Joan Prideaux
copyrighted
Chapter Two
Creating Sacred Space for Everyday Living;
A Place To Be in School
Beachbrook consists of four classrooms, known as the Red, Blue, Yellow
and Green Rooms. Nobody knows exactly when the rooms received these
names. The rooms are not painted red, blue, yellow and green, - but
their doors are. There are three teachers and nine children in each
room.
Our classrooms are set up for intimate family-like living. Within these
areas we want to enable children to develop feelings of belonging,
meaningful, intimate loving relationships with their teachers and peers.
Each room is divided into areas where a teacher and her three children
live together usually for two and a half years– the maximum length of
time a child can be enrolled at school. Children may enter Beachbrook
at 2.6 years of age and must graduate the year they turn five. The
emphasis in our work is on the quality of life that is lived moment to
moment as children learn about themselves and their world.
Young children need structure which supports inner security, safety,
and sameness of context within a loving family-like environment. Such
structure facilitates the highest, most integrated forms of learning –
psychological, emotional, cognitive and social. Toward this end the
following structure is implemented:
A Certified Head Teacher (in Special Education) and two Assistant
Teachers comprise the Teaching Team. Each is equally responsible for
work with three children. Each is recognized as the primary source of
healing/learning in the life of a child at Beachbrook. As much as
possible, children are grouped to facilitate interactive growth, (a
verbal child, a non-verbal child, withdrawn, a verbal acting-out child,
etc.). Teachers are assigned to children they are likely to work best
with. This process always includes the teacher’s input. The Head
Teacher is responsible for the overall work in the classroom and for
holding her own weekly Teacher Team meetings with regard to work with
individual children, team functioning, and running of the classroom.
The director supervises the entire process.
Individual children, who require continuous 1:1 care are often assigned
an aide, as additional support for a teacher’s work with a child.
Each child will remain in the same classroom for the length of time a
child is at Beachbrook.
This continuity of teacher, sameness of room and primary area fosters
rooting, feelings of belonging, trust and love, which children crave
and thrive on. These ingredients, in time, generate a sense of well
being in every child.
Occasionally, we are unable to maintain the sameness and continuity of
structure. It becomes necessary to transfer a child to a new teacher
and classroom. We arrange for a smooth transition by having the new
teacher visit with the child in his classroom. The child will also be
invited to visit the teacher and children in the new classroom until a
readiness for change has been established. Most of our children
recognize and know each other throughout our school.
When it becomes apparent that a child is missing his original teacher,
the child’s experience of loss becomes an important aspect of our work
with the child. The new teacher’s sensitivity, awareness and
understanding of the child’s feelings are an important ingredient in
developing a loving and developmentally useful relationship with her
new child.
We view children’s living/learning space as sacred, attracting healing,
stimulating wholeness and inspiring the fulfillment of individual
possibility. In this context, the highest form of service to children’s
needs occurs – loving attentiveness and watchfulness in the unfolding
present centered moment. Space, known and valued, is where both teacher
and child fulfill innate possibilities and actualize human potentials.
Sacred space is spiritual, but it is also soulful and down to earth.
Like the lotus rising from mud, it contains and sustains life in all
its varying expressions, including a child’s broken hearted rage or
peaks of laughter and delight. It is where the child’s and teacher’s
hearts reside. Spirit and Soul reflect the heights and depths of Being.
Within sacred space, festering emotional wounds surface. They are
received empathically, expressed in deeper layers, assimilated and, in
the course of time, transformed. How a child has come to view self,
family, and world reveals itself through the child’s behavior, play,
and expectations. Within sacred space, teachers learn from children. As
living in the moment unfolds, teachers discover how best to respond to
each child’s needs.
Whether engaged in art projects, or imaginative constructions with
manipulatives or blocks, whether drawing, painting, printing letters,
playing store, discovering new cognitive concepts or working to put
puzzle pieces together, children are simultaneously expressing their
relationship to these events. Though nursery classroom materials and
activities have their own potential intrinsic value, they expand and
deepen in value when they also serve as a bridge to a child’s whole
experiencing self.
Awareness is needed, the capacity to see is needed, an open heart is
needed, in order for a teacher to respond beneficially in moments of
interaction – with materials, with peers, with a teacher. These
responsive, affirming ingredients help inner fragmentation to heal and
promote and nurture integrated wholeness. When a teacher lovingly
affirms the child’s being, the child ingests her offering as
energizing, spirit-enhancing, soul-food.
Sacred space envelops, holds and contains the seeds of life within it.
It provides a safe boundary and anchor for unfolding experience, moves
children to live expressions, where previously they lacked vital inner
connectedness, lacked core self-centeredness and meaningful connections
with others.
What begins as estrangement of self from self and self from others in
meaningless space, before long becomes infused with intimate, valued,
human presence. The very space which in the beginning is resisted,
becomes valued and cherished. Even the chairs, which contain and hold
the child’s being, come to matter.
Children often want their chairs labeled with their names, claiming the
object most closely associated with their bodies, and will object
strongly (you’re sitting on MY chair!), if by innocent error another
should chance to sit on one – even if that other is Me!(Any wonder they
learn to read each others’ names fairly quickly?)
