Building Confidence

"No! No! No!" I sat across from Ibrahim as he became more and more frustrated. I felt hopeless. I wanted to help him. I wanted to give him the answer, but I couldn't. This was a test. All I could do was try to explain again that he needed to find the words from the reading that were in the "present continuous tense".

As Ibrahim became frustrated to the point of tears, I saw myself in him. My memory brought me back to countless times when I would cry over school work, frustrated at myself for not understanding, for feeling stupid, for feeling defeated and worthless compared to my classmates, who seemed to receive good grades effortlessly.

For years, due to a speech impediment, I struggled in school. Whenever it was time for English or reading or spelling lessons, I would leave my classroom, leave behind all my "normal" and "smart" classmates, to work with a speech specialist. We would work for hours, both in school and private lessons at home, to help me understand how different letters work together to form different sounds, and how those sounds form words. As a young child, every part of my life seemed to be affected by my speech impediment.

It was in preschool when my parents realized how important it was to get me help. During a typical parent/teacher conference, my teacher told my parents how deeply my speech impediment was affecting my life. She said the other students couldn't understand me and therefore, I was slowly becoming more and more isolated from my peers. My parents saw how this was affecting my ability to communicate and make friends. Thus began a long road of meeting with speech therapists and reading specialists.

Now, two years out of earning a Bachelors degree from Wheaton College [my dream school...one that I enrolled in thinking I would barely be able to survive in the academically challenging classes] I am so incredibility grateful for two things:

1. I had parents that cared deeply for my development both academically and socially that they made great efforts to get me the support and assistance I needed.

2. I went to a school where the resources were available. There are many public schools around the world which are not equipped to help students with different learning disorders, whatever it may be.

The school where I work here in Jordan, Arab Episcopal School, works to bring resources and specialized education to students who are unable to receive those things in their local public schools. AES's mission is to integrate visually impaired students with sighted students. They attempt to bring specialized education to visually impaired students in northern Jordan. Before the school began in 2003, blind and low-vision students would have to travel to boarding schools in Amman [about 1.5 hours south]. This option is not ideal for a 5 year old, as they would have to leave their families for weeks at a time. If this option was not possible for families [i.e. too expensive], many times the student would simply stay at home. Jordan is often considered a "shame & honor" society by sociologists and anthropologists. The truth is often times less important then what people consider to be true. If there is a child in the family with a disability, they are sometimes kept in the home to protect the family's honor and reputation.

My bosses, Rev. Samir and Sabah, felt God calling them to reach out to their community. They saw value in both offering education for visually impaired students and helping the community understand and accept people who are blind. Today, we have over 150 students, 34 of which are visually impaired. As a teacher's assistant here, my role is to work alongside the English teachers -- giving lessons, grading papers, creating worksheets and tests. My main responsibility is to work closely with the low-vision students. Since each student's ability to see and read varies, I work in classes with them, helping them use specialized tools [such as magnifiers] to help them follow along in the book or read the board. One of my favorite students [although I know I shouldn't have favorites] is a first grader Ali. We have gotten into the habit of giving each other "high fives" every time he gets a question right. It's a fun game and it's wonderful to see him get excited about learning. I hope that through working one-on-one with them they are able to gain a bit of confidence. Thinking back to my own education and the way I was able to learn, I still remember certain teachers who took the time to work one-on-one with me. They were a tremendous help, not only by taking the time to make sure I understood the lesson, but also by giving me confidence, academically and socially.

Although I can not give Ibrahim the answers on tests, I can take the time to work with him and let him know that he is valuable and that people care about him. I hope that I'm able to build some confidence in Ibrahim and the other students I am blessed to work with each day.