I Wish I Could...

"Can't you make them stop". These were the words that we're spoken about one of my students who was not having that good of a day. It wasn't that they were upset for no reason, they were just not getting their way and was taking it out the way that they had learned. As my student was clearly being a disruption to several other classes a teacher walked by and said to one of our staff, "Can't you just get them to stop?" When that was told to me a few hours later anger and rage filled in my heart immediately followed by sorrow and sadness. I didn't know who it was, and in all honesty, it really didn't matter. My first thoughts were what do you say.  How should i respond to this when I was clearly frustrated according to one of the other staff in my class. I guess my answer to this question, "Can't you make them stop?" was simple.  I wish I could. I wish there was no such thing as Autism. I wish that every student in my class was in regular classes striving for the same goals as their nondisabled peers. I wish that the students who I teach didn't have to have visual schedules or times built-in for reinforcement to ensure that they completed the tasks at hand. I wish that we didn't need four adults to watch nine students in the classroom that looks nothing like the others in our building. I wish that our students could voice their frustrations with words and even facial expressions and not self injurious or aggressive behaviors. I wish that my students saw the future as a bright horizon instead of a possible reliance on other people for all of their wants and needs. I wish that their parents were not constantly thinking of "I wonder what will happen if something happens to me first." I wish that everyone in our school, could see the world through our eyes and understand that the small strides it take weeks and weeks to accomplish are worth the hours and hours of time it takes to accomplish them. I wish that the students in the class is surrounding us understood that that test that they get to take for that homework assignment that they chose not to do is a privilege and an honor and that our students would love to have that opportunity. And I wish that more students came into my classroom and embraced and engaged the students on regular basis like the wonderful students in Project Outreach had.  And that the end of the night when I'm thinking of other ways of how we could do things better, what can we do to help the student deal with the behaviors, what social story I can write to prevent it from possibly happening again, and what else can we do to not interrupt everybody else around us, when I think about the question of "Can't I just make them stop?" My answer is still devastatingly sad, I wish I could.  I really wish I could.