Goodbye Disabilities Center

It's been almost three years since I worked at the Disabilities Center. Proctoring tests to disabled students was my part-time job in grad school. I am immensely grateful for the experience. I worked daytime only, on campus, and sometimes I was set in duties where I could read or write. The position helped me become a better teacher and certainly a much better person.

I was let go at the start of my final semester of school. I was devastated. My boss fought to keep me, but I was already a halftime instructor for ASU, and with Obamacare looming, the school was was paranoid about providing benefits. In a truly demeaning manner, the HR person for my graduate program wrote me saying I was being forced out of other work because I needed to focus on my studies. (After providing proof I had maintained an A average during my entire tenure at school she admitted, "Okay, it's about not giving you health care.")

I remember one of my last days at work. I was scribing for a student in a wheelchair who didn't have the use of his hands. I wrote out the short answers for him on his history exam. He coughed and asked if I could reach in his bag, get the water bottle, insert a straw, and give him a drink. "Sure," I said. I was holding the water to his mouth and thinking about the exam topics. I was remembering some stuff about Britain's empire I had forgotten since high school. (Another thing I loved about the job--insight to so many subjects!) He said, "Okay," and I put the bottle away. I had a conscious thought, "That would have felt weird two years ago." Even interviewing with my boss, a woman who was very slow to speak with, what seemed like, little control of her head, had set me on edge. I want to believe I was simply concerned in an interview scenario that I wouldn't nail it because I was having some trouble understanding her, but truthfully I had never spent an extended time with anyone much physically different than me. On that Arizona cool December day, while jotting down answers about British opium trade, the bitterness of being forced from my job melted. I felt a swell of thankfulness for the empathy education I had slowly accumulated without even knowing it.

Politically Correct Comedy

Last night my comedy cohort had a show. We all go there an hour early to watch the cohort behind us perform. Ah, there's nothing like shoddy little Sunday night improv sets. It was a goofy time. There are good scenes, there are far more mediocre scenes, and there are rare stupid stupid stupid scenes that are honestly more enjoyable than a fully-perfected Pulitzer stage play.

So this scene was happening on stage with an American man and a thick-accented German woman. She was explaining how her parents are "retarded now" (audience went "eee" like one might do upon opening a moldy tub of Cool Whip). Then she went on to explain, "They just hang around and need entertainment." Oh. Okay. She's playing a character whose English is a little off and confused retired with retarded. Okay. Unbelievable because German people are language-learning robots, but okay. We all let out sighs of relief...until two other people on this gal's team show up PORTRAYING RETARDED PARENTS. The missed the subtext. "No," I audibly whispered. But it was too late. Two improvisers were impersonating senior citizen retarded Germans. Lord save us all.

So, it was our turn. Our teach corralled us backstage. Several people were horrified by the audacity of the previous team. Others got it was a big misunderstanding. We were clumped in the greenroom. I said, "Let's make a pact right here, right now, as a group, to never impersonate retarded people onstage." We all put our hands in the middle of the circle." But Wolf shook his head. "I can't make that promise," he said. "You never know."Then Pinker recoiled in agreement, "I mean, what if the scene calls for it?" Another guy: "Honestly, I think I'd play a really good retarded character if the scene called for it." The scene will never necessitate mocking the mentally handicapped! I shouted. "Okay, hands in." Pinker sighed. Then quickly he yelped, "Always play retarded people on three! One, two, th--" and luckily our coach came back in the room and started a warm-up exercise.

Private Room Syndrome

One of my students hums when she writes. I don't think it is conscious, and it is just quiet enough that it would feel strange to make a fuss about it...but not so quiet that it's not annoying. I am contemplating how to approach the issue because this student is autistic and has confided in me that certain things can really fluster her. What if she can't stop?

I am reminded of a very bubbly student I often worked with at my old post in the disability center. She was talkative and happy, but when she was alone with a test suddenly she would let out the most aggressive strings of curses, tell herself she was stupid, scream, pound on tables. We put her in a one-person study room for exams. The one-person study rooms were highly coveted. No door opening like in the ADD room. No scratching of others' pens. Lots of space to stretch. Students who had mild anxiety would often try to weasel their way into those rooms. "They are reserved," we would explain. We didn't allow anyone in even if they weren't going to be used all day so no one would get used to the treatment.

But I would show this girl to her room and she would say, "Oh, no thank you. I would like to be in the bigger room." I would explain she was placed in the private room. "No, I don't want it." We would explain she was a distraction to others and she just couldn't believe it. She fought us basically every time.