What in the beginning is resisted, in time becomes welcomed. In lived
time, as distinct from passed time, a teacher’s responsive, nurturing
presence awakens children’s latent energies, trust develops and
profoundly empowers the child, and child-teacher relationships.
Within sacred space, children discover the meaning of acceptance and
the ease of being themselves. What is in them naturally emerges, is
received and valued.
Many of our children initially lack a sense of self, personal boundary,
and feelings of belonging. This is especially true of our children with
autism. Often, they move aimlessly, not to someone or something, but to
escape meaninglessness.What is needed is encounter and increased
experiential NOW moments.
Frequently children in continuous movement are labeled hyperactive by
professionals and parents. Too often they are medicated. When will we
learn that it is we who care for children, who must discover effective
ways to alleviate anxiety, as well as high energy, instead of harming
children by medicating them? A supportive tight containing environment,
as well as structured ways to express whole body physical energy is
usually very helpful. When we give a child medication, it implies that
there is something wrong with the child. But often it is the
circumstances of the child’s life that requires medication, not the
child.
The family-like structure of teacher and peers within an enclosed area
provides the necessary boundary for self and other exploration and
discovery. Yet, in the beginning the teacher and the area have no
meaning for the child, as there is little to no pre-existing history of
the value of holding and containment. Meaning must be discovered and
digested through vital, ongoing, living experience.
The Child's lack of self-centeredness and groundedness, of connection
to self and others, the absence of feelings of belonging, makes the
area's structure foreign to the child's internal experience,
necessitating the need to escape - as well as to discover its valued
existence.
A child’s continuous fleeing from teacher and area frequently becomes
the first significant encounter between teacher and child. The child’s
behavior provides the teacher with the opportunity to establish herself
as a loving person in the child’s life, as one who has the strength –
and sense of humor! – to maintain the containing boundary, while
establishing the healing alliance with the child, regardless of the
child’s behavior.
Anna
Let us consider Anna, who is autistic, and who was two years three
months old, when she began to attend Beachbrook. Lost in inner space
and alienated from her world, there was no reason for Anna to want to
be with her teacher in their designated area. Neither the teacher nor
the area had value or meaning to her, so she easily slipped out of it.
Their value and meaning had to be awakened in her. This was the first
challenge that confronted her teacher.
In the beginning Anna’s leaving the area was not purposeful. It was
aimless wandering, lacking intention, but in time this changed to
determined running and calculated escape. From the start, her teacher
would playfully catch up with her, squat to eye level, take her hand
and say versions of: “I see Anna running out of our area. This girl is
running away from me. But I’m here to take you back. This is where I
need Anna to be…” She was becoming a safe container for Anna.
This game-like behavior occurred over many days and weeks. But each
time it was animated by fresh, attentive, living present centered
energy. When Anna resisted her teacher’s physical containment, her
teacher was inwardly pleased at Anna’s demonstration of will.
Something mattered to Anna, even if it was to escape her teacher.
These encounters (gentle, energy frictions) were helping Anna to begin
to differentiate herself, as well as to discover her teacher. When Anna
resisted, her teacher would say: “I feel Anna pulling away. Such a
strong girl. I think you don’t want to come with me, but I need you to
be with me in our area.” Anna would reluctantly be led back.
Many different words of this kind may be spoken. What is essential is
that Anna came to internalize her experience of her teacher as
unconditionally allied with her needs. Anna was beginning to discover
her teacher’s ability to contain her, to create a safe holding
environment, to make a difference, to penetrate her isolation. By
resisting her teacher, Anna was discovering she had a teacher and a
place to be with her.
Anna increasingly became aware of this person who was playfully coming
after her. She became more aware of her surroundings too. When her
teacher was a short distance from her, Anna would size-up her
opportunity for escape – and escape she did - with her teacher coming
after her. Pleasure and fun were visibly entering their relationship.
Anna was beginning to smile when her teacher predictably came after
her… Now, many months later, she cries tears (which she did not
formerly do) when her teacher leaves to go on her thirty-minute
break.(More regarding Anna in Chapter Three.)
Albert
Albert, a child in another classroom, is not autistic. But he was
extremely oppositional when he came to Beachbrook. It was amazing to
feel the intensity and physical strength of his resistance, in his two
year, four month old body.
Albert seemed to believe that he was in charge of the universe and that
no one was stronger than he, or strong enough to care for him. Caring
for him wasn’t easy! At weekly parent groups, his mother shared that
she was frequently at a loss as to how to control him. She could take
charge only when she was driven to by circumstance.
To avoid escalating a situation once out of hand, she would often
capitulate, thus inadvertently rewarding Albert’s tyrannical behavior.
At such times, he did not know who was in the driver’s seat of their
relationship, literally, he would escape from their car once his mother
had parked it. He would run full speed down blocks, his ill mother
threatening him and trailing behind him.
Albert arrived at school ready to do battle with his teacher as soon as
he met her. Not only did he not accept his teacher and designated area,
but he was very aggressive, physically and verbally.
We soon learned from Albert’s violent behavior (hurling objects,
kicking, hitting and biting) that even his area was too much space for
him. He was contained only in the smallest possible space – his chair,
which he resisted with all his might.
