"A Person's A Person, No Matter How Small" -Dr. Seuss

Hello and good evening:) Hopefully everyone survived their Monday back to work, fortunately I have Mondays off....try not to hate me:)
We had so much fun last week with the Catawba Soccer Camp, the kids enjoyed it so much and even came back and taught their other friends all that they had learned. Now this may not seem like much to just anyone but just wait until I tell you the full story and you will understand.
Now for myself personally I had only one child from my class attend Soccer Camp. He is an avid soccer player and even before camp, if you passed him a ball, right between those feet it would go and he would chase after it, always keeping it alternating from one foot to the other. He was quite the soccer player and he was aware of his talents. Being a typically developing child, he knew there were fellow campers with special needs in our class as well as other classes and although he never intentionally excluded them his passion and stamina for the game required certain rules that his other classmates simply couldn't deliver to his standards. He had picked out one child who was also developing typically and was close to his age and would grow frustrated when one of the kids with special needs would want to play with them in soccer. "They aren't playing the right way Mr.Rob," and he would tell me this with such misunderstanding of why they could not be like him. Earlier that week we had begun our week by reading Dr.Seuss' "Horton Hears A Who". We worked on the idea that no matter how different a person may be, they are still a person. After we read the book we focused our weekly activities on the famously quoted phrase "A person's a person no matter how small". We discussed that just because the kangaroo could not see or hear the tiny Who's of Whoville that existed on the small speck of dust it did not mean that they were not important. By the end of the week on Friday, as we walked out of our classroom and on to the field I noticed that child, who just days before preferred to play off on his own, pick up a soccerball and began coaching the class..the ENTIRE class. I was so humbled by his actions. As he instructed them to "use the inside of your foot" and " try not to use your hands this time", it was like his words carried such patience and understanding. Then it hit me, just as in our book, although some one may not learn the way we do or talk the same way does not make us better, it makes us different and that is what makes you the person that you are, and if I remember correctly a wise doctor once said "A person's a person no matter how small".
My hope is that this touched someone as much as it did myself!

Until next week,
    Rob - Child Care Provider