Women are more likely than men to seek psychological help in the western world, mainly because of the stereotype is that men are enduring and too tough to for medical attention. Even race plays a roll, far less Hispanics and Asians are willing to get help for their illness compared to Caucasian Americans. Perhaps this is because of original family ethics.
Here is where I lose it and talk about what I think, what I’ve experienced as opposed to retyping my notes as a blog post.
A paraprofessional is a person who provides mental health services but has no professional training. My mom is a paraprofessional at one of the elementary schools here in town, and it’s pretty interesting. I’ve accompanied her to work a few times, for an ethnography assignment, and I watched as she as well as the other paraprofessionals as they guided and taught, rather than assisted for every need. My mom dealt with the non-verbal children, who typically suffered from down-syndrome. Most of these children were very slow to reacting and also very stubborn. A little kindergarten boy was in the two-word sentence phase and I sat in as he received help from his speech teacher. She wasn’t a paraprofessional, she had some training, but her role was to teach the children, at their own pace, how to speak. All kids were at different stages, none were alike in their development. This young boy was still sounding out the consonants of one syllable words, a lot of the times his syllables would clash and mask each other so that his “s” and “th” sounded the exact same. He was eager, he was energetic, but he was excited to have a big, tall, male companion. That’s what I found a lot of times, boys are much more welcoming to other males. Every boy I observed was always interested in me, asking me questions, trying to get me involved, overall adorable! But the young female DCD (Developmental Cognitive Disabilities) students were less welcoming. I think the boys were more used to female paraprofessionals, and the girls were not used to seeing other men than their father or even the rare, male teacher. They always became very shy while I was in their presence, one of the girls would whisper her answer to the speech coach and then, our of the corner of her eye, her blue eyes would flash and dart away timidly.
I like this tangent, I’m going to keep going.
The DCD kids’ peers were very understanding of their classmates, almost too understanding. They would talk slower, trying to tread lightly in order to not alarm, frighten, or offend their DCD comrades. It was annoying to listen to them treat people differently. Every single action was praised and I understand that the mainstream kids were doing this out of hospitality, out of human kindness, but they did it so much, it felt like mockery. Maybe that’s a leap but as compared to the Paraprofessionals who were firm, loving and understanding as opposed to floaty and transparent. The DCD kids probably didn’t know the difference but paras’ exhibited “tough love”, they could show their frustration, exaggerate their sorrow and disappointment when a student became naughty and needed punishment. That’s something learned on the job, the training comes with years of experience. The kids learn and bond with someone who learns from them as well, treats them accordingly and figures out their needs and how to make them grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment