The Trouble with School is They always Try to Teach the Wrong Lesson…

Did you catch the Wicked reference? If you didn’t, this is your public service reminder to go see it!

School is for learning and figuring out who you are as a person, as you navigate new social situations. However, when you are someone who has limited speaking abilities, are non-speaking, or are younger (developmentally) than your peers, this can seem like an uphill battle.

Don’t get me wrong. School is an amazing place to learn new skills and to grow but sometimes educators get stuck on grade level learning, that they miss the whole point of teaching communication all together; and this is not limited to school but also, therapeutic settings.

Let’s start by first talking about what communication is. It’s simply the act of exchanging ideas and thoughts with others. We all do this either by talking with others but also through text, emails, gestures, simple glances between friends, pointing to things…etc. It’s often a multimodal process where we talk and use our body language or our hands to convey a message. We can be animated if the topic excites us, or we can be subdued if we are just delivering information for the sake of delivering it.

We communicate because we WANT to. We do so for a variety of reasons, including asking for the things that we want, rejecting those that we do not, showing someone something that we love, sharing secrets, or even standing our ground for something we believe in. We communicate to share a piece of us with someone else, even if for a brief moment. We do it to connect with those around us.