{"id":360,"date":"2010-09-09T08:20:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T08:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/penny-and-william-go-to-school.html"},"modified":"2010-09-09T08:20:51","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T08:20:51","slug":"penny-and-william-go-to-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/penny-and-william-go-to-school.html","title":{"rendered":"Penny and William Go to School"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"IMG_5693.JPG\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Penny and William went to school together today for the
\nfirst time. This year, Penny will be in a public preschool program every
\nafternoon, and she and William will both attend a local private preschool on
\nMonday and Wednesday mornings. William was delighted to join his sister at
\n“tool,” although a little disappointed that they don’t get to ride the bus
\ntogether.<\/p>\n

Penny is happier on days when she goes to school. She talks in
\nfull sentences. She says “please” and “thank you.” Maybe it’s in her genes (both
\nof her parents seem to like school). Maybe it’s her love for other people. But I
\nalso wonder if part of her love of school has to do with her need to learn. <\/p>\n

I’ve written before<\/a> about what we call Penny’s “Helen
\nKeller” moment, when she first understood that every object had a corresponding
\nname. She went from a handful of signs to dozens, virtually overnight. My
\nmother, a preschool teacher, commented later on the significance of Penny’s
\nsigning. “She’s shown all of us, including herself, that she can learn.” <\/p>\n

But the way Penny learns is different from William. He
\ndoesn’t so much learn as absorb. When he was learning to walk, we didn’t teach
\nhim. He just did it. When he was learning to talk, there were no exercises
\ninvolved, no therapists, no step-by-step progress. He just said stuff. And the
\nsame is true for almost everything else: Throw him in a pool and his little
\nlegs start to kick. Give him a guitar and he’ll strum it. Hand him a stick and
\nhe’ll tell you all the things he’s imagining it could be. Hand him a piece of
\npaper and he’ll narrate the scribbles: “I am sending an email to Dad. Dear Dad.
\nI love you.” <\/p>\n

Penny had to learn each of these things one step at a time.
\nWalking involved months of training on a baby treadmill, braces for her ankles, special spandex shorts to keep her hips together. Talking involved
\nmimicking my mouth, drinking out of special straws, and watching “Signing
\nTimes” to learn signs when the words just wouldn’t come. When she wants to be
\nable to read a book out loud by herself, she stares at my mouth so she can see
\nhow the words are formed before trying them herself. She works hard to learn.
\nAll the time.<\/p>\n

And yet, even though they learn differently, Penny’s happy
\nto be a teacher for her brother. Just yesterday, I found her taking his hands
\nto help him learn the sign for “friend.” It’s because she loves school that he
\nwants to be there. He admires her. He looks up to her, although at two-years
\nold, he can’t say why. I have to imagine that his love and admiration will
\nremain. For his sister, his teacher, his friend.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}