Thank you, thank you, for how well you did at OAC on Tuesday! I am SO proud of all of you! You all behaved so well and were so brave when helping out the two classes. There definitely were some behaviors that you probably were not used to, but you did great. I loved how you treated those students with the respect and love that they deserve. I hope that you enjoyed having that experience!
Today in class I gave you your final project information. Just a reminder that I need to know what you have chosen by Wednesday. Please take some time to think about this.
The main goal of this project is for you to show me what you have learned over the semester. I want you to do your best to incorporate information about autism, the LINKS class and your peers. Chances are, if you show me your "journey" through this past semester, with a little bit of knowledge on autism, creativity, time and effort, you will receive a great grade.
I have included your "menu" here on the blog for those of you who might have misplaced it.
linksfinalprojectmenu-6.pdf |
Hello! My name is Ainslee, though, that much you already know. I'm thirteen years old, though I'm often treated like I'm an adult. I'm a very music oriented person. As well as being in Choir and Orchestra, I am in a rock band outside of school. The majority of my friends are members of touring bands, I seem to connect and open up to them much better than I do to those of my own age group. Music, for me, is basically, free therapy.
I guess you could say I'm mature for my age. I try to help out as much as I can. I think that's one of the main reasons why I was so drawn to LINKS. I've always liked helping people, I was better at helping others and making others happy than I was at helping or making myself happy. I've had many highs and lows in LINKS class, already.
One of the hardest things that's happened is having to watch one of the boys' suffer from severe anxiety. It broke my heart seeing him so distressed and uncomfortable, hitting himself and whining uncontrollably. I went to elementary school with him and it's certainly not the same person I was used to seeing.
A personally favorite experience I had was around the second week of school. I had been eating lunch with one of the boys and then walked him back to his locker. While he put his things away I asked him basic questions. How are you doing?, Did you have fun at lunch?, Do you like Jr. High? stuff like that. I got back what I expected, basic and simplistic answers. What I didn't expect was the response I got to,'What's your favorite part of math class?'. The boy kept fiddling with his backpack and said,'Well...When you and Alex come down to help us!'. It literally MADE. MY. DAY. I was so excited and happy, I thought I was going to cry right there.
LINKS is something that makes me genuinely happy. It's the highlight of my day. I know that walking away from LINKS, at the start of second semester, it will make me a better, more compassionate person.
Have a wonderful weekend and be prepared to have a little Christmas party on Wednesday!
Mrs. VanLaan