The past two weeks I have had my nose down writing reports and planning for parent teacher sessions. So Pauline, when I did emerge from all that I discovered that you had said some truly insulting and ill-informed statements!

Your simple thinking gave simple solutions to a complex  situation, that you greatly underestimate.

The first thing that you misunderstood was naming something simply as autism; it’s called Autism Spectrum Disorder; there’s a range.

I have taught children who fit into that range, and I am richer as a human being and as a teacher for it! I do not feel it is a strain , I lean into that; I want to help each child achieve success in their day! Having a child who is part of the spectrum in my class has made for greater knowledge for all of us, for greater kindness and understanding.

Pauline, school isn’t just about the 3rs anymore,  it’s also about social and emotional learning. We are teaching the whole child to value diversity and helping them to grow into kind and thoughtful adults; who value lots of ways of experiencing the world.

I do not believe that any child in any of my classes has ever been held back by the strain of an autistic child being a classmate. There are many challenges in teaching and they are not just special needs, it is my job to plan for all students.

I have taught many children: there are children that I have taught who have required large print because they are legally blind, there are those who have been non verbal, there are those who are wheel chair bound and there are those that have suffered  trauma. It is through sharing daily routines with other children that all students awareness and empathy grows ; they totally benefit from being exposed to other ways of thinking.

Taking these children that you deem different and putting them in a room somewhere else?  It sounds like segregation to me. Please don’t insult a teacher’s professional abilities and choices. If you put children with autism in another room you will alienate all children from diversity and that peer learning that is so valuable.

Where are you planning to stop Pauline?  Will you put children of a different religion or culture in another room too?

Trust teachers Pauline, (certainly give us more funding that would be welcome; for all kids in public schools), but don’t separate us from diversity!

Best moments

• When an autistic child was laughing at the same joke as every child in the class
• working in a group, regardless of disability because they were wanted

I have never forgotten a child straining to learn Pauline, just  because I am spending time with a child with extra needs. I start at 8 and leave at 4 or after each day,  planning adjustments for all my little people. I want this so that they can go ahead in leaps and bounds! Just like every other teacher in the world!

Segregation is not the answer, provision and  inclusion is!

She is, beautiful, inspiring, nurturing, intelligent, funny, empathetic, sexy, brave, smart, bossy, submissive, learner, teacher, quiet, loud, big, small, tall short, slender, curvaceous,

And she is important.

Last week I was waiting to get in to see the doctor. You see in my heart I am still that good girl, not wanting to bother others about my importance. I thought that surely there’s a reason it’s taking so long, that given time they will get to me, next. Finally at 40 minutes of waiting I asked and the receptionist said oh yes, she’s busy today. I went and waited until it ticked over to one hour and ten minutes, then tearfully requested a new appointment for the following week. I was not crying because I was hormonal or had my period, I was frustrated and felt invisible on that day.

I fear that women have become apologetic feminists. Too often I hear other women when putting forth a plea, qualify themselves by saying “I’m not a feminist but..” Are all women raised to wait, to take up less room, use calm voices? They don’t want to be called, strident, harsh, bitchy, bossy or radical; because if we do flex our under-practiced need for equality and vocal muscles we are in danger of being called these things.

The following Sunday of the same weekend as the doctor debacle I had another moment of invisibility,

” Surely not!” I hear you say dear reader but yes. I looked into the cashier’s eyes when requesting a change in my billing along with a recognition that my name had changed and I saw nothing reflected back, no warmth or validation. What happened to the sisterhood?

What did she see dear reader? Possibly a 47-year-old having an embarrassing melt-down in her shop, that cashier was maybe 23? She needed this female customer gone, needed calm, needed order, needed to look in control, didn’t have life experience to help,

“40 is old dude and why is she so bitter?”

When I married I had lovely ideals about all of us having the same name, had I known how much of me was lost in taking my husband’s surname and then how hard it is to recover and how often I now have to prove who I am, then I would advise don’t let it go!

I asked for my billing name to be changed, I had a current bill that had my former married name on it, but she said she couldn’t change it without proof! I needed some old id with my photo and old name; which I didn’t have with me.

She reverted to,” I cannot legally change this account without that.”

The company was still accepting money out of my account regardless of the name attached! I was steaming by then, leaving with her helpfully raising her voice for the other customers queued behind

“Have a nice day!”

Talking about feminism my son, said, “There are really radical one’s Mum”

So is there a wrong kind of feminist?

The Oxford Dictionary definition says it is:

The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

I am not asking to take up more space than a male, I am asking for the same rights.

I am not strident, harsh bitchy, bossy or radical. I am a human, a good girl learning to flex her muscles.

My son pointed at my bookshelf last summer and said,

“Have you read all those books in your bookshelf?” He looked at me in disbelief, challenging me as he peered at me through his fringe,

“Yes, actually yes all of them” I stuttered

” Why do you keep them then, if you’ve read them?” he continued

“Because I might read them again, because I like them” I hastily responded, somehow feeling I had to justify the ongoing presence of my stuff in the living room. He sauntered off to his room.

Why did I feel the need to defend my books, and my connection to them and their right to exist? Why was my stuff so important?  I guess the stuff we keep and cannot throw away carries personal meaning. Books contain words, that convey stories, that convey knowledge. It’s important to me. When my son asked me why I kept the books it really resonated inside me and I jumped, why did he say it? Someone I once knew insisted I store all my books in storage, books he said, were kept by people to show off and only made a house messy. I could have a shelf in the bedroom which visitors couldn’t see. Foolishly I agreed but it wrent my heart ,that all those words I loved, were relegated to one shelf and tucked away not to be publicly celebrated.

It makes me think about stuff and our attachments to it. Should I expect others to love my stuff? Should I love their stuff? I think it’s nice if you can, because the stuff you carry and can’t throw away means something to you, it’s a clue to your heart and the things that you value. But to say one’s stuff is more important than another’s, renders the other isolated from the things that show others, and themselves who they are. It also says something about the value of a person to another; if there is no space for their stuff in your life.

Stuff doesn’t have to be in things either there is stuff that we all carry inside us an internal touchstone a dialogue that we use to understand and interact with the world. Like a belief in faith or lifestyle, politics, money, class or manners. For me I still can’t comfortably walk down the street eating, the manners stuff gets in the way. When I was small my mother told me it was bad manners to walk in public eating because others who had to go without would see me and be hungry. I understand that this is my stuff because I’ve seen others eating happily walking down the street; clearly they’re not carrying that stuff.  Why does someone pronouncing the f in often offend my ears or someone naming the letter H as hach annoy me so much? It’s my stuff, the internal stuff I bring to all my conversations. Setting a table properly, waiting until everyone is seated before commencing eating these form the interface of my deliberation s in the world, this is the stuff I sometimes let go or sometimes if there are too many together I hold onto.

The thing with stuff is knowing when and what to hang onto it and when to throw it away.