nodded, though not quite as vigorously as when Ms. Pettigrew asked if everything was clear.
Bo went on to explain some of the safety rules, which were legion, and he gave us a fat notebook that chronicled the top few hundred rules, policies, practices, and procedures. Things like what to do if one of the clients pulled a fire alarm without cause (call the main office), or was reported missing (call the main office), or stabbed one of the staff with a fork (call the main office).
Anyway, that was the training session.
I’ve since broken a number of the rules I learned in that session, but so far I’ve gotten in trouble only once. It was when I was trying to teach J.P. how to tell time. They prefer that clients learn to read a traditional clock face. And my job, for thirty minutes each week during my shift, is to help him do so.
J.P. does not look . . . cognitively disabled. Since J.P. is an adult, he is not developmentally disabled, because he is beyond the normal age of development. So he is cognitively disabled, which I’ve discerned is slightly but measurably more appropriate than intellectually disabled, perhaps because it’s slightly more obscure and obscurity is highly prized when one is trying to speak about conditions that are, let’s not say undesirable, but certainly not highly sought.
But just between you and me (are you Nobody too?), I’ve streamlined all this for myself. I’ve divided the world into Specials (note the honorific capital S) and Normals (capitalized not to honor “normal” but to parallel the capitalization of Specials). I mean, we refer without embarrassment to special education and Special Olympics and special needs, so I’ve just reduced the wide world of cognitive disability to Specials. It simplifies things for me, and, believe me, I need things simple. I use the word with clean hands—disparaging no one, and with as clear a conscience as a borderline psychopath can muster. (I’m being too hard on myself in self-identifying as a borderline psychopath, of course, but that’s something we borderline psychopaths do.) And if you tell anyone I’ve told you this, I will deny it and call my lawyer. (Not that people like me have lawyers, so don’t worry about it.)
(You’ve probably noticed that I interrupt myself a lot. Since I live alone, I have no one to interrupt me, so I have to do it myself. I know it’s irritating and I apologize.)
Anyway, J.P. not only looks Normal, he is tall and almost handsome. In his late forties and just starting to gray around the temples, he could pass for a junior senator. I don’t know what his story is—they don’t usually tell us—but he came to Good Shepherd as a boy and has been here ever since.
J.P. is reticent and painfully polite. He learned early not to arouse disapproval. He wants to make you happy.
So when in teaching him time telling I ask if he can count to twelve, he smiles his small, suppressed smile and counts to twelve. He looks at me expectantly, hoping he has done well.
“Good, J.P. That’s right. Now, do you see this clock?”
I hold up a big, round wall clock for him to inspect.
“Um . . . yes, Jon. I see it.”
J.P. often starts his sentences with “um” or “mm,” a delaying strategy, I think, to allow himself a moment to consider what will please you. And he barely opens his mouth when he talks—or eats, for that matter. I’m not sure why.
“Can you point to the twelve?”
He does so and then looks at me.
“Can you point to the three?”
He does so again without problem. This is not the first time we have done this. It is maybe the fifteenth or fiftieth time (and others have tried before me). He always gets this far.
“Do you know what the hands of a clock are, J.P.”
“Yes.”
“What two kinds of hands are there on a clock?”
“Um, a big hand and a little hand.”
“Excellent. And which is the big hand?”
He points to it.
“And which is the little hand?”
He points to it.
“Now J.P., if I make both hands point to the twelve, like this, what time is it?” I move the clock hands.
“Twelve.”
“Twelve what?”
“O’clock, Jon.”
“Excellent.”
I don’t want to ask the next question. I never want to ask the next question. But the individualized learning plan (ILP) says J.P. must be able to tell time—like a Normal Adult—and so I ask the next question.
“If I leave the big hand on the twelve and move the little hand to point at the number one, what time is it then, J.P.?”
He looks at me. He knows this is where he fails. He doesn’t want to make me unhappy. So he just smiles and says nothing. I try my best to be nonthreatening.
“Just give it a try, J.P. It’s okay if you don’t get it right. Try to remember what we said last time about the big hand being on the twelve and the little hand pointing to another number. It’s okay if you don’t remember, but just try.”
He starts to rock a bit but doesn’t say anything. He knits his brow to show me that he is thinking hard, that he is trying. I repeat the question.
“If the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the one, what time might that be?”
“Mm, twelve-one o’clock?”
“No, not twelve-one. Try again.”
“Um, one-twelve o’clock?”
I have read the articles on teaching time telling to people like J.P. I have tried all the techniques they suggest. They don’t work. J.P. does understand time, better than most of the other residents, but he doesn’t understand measurement, or clock faces—not traditional ones, not digital ones. He just doesn’t understand and a thousand years of instruction will not make him understand.
And I got in trouble for saying so.
Everything at New Directions—from individualized instruction to haircuts—has to be documented. For every minute you spend with the residents, you spend two minutes filling out forms to indicate what happened in that minute. And so when I filled out the form that documented our session that day, I made the mistake of writing that I didn’t think J.P. would ever learn to tell time and, even more offensive, that I didn’t think he needed to.
Cassandra Pettigrew was not happy with that assessment (who knew that she read them?), as she made clear the next time she saw me.
“It is not your job, Mr. Mote, to evaluate the appropriateness of our ILPs for each of the residents. Those are determined by professionals, including myself. James’s CPE tests show that he should be able to master the telling of time. The data are clear on that. Your job is to teach him to do so, not to question the appropriateness of the goal.”
“Appropriate”
