After I was done with "Thank You, Mr. Falker" Horse Girl told me she likes that book a lot because it is like her. I told her I like it a lot too, but it makes me cry every time I read it. She asked me why. I told her that Mr. Falker is a lot like a teacher I had and the story reminds me of me and that teacher. She understood.
"Thank You, Mr. Falker" is about a little girl's journey though the school system with kids teasing her because she can't read and feeling dumb because she can't read. She starts hating school because of all this. Then she meets Mr. Falker when she enters 5th grade. Mr. Falker sees her as the bright kid she is. Asks the kids who teased her which one of them is so perfect that they can tease someone else. Mr. Falker ends up helping the little girl to read in the end.
Yes it could be a corny feel-good story, but the thing is the little girl in the story is Patricia Polacco who grows up to write these wonderful children's books. So it is really a very moving true story.
I like it also because it shows how important good teachers are for kids. I believe people have a calling to be teachers. You can tell the ones who are following their calling as soon as you walk into their classroom. Everyone has a teacher they know that they can say that about. To me if being a teacher is a calling, being a special ed teacher is something even more. It is something that a person really needs to be born to do. Yes you can study it and learn about it, but working one on one with this gentle soul who may already be hurting because they can't do what their peers can, takes a very special person. I had three special ed teachers growing up. Each and everyone of them would have done anything to help me become the best student I could be. I owe everything to them. When I see Horse Girl's special ed teacher I see the same traits in her as I did in my special ed teachers. I know because of what this teacher does for Horse Girl, that Horse Girl will remember her for the rest of her life.
I once tried to tell Horse Girl's special ed teacher about how highly I value special ed teachers and she started to tear up, so I stopped. I am not suprised because I know I tear up when I think about her and how she helps Horse Girl and when I think of the teachers who helped me.
Thank you, all the teachers who really make a difference.
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3 comments:
Book recommendation: A Mango-Shaped Space. Panda got it for Christmas but I enjoyed it too. It's about a girl with synesthesia (a condition where people cross senses, see numbers and words or hear musical notes as colors, etc.) The heroine has learning differences because of her condition (trouble in Spanish, for instance, because the English words are not the same color as the Spanish equivalents). I bet both you and Horse Girl would enjoy it.
I just discovered Patrica Polacco this weekend, and I can't imagine how it's possible I didn't know about her before! What a wonderful writer. "Thank You, Mr. Falker" wasn't one of the books I found at the library, so thank YOU for describing it here.
Doc, I read Mango-Shaped Space last year and loved it. Another book with synasthesia is On A Blue Day which is a fascinating biography about a man and his Asperger's (Daniel Tammet? I think that's his name).
Both are really great books!
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