school room had previously been off limits to us. It was the church’s pride and joy, full of play equipment, rugs, tables, even an easel for painting. One whole wall was open to sunlight, with five floor-to-ceiling windows. Best of all, there was a door opening on to the driveway outside. There is absolutely nothing better than a door of your own to the outside world. Compared to the cold, barren rooms I’d taught in before, this was heaven.

  Brian was the first to arrive. He came so quietly that if I hadn’t been watching I wouldn’t have known he was there. He came to the hall door and stood just outside it, his hands hidden in his pockets so I couldn’t tell whether they were trembling or not. Each year I think I’ve outgrown the ridiculous soaring excitement that I felt the first time I came to the school and saw the children. And then each year I find I’m wrong. The same spine-jolting, rocking delight hits me and spins me around, and I have to be careful not to somersault across the room when the children come.

  ‘Hey, Brian, I’m glad to see you.’ I walked across the room towards him, waiting for his smile, thin and sweet, to come and warm his pointed little face.

  But Brian didn’t smile. He didn’t even come into the room.

  ‘Why are we in here?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t our room. This isn’t where we were last year.’

  It’s so hard for our children to handle new situations. Their sense of self is so small, their beings so fragile, that if their outer surroundings change, they fear that they themselves will fall apart.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘this is the best room we’ve ever had. Don’t spurn luxury. Look, we’ve got a whole coat closet, instead of just hooks.’

  Brian took a step or two into the room and peered at the coat closet. ‘I liked just the hooks,’ he said.

  ‘And we’ve got blocks and trucks and a whole toy kitchen – a stove and a sink and tables – and now, look here, our own door. How about that? No more having to go through the office when we want to sneak out before lunch to ride our bikes.’

  Brian was all the way in the room now. ‘Do we still have the bikes?’

  ‘Sure. We’ve even got a couple of new ones.’ They weren’t really new – the church ladies and the Junior Leaguers had donated them – but they were new to us.

  Within the next minute Rufus arrived. He looked tanned and healthy and had obviously had a good summer.

  ‘Hey, Mary,’ he announced, ‘maybe we’re going to get a cat I’m almost not ’lergic anymore and my mom says as soon as I’m not ’lergic we can get one.’ He turned towards Brian. ‘And I’ll bring it in here, Brian, so you can see it.’

  Rufus walked comfortably around the room, commenting on everything, and I could see Brian loosening up, his fears diminishing. The children did so much for each other without realising it. Rufus’s explorations freed Brian to begin his own, and soon both boys were settled on the floor taking o
ut the books and papers and small supplies that I’d put in their individual cubbies.

  Jamie, the last of my three boys, burst through the classroom door and half rocked, half ran, across the room.

  I sat down fast. Jamie was eight and I’d only had him for one year. He was still potentially explosive, and the more body contact he got during times of stress, the better. A new room plus the first day of school added up to a lot of pressure.

  A huge grin stretched over Jamie’s face as he spotted me and headed straight on. I spread my legs as wide as I could to make a big lap and opened my arms. Without caution, without a pause in his breakneck run, Jamie took a flying leap and landed squarely in my lap.

  ‘Hey ho, Jamie,’ I said, wrapping him up in my arms. ‘What took you so long?’

  Jamie didn’t say anything, but then he rarely did. He just buried his head against my neck while I rocked him back and forth. Pretty soon he came up for air and surveyed the room from his safe station. Then, seeing Brian and Rufus contentedly sorting the contents of their cubbies and realising that he could stay where he was as long as he wanted, he gradually began to disentangle himself: first an arm, then another arm, then a foot, then the other – one quick turn around my chair, back on my lap, off again, this time to a chair of his own.

  By ten o’clock the room began to be ours. The boys had taken everything out of their cubbies and put it back again at least a dozen times – touching, feeling, even smelling everything before they were convinced that it really belonged to them. Jamie had tried out every chair in the classroom before he finally settled on one and thereafter carried it with him wherever he went.

  I’d cleaned out Carolyn’s cubby as unobtrusively as possible and was lettering new labels for Hannah’s cubby and hook in the coat closet when the yelling began. At first it was muffled; then the noise became louder, closer. There were piercing screams followed by silence. Then the screams began again, mixed with deep, throat-catching sobs.