The story behind my essays

I left my Ph.D cap and gown and went up a notch in my long professional climbing when I decided to leave academia to become a school teacher of children with autism. I was guided by my instincts and my heart. It turned out to be the best decision of my professional life and the right one for me.

Having arrived to the academic point where one is about to be "crowned" as tenured Faculty, I was considered very crazy after leaving that position for a small self-contained classroom in Miami Beach. Nonsense right? Criticisms was wide and varied. Who would ever consider joining the bunch of poorly paid and discredited teachers? ME.

With the plan of never completely disconnecting but later returning full time to academia, I furthered my experiential base beyond academic boundaries. My eagerness to learn was such, that I saw in this move and in the classroom about to discover, a magnificent way to continue deepening my knowledge of special education and Autism. I was right!

For four years, I payed out of my own pocket weekly supervisions from a psychiatrist specialized in autism to watch my work over. A completely new kind of work full of uncertainties and questions. I felt a deep sense of responsibility for these children. They were for me more than a job to be done. It was not just the meager stable salary that moved me to make this move. Perhaps I was not trained as the typical Special Ed Teacher and my inquisitive mind was not only intact but on fire with the mere possibility of discovering and empowering these enigmatic kids. To me these children were linked to my own empowerment and growth.

The children were all "Autistic" but in reality not all of them were. Due to budget cuts the school did not have a suitable place to locate all the kids that were out of the norm, so they declared them autistic as there was, after all, a small room to place them regardless of them being placed in the right environment to learn or not.

It was there where I learned that all children, including children with profund autism were also socially inclined if one knew what to do. Likewise, children with emotional or personality problems, also benefited from being in a small room with children with autism characterized by their noble nature. Their aggressive behavior, when present, had nothing to do with the true manifestation of aggression neurotypical children exhibit.

My learning experience through these years is reflected in these essays that I shared with my therapist as a way to explaining the life in the classroom. I Hope you enjoy it.