Disability Momma

Last spring I wrote about a girl I saw at work (the disability center) who was nervous about a math test to the point of tears and pregnant and very young. I was worried for this girl.

A few weeks after I wrote that post, I saw her again. She was outside a building, waiting for a ride. She looked miserable and was very ripe with babe. It's against policy to approach a student I know from work outside of the center, so I had to just walk on by. I've considered that gal a few times a week spring.

This year, the girl showed up again! She had dark dyed hair now and seemed very happy. She wore a wedding band and carried a cute cartoony backpack. She made small talk with me and showed no signs of anxiety at all. I was so happy. I have no idea if she has the baby or not. I am just glad she is okay.

You never know who is rooting for you.

Half-Moon Tummy

A mousy girl with untamed eyebrows and frizzy brown hair pulled back in a scrunchie sat down across from me at the testing center. I greeted her.
"Hello, do you have a test at 2:30?" It was almost time.
"No," she said. "It's at 3."
"Well, you have a while then."
"I know. I try to get my nerves out before I actually take the test." She adjusted her glasses.
"Well, that's smart." I smiled and went back to reading Catching Fire.
Half an hour later, she was putting her backpack away, and I realized this wiry kid I'd pegged as 19 had a half moon tummy. Preggers.

At about 4 PM one of my co-workers came out of the testing hall. "There's a student who needs to ask the professor a question. Will someone walk her there?" Everyone looked down at their projects, but I felt like sunshine. I volunteered, and mousey wires came out holding the test shakily.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Oh, it's quite alright. I'm looking forward to a walk!"
We left the building, and in the light I could see she had been crying.
"I'm just worried because he might not answer my question," she quivered.
"Well, it's just one question," I said. I smiled at some orange trees.
"It's just...none of my friends have to take chemistry" (she is a bio major I learned) "so they never know what's going on...and I never know what's going on..." Tears welled.

We got to the lecture hall. Hundreds of kids doing equations. She gingerly stepped to the professor and came back, still a little uneasy. "I don't know what I need to know," she said. She sighed and absentmindedly rested a hand on her bump. She said thank you. I said It's my job! And I love AZ in April! We walked on.

"It's okay," I said. "The great thing about tests is that they end no matter what happens. In a couple hours it will be over, and there's nothing else you can do." She nodded, and I handed her test back. As she walked back into the hall, I stared at her stomach. I had so many thoughts. She turned around to give me a final notice of..appreciation? Solidarity? But I was just staring at her middle. I averted my gaze, but it was too late. She saw.

Declaring Murder: Part III

We've talked about my place of part-time employment, right? I work at a disability center proctoring tests for students. It's different every day. Sometimes I just sit with ADD kids in a small empty room and read, periodically checking if they are cheating. Sometimes I fill in scantron bubbles for kids with casts. Sometimes I walk around campus delivering completed tests back to professors, wondering how many freaking holiday office parties I am going to interrupt, and how come no one has the decency to offer me any of those delicious cookies.

So, recently I was proctoring for a woman with slow speech, a big leg brace, glasses. I had to read her test aloud and follow her instructions from her to look up answers in her text book. It was an intro biology class. She had failed it three times before she told me. A 100-level class with open book exams. Multiple choice.

This woman did not get how to play the game. For example, if the question was like, "When was the first Homoerectus fossil, Lucy, discovered?" she would say, "Okay, check the Index to see if "fossil" is in there." As a proctor, I can't help students with any material based questions. So, I couldn't offer a simple, "You know, fossil gives us a lot of pages...why not try "Lucy" first?" I just sat there, flipping back and forth between all the uses of "fossil" and reading sections aloud. Sometimes I would read the answer to the question in a section of text, and she wouldn't catch it. I'd repeat, but only as much as she would ask me. I couldn't say, "Hey...it's this. It's D. I just read it."


State Fair poultry. November 2011.

She was really nice, but she just didn't know. Ultimately, I think she did alright. I was just so flustered to be a drone. So flustered this is what education is in the United States at the University level. I asked what her major was as we walked out of the little testing room. She explained she was a sociology major--hoping to one day be a counselor for battered women. "So I can help them get out before it's too late, even though I couldn't," she said. "My husband shot me in the head."

I exhaled. I am so glad I was not short with this woman. I am so glad I have learned patience and understanding over the years. Lord help this woman become a counselor even if she doesn't have a brain for biology.