I'm Staying at Richard's by Bernadette Agius

Author:Bernadette Agius
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

From the start, Richard was in the care of some excellent teachers. There was a lot more protocol than there had been at Mount Kuring-gai, our beloved mainstream primary school. At St. Edmund’s you could enter the school only via security doors, as some kids liked to go wander off. Because of the varying medical issues of the students, there was already a lot of stuff in place to keep the kids safe and on the right track: no slacking off on school uniforms; frequent parent-teacher meetings that set the term goals . . . There was no slacking off on academics. The students were expected to learn. Classes were not about watching TV and coloring but true learning with books and Bunsen burners, school excursions, concerts, and award presentations. Richard enjoyed the smallness of the school, navigating his way around new rules, participating in debates, and making new friends. Some students troubled him. I knew they would. Aggressive, loud behavior always worried Richard. It was not so much that he was scared. Rather, he was overwhelmingly empathetic. He hated to see anyone distressed and didn’t cope well with it. Tears came all too easily.

My goal was to get settled into our new environment before introducing even more new elements to our lives, including people. So I decided to hold off on playdates and sleepovers with any new classmates, which in our case would actually be more like weekend trips. More importantly, I didn’t want to do that thing that many parents mistakenly do and invite kids over because they like the parents. The kids might not like each other at all. There was also a more pressing issue for me that I had to come to terms with: my own prejudice. When Richard was in primary school, I didn’t have to worry about “disability” in the larger sense. But here in high school was a school full of kids with a wide range of disability. Down syndrome I could deal with. As for the rest, I was not so sure.

During that first year at St. Edmund’s we all found our way around the system, made new friends, and got to know the teachers and the office staff. Rich struggled with some of the academic stuff. I think that was partly to do with the last year at Mount Kuring-gai, when funding had been harder to come by and he did not get that vital one-on-one education. At St. Edmund’s we were lucky enough to have Judy Welsh as Richard’s homeroom teacher for the first two years.

As Richard got older and more comfortable with his school surroundings, he started to enjoy learning. I loved listening to him describe all the things he was doing at school. Graeme was fabulous at making models with Richard, from volcanoes to train sets to woodworking projects. I loved that Richard could make things. I loved that he was actively participating in school life. I loved that he was not coming last anymore. I loved that he made me a pencil case for Christmas.

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