“Very good. Now, how about this one?” I asked in a tired tone, holding up another brightly-coloured flash card. Jose considered this while counting on his finers.
“12, 14, 16, 18!” he exclaimed proudly.
I sighed heavily. “No Jose, this answer is 24. See? 2,4,6…” As I explained to him, he gazed at the card with his open-mouthed stare. Just a repeat of what happened every lesson. With his autistic manner, he would never be good at math; it’s like trying to teach calculus to a 2-year old. He will never be good at anything, a small voice in the back of my head chided. Shaking it away, I took up another flash card.“Let’s try this one. Ready?”
As the lesson carried on, Jose became increasingly frustrated at his inability to answer the questions correctly. I opted to give him an easy question occasionally to keep his temper down. When he had a tantrum, he was as hard to constrain as a raging bull, not to mention the mess he would make. The recess bell rang, followed by the blatant sound of feet trampling the hallway.
“Good job today Jose,” I cheerfully said to him. “Have fun at recess, and I’ll see you tomorrow!” As I watched him run off, I felt a tinge of sadness. He had no friends, being at a new school, and with his disability, it was unlikely that he’d make any.
As I walked down the hall during the break, I heard a jovial tune come from the old storage room. Perplexed, and even more curious, I went up to the door, and slowly opened it. Inside, surrounded by a mass of musty old cardboard boxes and worn tables, was an ancient-looking piano. Seated at the piano, playing it, was Jose.