The child that could not stand the noise, this is a story that touches my heart every time I think about it. There was a little boy called James who came to school for the first time.
He was 7 years old and a very lovely little boy. For some reason his teacher came to me and said she does not know what to do with him, he seems nervous and he is always holding his hands over his ears as if he does not want to listen to her. He will not say letters with us or do anything.
I called him into my office and sat talking to him. I could not understand at all why he was feeling this way, and he would not talk about his home.
This made me realise that there was something wrong there, and the only way that this can be resolved was visiting the home.
I told him the next day that I will take him home as I wanted to talk to his parents. He was nearly in tears and begged me not to come. As you can imagine this made me even more suspicious and I did just have to get to that house and see why this child is so nervous. It took me another day or so to convince him that all I wanted to do was meet his parents and talk to them.
That afternoon I went to his house and he was waiting outside for me as he was still not absolutely happy with me being there. He asked me if I wanted to go inside and I said yes I would love to.
When I met his parents they were the most wonderful friendliest people and they were smiling all the time as they were so glad that someone was interested in helping their child.
Then: the shock that explained everything to me. They were both deaf and dumb so this child who was an only child lived in this very quiet house where he spoke finger language or sign to his parents. He then explained to me that they never have people over as most people could not communicate with his parents and that meant that he never met children to play with.
School he told me was the noisiest place he has ever been, he feels so nervous with all the noise the children are making in the class and they all talk at once. He cannot keep up with them it is just too much for him to work through.
He says the teacher and the children talk and then he does not know who to answer and he gets mixed up.
I can assure you I felt awfully sorry for him as I could understand what he meant.
He was just overwhelmed by what was happening around him. I told my vice principal everything and said to keep him busy in the office while I talk to the class and the teacher. You will not believe how sorry they all felt for him. I told them to talk to him one at a time and please not to talk so loud until he gets use to the school.
The children were wonderful, they all made friends with him and they really tried to be nice and not to loud, within a month he was use to school and this did not bother him anymore.
One day he and his parents came to my office and he told me they just wanted to thank me for all that I have done to make him feel better and they can see a happy friendly child at home as well. For some reason we were the only school that did not reject his application for school which I never understood as how on earth can the parents being deaf be a problem to the school. I told them it was only a pleasure and he was a wonderful little boy with lots of friend, and they even started sleeping over at his home.
so his life was really changing and he did all he could to make us and his parents proud of him.
Hope you enjoyed my post and have a wonderful day here form the Wild Coast.