Students on the Spectrum, Teachers on the Spectrum

Dora and I have both written posts about the same article ---no, we didn't plan it! Hers is Autistic Intuition and clearly the Ventura County Star's article has some good food for thought.

Yesterday's Ventura County Star describes a school for autistic children with a quite unique set-up: Some of the teachers are themselves on the autism spectrum. The school is the Footprints Preschool and Family Resource Center in Camarillo. 30-year-old Ben Brock is a student preschool teacher there; his sister, Felice Fausto, is the school's director:

Footprints grew out of a day care center that Michael Brock [who, it's also noted, has Asperger's Syndrome] and his wife, Connie, 57, founded at their Camarillo home in 2000. At the time, Fausto was teaching and had begun a home service program for kids with autism. The family decided to combine their resources and make the school a program that included both typical kids and those with autism.

Ben, who is earning his child development degree from Moorpark College, teaches at Footprints with Fausto and several other staff members. Michael and Connie Brock act as support staff.

The program includes a preschool, day care and after-school care. Four of the five members of the Brock family are involved in running the school.

Ben Brock is particularly attuned to the sensory sensitivities that kids on the spectrum after have, but are still learning how to articulate----sensitivities that would not occur to many of us to even notice.

While none of my son's teachers or therapists have ever described themselves as being on the spectrum, some have mentioned having ADD or learning disabilities. Others have had siblings on the spectrum. And others have also had careers in music (DJ-ing, running a sound studio)---jobs that required them to use other senses, to (as it were) think differently about teaching, about their students.