theirs not to reason why

Having a flashback this morning. No, not drug-induced. Not really trauma-induced (although more on that throughout) ...

I'm having a flashback to 2012. That was the year everyone seemed to be going through the angry stage of grieving, or perhaps every stage of grief that occurs pre-acceptance.

You see, I work with children. I may have mentioned that once or twice before. Because I work with children, I also work with families --parents, grandparents, etc. The children I work with have disabilities. Family members have a variety of feelings about that which they work through over time.

In 2012, it wasn't going too well. Several families were struggling to come to terms with who their children are. All at the same time. With lawyers involved.

We had reached a point with one family where the relationship between the parents and the school parts of the educational team had broken down entirely. In these educational teams, all of the members have something to contribute and we are all supposed to work together for the education of the student, keeping the student's needs first in our minds at all times. This was not happening in 2012.

These parents did not trust us to do our jobs, for whatever reason, and that spilled over into everything. It was not a joyful time. It was not even a tolerable time. What it was, I can say on reflection, was a time in which nothing we could do or say would ever be good enough because they were grieving. We knew that at the time, because it happens a lot, but it's hard to remember that the anger and words sometimes are more about the person saying them than the person they are directed at.

I find myself thinking about one particular event during this time. There is a valuable lesson in it, which is why I am writing this down and sharing it.

One of the parents had done an observation in the classroom. As we always do, we were thoughtful in coming up with an activity and materials that are appropriate for all students and allow them to participate. Furthermore, we try to make the activities engaging so all of the students want to participate. The parent had a lot of questions about the activity, as happens, and we had an after school meeting scheduled to discuss that and other issues since school teams can't really meet during school hours (because that's when we teach kids).

At the after school meeting, the parent asked many questions that required thoughtful explanations, which we provided. School teams sometimes come up with a form of shorthand thinking needed to be efficient (there are a lot of kids!), but we should be able to explain everything that we are doing when we are asked, and we did that.

Then the parent brought up the student's seating.

The student had been seated at a table with another student. It was not in the center of the room. Were we trying to exclude him? Why wasn't he seated more centrally? The parent wanted him seated centrally.

No one gets into special education to make kids feel excluded. We set about coming up with a way to seat him centrally. How would we do this? How would we do that? We all looked at each other with panic while we were discussing what would be needed, knowing the amount of time that would be required to make that happen --time that couldn't go towards the activity.

Our lawyer stopped our panicked troubleshooting.

"Why?"

The parent had no answer.

The fact was, the student was seated closer to instruction than the other students in the classroom. All of the groupings in the classroom were in groups of 2-3 students; he was paired with an appropriate peer. His participation was encouraged throughout. Had we tried to reconfigure the room (essentially what the parent was asking for), it would have discouraged his participation in his daily activities and would have taken time away from instruction for the lesson the parent observed, a lesson that would only occur once.

Why?

There are times when we want to do the right thing, and someone will tell us what they believe that right thing to be. We get very busy sometimes, and we are so used to making things happen, that we don't stop to ask if what we are doing is the right thing to do or necessary. People want what they want, and that's fine. 

But it is not wrong to stop and ask why (or for what purpose). Sometimes, the answer to "why?" is no answer at all, except that it's the way it's always been done or it's the way someone wants it because they just do or there are larger issues that no amount of scrambling can compensate for. 

It is okay to ask why, and sometimes, it's our responsibility to ask.