"Putting themselves at risk, puts others at emotional risk," said one facilitator at a potential learning community my Autistic children were hoping to join when they 'did not' reject my children, but just put them on an indeterminate suspension as a potential learner.
It was almost too perfect, this marriage of unschooling and self-directed learning with an emphasis on social justice and strengthening community and all in our own backyard. We found them through a simple google search and they seemed to boast about their acceptance of diversity (neurological and otherwise).
So we contacted the place and the main facilitator ended up being a familiar face - a librarian at our local library. So far, so good. They set us up with an interview, which we felt pretty good about, but were nervous, as we always are when we try to put our kids into a new community.
Day one we brought our oldest to try it out. It was rough. Day two was a rough day as well. On day three we had our youngest join him. My oldest seemed happy, my youngest was in fine form - screaming and cussing at the only other child who would have been in his peer group, attempting to harm the adults and so on. On day four we were asked to 'indefinitely suspend their shadowing process' after my oldest refused to verbally respond to a facilitator or look him in the face (though he did respond with body language) when he was asked to stop skipping shells across a body of water and a slew of other infractions.
Now many of these concerns were justifiable safety concerns and I'm not saying safety is not reasonable to be worried about. However, their concern seemed to be mostly about how my children's lack of regard for the safety rules they were quite new to affected them (the adults) and the other learners and not actually concern for my children themselves. You see, they told us this was because, "putting themselves at risk, puts others at emotional risk."
Personally, I like to put others well being in front of my own, especially that of children. Perhaps this is emotionally unhealthy, but it's simply the way I think at the moment. When I see a child exhibiting unsafe behavior, yes I have concern for the children around them, but I am most concerned about the child. The philosophy here is that every child wants to be part of their community and wants to achieve personal success, however, they see it. A child that is doing something other than that is either lacking in the skills they need to move towards those goals and/or is in considerable distress and needs unconditional care and concern to bolster them to a better emotional space. I do not believe that shaming and social fear is healthy or helpful.
By this point, I thought I would feel deflated. My kids have been kicked out of various summer camps, private schools and even locally organized community events and now our one last hope was shunning them. Usually, these kinds of rejections (which they insisted were not actually rejections - I think I'd recognize one by now) usually send me into a tailspin. I project so much onto my kids that I take any kind of rejection of one of them as a rejection of me and the rest of my family on a quintessential level. Not healthy, but I'm working on this. Perhaps this is my black and white thinking again.
Regardless, I was surprised to feel supremely annoyed. I felt lied to and frustrated with the facilitators for their rigidity and ableist attitudes (who cares if he can't verbally respond? He changed his behavior to adjust to your expectations, did he not?). There was also a sense of 'them' vs 'us' that felt liberating and I'm not sure if it was altogether wrong.
Often, I assume that we are all 'us' and that if I in any way disagree with someone, it must be that I am wrong and they are right. When the facilitators insisted, however, that an individual's feels were secondary to any emotional or physical harm they may have done to the community, I was flabbergasted and confused and more than a little angry, though I had no words for it.
The following day we joined a zoom call with their facilitators and other parents, where there was a 'discussion' (ie a slide show) about what community meant to you (except they actually meant them, dismissing any opinion the parents actually said).
I didn't last through the meeting. I felt my blood simmer and then boil as I continued to listen. I even tried to offer my thoughts, which I did not feel were received.
That weekend we experienced true community for my oldest son, as it was his birthday. Peers who actually liked him and who he liked to, came to hang out with him. Neighbors celebrated him and family members called him from overseas or drove hours or days to see him. He was loved. It felt right. It felt like a community.
The two experienced juxtaposed over just a couple of days felt eye-opening and healing. Our community was not perfect and maybe not cohesive, but they were real and organic and while I don't believe any relationship is truly unconditional (except that one-way relationship a parent has for their child) it was closer to no-strings-attached than I have seen in any programming, school (or unschool) or camp.)
What does that mean for the boy's educations? Maybe they don't need to be accepted into a learning community to learn? I don't know.
