Written by Jennifer Wilger, TGS Co-Founder and Executive Director
Each week in our school newsletter, Word of the Week shares food for thought from the Temple Grandin School team. This week’s word reflects on the rights of students, and how those rights are honored at TGS.
As we prepare to explore social justice during our coming inquiry days (a two-day learning adventure in which we delve deeply into the same topic of interest in all classes), we’ll be thinking and talking a lot about rights. During Black History Month, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis and other civil rights leaders. Although there is much more to be done, their work sparked awareness of the need for a more just and equitable society. The struggle for civil rights – specific rights afforded to all citizens under our constitution – is encompassed by our broader desire for human rights. These basic rights can be as general as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or as specific as clean water, shelter, or the right to an education.
Dignity, fairness, equality are just a few of the shared values that support basic human rights, including the rights of children. Although children are directly afforded few civic rights and responsibilities (such as voting), the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child names the right to play and enjoy their youth and the right to become contributing members of society as rights that cannot be taken away from children. We at TGS support these rights, and our program seeks to thoughtfully integrate developmentally appropriate play and learning as we support our students in transitioning from childhood through adolescence to young adulthood.
At TGS, our shared core values of perseverance, understanding, caring, collaboration, community, and adaptability lead us to provide certain “rights” to our students. Chief among them is the right to be understood. Inspired by Ross Greene’s Bill of Rights for Behaviorally Challenging Kids, we believe our students have the right “to have adults take a genuine interest in their concerns and perspectives, and to have those concerns and perspectives viewed as legitimate, important, and worth listening to and clarifying.”
Our students are complicated, multi-faceted people. To truly understand and meet their needs requires patience, listening, and sometimes suspending our own perspectives as adults. It’s not easy, but it’s what our students deserve – and an example we hope they’ll take with them and extend to others.