The Spark
A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius
by Kristine Barnett
As a parent and a teacher, I found so much to learn in this
book, as I traveled with Kristine on her quest to find the right educational path for her
first-born son, Jake. As a baby,
everything was normal with Jake and then, all of sudden, he seemed to pull away
from everyone. No hugs, no eye contact,
no communication. At the age of 3, Jake
was in his own world, the world of autism.
After a myriad of attempts to find helpful therapists and programs,
Kristine decided to take things into her own hands to prepare her son for
mainstream kindergarten. She didn’t want
the special education label or the IEP.
Kristine also ran a daycare and as time went on, she began
to dedicate her evening hours to programs for other autistic children in the
area, with the goal of preparing them for kindergarten entrance, too. Her mantra became to find what each child was
best at or had a passion for and then nurture that. Jake, as it turned out, was a mathematical
and scientific genius, but as a child, his obsession for numbers and patterns,
for example, was dismissed until one day Kristine connected it with his ability
to see numerical relationships far above what would be age appropriate.
Kristine and her husband had some very hard times
financially, but their ingenuity in getting materials needed for her program was
amazing. Kristine, especially, became an
advocate at school not just for Jake, but for other autistic children she had
in her preschool program. What a risk it
was to move Jake to classrooms far above his age group, but much more in tune
with his abilities. How many three year
olds would enjoy lectures in astronomy and actually be able to process the
information given? Jake, as a young
elementary student, was in his glory in college classes in math and science,
and he spent some of his time tutoring college students and testing new
scientific -mathematical theories.
I enjoyed this book immensely and I think any parent of any
child will learn from Kristine’s journey. This is not just a book for parents
of gifted children or autistic children!
As parents, we all need to nurture the gifts inherent in our
children. Who knows where that can lead?
No comments:
Post a Comment