He would deaden his body weight and slide onto the floor repeatedly
while his teacher held him under his arms and lifted him back onto the
chair. The teacher’s understanding of Albert’s resistant and
challenging behavior contributed to her playful, yet determined care of
him. She quietly and good naturedly said things like: “This boy doesn’t
want to sit in his chair, but this is where I need Albert to be. I’m
going to help you sit here.”
Variations of this behavior occurred for many weeks in lesser intensity
and frequency. Through consistent boundary setting and teacher
responsiveness, Albert discovered that he could trust his teacher to be
strong enough to care for him unconditionally. I should add that Albert
now enjoys sitting in his chair and easily remains within his area when
necessary.
Joshua
Thus far I have offered examples of children who discover the value of
their teacher by challenging the boundaries of relationship. I want
also to comment on Joshua, a child in hiding. One could easily see his
sweet physical presence; everything else was hidden.
Joshua (aged four) sat on his chair in his area and didn’t move. Though
he could speak, he rarely did. When he spoke, he was barely audible. He
seldom sustained eye contact. His play with objects seemed surface and
uninvolved. Joshua was passing time, not living it.
We would have welcomed an active rejection of his teacher, his area,
his chair, anything at all, some sign of life within him. For a long
time, he remained utterly predictable and compliant. His little sister
in another classroom appeared passive and lifeless like Joshua. We
wondered if their behavior was inborn, or environmentally determined.
His teacher was very gentle with him. She encouraged him to name the
objects he wanted to play with and whenever possible provided them. She
was softly playful, sensing his insecurity and fearfulness. When he
appeared sad and in hiding, his teacher wanted him to feel more
visible. She offered him words that mirrored his feeling, “Joshua seems
sad.” These words and others, helped to melt his isolation. When Joshua
refrained from speaking to her, sometimes she would say, “I want to
give this boy what he wants. Looks like Joshua doesn’t want to tell
me…” Then she would provide an object for him to work with. Joshua was
emotionally immobilized, but his teacher persevered, making her
intentions clear.
In his silent, quiet way Joshua was taking in his teacher and his
environment. He saw the caring way his teacher interacted with her
other two boys – even when one of them became violent. He saw her hold
Alan and contain him with her body when he had fiercely attacked her.
But while she physically held Alan, her voice was quiet, firm and
accepting of Alan’s angry feelings. Joshua heard her say, “I see you
are feeling angry right now Alan. But I cannot let you hurt me. I won’t
let anyone here hurt you.”
One day, to his teacher’s great surprise and even secret pleasure,
Joshua reached across the table and took an object from Alan, one that
he was playing with. Before his teacher (who was relatively new to our
staff) had time to think, and before Alan could respond, his teacher
firmly said to Joshua, “I see you want that toy, but Alan is playing
with it. I’ll give it to you when he’s finished.” She returned the
object to Alan. She was concerned about Alan’s feelings and being fair
to him. And a moment which had arrived as a result of Joshua’s
teacher’s sensitive nurturing was momentarily lost.
Joshua had dared to come alive by disrespecting rules of proper
conduct. He was taking a risk by allowing some of his repressed energy
to surface in the service of becoming a whole boy. He was testing the
waters to see if they were safe enough to enter. Just then, they
definitely were not.
His teacher felt disturbed. Intuitively knew that something had been
missed, but could not say what it was. She brought the situation to me
in our weekly half hour supervision meeting.
She had invested so much of herself to bring this little boy to life
and he had responded. I wanted to help Joshua’s teacher understand the
missed moment, but as important, I wanted her to know that through her
effort many more would occur. Joshua would have to venture out again.
His inner being would compel him to find the courage to misbehave
again. The missed moment had become a valuable learning experience for
Joshua and his teacher.
With her agreement we later that week discussed this situation at a
staff meeting. Joshua’s teacher role-played him, another teacher played
Alan, and staff members, one after the other worked with the situation.
Joshua’s teacher expressed her growing awareness of what he must have
experienced after each of the role-plays. Alan’s experience was
explored as well. Each teacher commented on what she had discovered.
What became apparent was that it would have been better to let Alan
respond to Joshua directly once he had taken his toy. He probably would
have wanted the toy back. At that point the teacher might have
emphatically turned to Joshua and said, “I see how much you want what
Alan has, (not just the toy, but the inner freedom to fight for what he
wants!) but he still needs it. As soon as he’s finished with it, I'll
make sure you get it."
Such a response would help to protect the fragile emotional stirrings
in this fearful child and encourage repressed feelings to emerge. In
order for Joshua to be whole, to be present in his life, his feelings
must emerge, be fully expressed, accepted and digested. This must
happen before concerns for rules and proper conduct become a priority.
Joshua must be helped to discover that it is good to be himself in all
his varying feelings in order to become integrated and whole. In our
environment such an invitation is irresistible to children whether they
are autistic, oppositional (attachment disorder) or severely,
emotionally constricted.
<back>
Copyrighted
Manuscript
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| BEACHBROOK
THERAPEUTIC NURSERY SCHOOL |