Sometimes its sad

As a teacher, I expect to work with students from every walk of life. Being that my field is early childhood special education, I also expect many different things when I'm introduced to a young child that I may be servicing. Kids can qualify for my program MANY different ways. They have to qualify in two different areas of development, below a certain age level cut off, or else they have to have some sort of developemental disability of some sort that has been known to hinder development. I could get anywhere from a child who has speech/language and motor delays, to children who have trouble problem solving, to children who have behavioral issues, to those that may be on some type of spectrum, or have a disability. Its a rainbow, really, and I love working with the variety I get.

I'd say typically, I get half and half when it comes to parent interaction and support with the kids. Sometimes I have the most excellent parents working with me, and working on the needs of their child, and sometimes it takes frequent calling and notes and nagging before I even get a response to talk to them. There can be a variety of reasons, culturally, socially, economically, as to why this is, and I understand that. But it often makes my heart hurt.

I just went out today on a home observation for a child that may be entering our program. I go out to determine if we should complete formalized standardized testing or not, to determine if they would qualify for the help. In this case, it was and is very clear that this child will qualify, and what made me and my co-worker groan in pain, was the fact that my almost-10 month old daughter is able to understand and respond more than this child, who is 3 1/2 times her age in years. It's amazing to me, really, the extremes there are in this world, in this society. It makes my heart sad, but, as I've been told before, I can't save them all. *sigh*.