I just finished reading an article in Times about the debunking of Dr. Wakefield’s study about the correlation between vaccines and autism. Apparently, in 1998, in the British medical journal the Lancet, Wakefield suggested that exposure to the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine were somehow linked to autism in children. However, the very magazine in which the study was published in recently renounced the study, stating that some parts of it are incorrect.
Anyways, I’ll stop talking about boring facts that was on a magazine. What made this article stand out to me was that it reminded me of my past classmates with autism. It doesn’t really relate to the vaccine part, but it reminded me of them for some reason.
Back when I attended a Korean elementary school, I encountered an autistic classmate. However, my classmates, rather than caring for the autistic classmate, teased him and even swore to him “Hey, stupid! Come here and do this for me or you’ll pay! Why are you so slow and weird looking?” they’d shout. Sometimes, when the teacher wasn’t looking they’d even pull on the student’s hair and hit him.The student would almost never realize that the classmates were teasing him, and when he did realize that and gave little cries of protest, the classmates ignored him and continued bullying him. But what was even worse was that even though teachers had a vague idea of what was going in the classroom, they made almost no effort to fix it. They merely scolded the children and took no real action to help the autistic child.
I was always the quiet girl and didn’t do anything to help the poor classmate even though I knew that what my classmates were doing was wro
ng. I was just sitting nearby, keeping my mouth shut. Then I went to America. I met an autistic classmate there in my third grade class. In fact, he was more autistic than the child I had met in Korea. He was in a wheelchair and had difficulty speaking. But I saw MAJOR differences in how he was treated. First, there were numerous programs that helped him adapt in school. He even had his own personal teacher/counselor who helped him throughout his school day. And the students treated him much differently than how the Korean students treated an autistic classmate. They always put him in front of the line and gladly helped him. No teasing or swearing here.
Then when I came to Korea and returned to my old Korean elementary school, I saw him again-the autistic classmate. He was in a different class though. But in my own Korean school 6th grade class, there was another autistic student. I thought that with other students now being six graders and more mature, the students would not bully him and rather help him as American students would do. I was wrong. Not only did they tease and curse at him, there were also rumors that some boys had taken the autistic classmate to th
e “back alley.” Of course, there were some other students who attempted to help the autistic classmate, but they were in fe
w in number and not very powerful.
I was extremely shocked at what I saw in my six grade class. These sixth grade Korean students were not capable of doing something that
even third graders in America could do.
After I came to my current school KIS, I forgot about this issue for a while until a couple months ago. While I was web surfing, I came across an organization called the Sparkle Effect (http://www.thesparkleeffect.org/) It’s basically a program started by high schoolers which helps autistic children fit in with their peers through cheerleading.
When I read about this program, I got a sudden urge to start my own program to help autistic children in Korea. I remembered what I had seen i
n my Korean elementary school and saw that help is necessary, especially because Korea is a country that tends to ignore minorities. I’ve already talked to a friend to see if she was interested in starting a small program with me. Right now, we are just tossing some ideas around about what can do. So far we’ve come up with mentor programs, choral/drama programs, in-school programs....... Ahhhh! I’m not sure about what we should do!!! But I definitely know that I want this program started as soon as possible. Our goal is to launch the program by the start of our sophomore year. I know that it’s going to be hard to start a s
uccessful program... But it’s worth a try right?
WOW THIS POST IS LOOOONG!
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