This mother’s name was not Alice, but Denise.
As she once wrote, “If we fail, at least we tried.”
The nightmare warped and changed. It became a dream instead.
The 2nd Step
Denise has a very simple wish after a few years of running Pathlight School. She wishes to see schools where students with different abilities grow up together as ‘members of a Singapore family’.
These words, dear Reader, resonated with me.
To me, they meant “equal rights and opportunities”.
I remember how my mother had often mused that Jan’s public transport fare concession had been snatched away from him since when he was twelve. Not only did he have no school to return to, there was to be no more movies and student discounts of any kind. My brother was no longer recognised as a child deserving what any other regular boy or girl did.
We would have had to fight for my brother to have what regular children were entitled to. It would have to be yet another battle. If metaphors could be taken literally, my home would be an armoury and arsenal rolled into one. King Arthur would have been envious.
With my background in early childhood education, I am familiar with the United Nations’ “Conventions of the Rights of the Child”. Jan was being denied a lot of those rights, and he was not the only one.
It led me to the question: Are not special needs children and people in this country Singaporeans too?
Denise gave me the answer.
Yes, they are.
I shall tell you about the Education Village that Denise visited in Darlington, England, some years ago. It was then that a new idea was being tried out, with three schools housed together: a mainstream primary school, a mainstream secondary school and a special school for students not able to follow the mainstream curriculum.
This gave all the students the chance to interact with one another during breaks and in the school halls they shared. Denise even saw some older students helping disabled peers in a therapy room during their free period.
That is the dream. It is not about having to create awareness at the eleventh hour, but about having children and young people growing up together, and in the process, understanding and accepting others who are different.
But the eleventh hour is still not too late.
There is a thick chalk line dividing those in the community who are abled, and those with special needs. It is a line that is difficult to rub away, but it is not impossible.
Denise has been working away at that chalk line with a colossal eraser. And she is waiting for the big water hoses to arrive as well.
The 3rd Step
The lady is trying her utmost with the help of her staff and fellow volunteers.
Whatever that is humanly possible, as my father likes to say in response to everything. I am fond of joking with my mother, ‘As far as I know, I am still human. If I wake up one day and find out I’m not anymore, I’ll be sure to let you know.’
Well, I am sure that if Denise were to wake up one day and find that she could do the tasks of a hundred men, ninety-nine people would suddenly find that they are free to go on a leisure cruise.
She strongly believes that just as special needs families ask for remedies, families themselves are important ingredients in these medicinal concoctions.
In 1999, when her son was diagnosed at the age of three, Denise picked up her shoes and began volunteering at the Autism Resource Centre. What she saw back then was a simple educational programme that was not enough to meet the needs of children on the wide and varied autism spectrum. This propelled her and a group of volunteers to start Pathlight School in 2004 for those who could manage the mainstream curriculum but require special support.
Pathlight was the first autism-focused school in Singapore, and was to be the first of three such schools in Singapore, followed by Singapore Autism School (renamed Eden School when Denise and team moved in to help) and the St Andrew’s Autism School.
The good-humoured lady said at our meeting, half-laughing, ‘Of course, everyone complains. I complain. We all complain. There is no harm in complaining together. But do let us work and act together as well.’
I have mentioned that I find the word “improvement” to be a tricky one when it comes to special needs provisions.
Denise too talks about the gaps that exist, the needs that are still unfulfilled. She knows better than anyone that the journey is far from over. Despite the struggles of so many, what we have now is not enough. It would be unfair to Jan for me to say otherwise.
But this does not diminish the phenomenal things people like Denise and her team have achieved. Because of them, hope is being fortified, brick by brick, cent by cent, step by step. Their years of backbreaking toil and labour have resulted in the thriving systems, programmes and schools that now stand under their care. It is their Great Wall of China.
Hence I can say that the standard has been set by Denise and her team. They have lighted a path, shown a way. There can be no talk of having no example in Singapore to follow and build upon.
Today, Denise is a jolly mother, spokesperson and advocate. But she retains the skills and savvy honed during her stint in the corporate world, and taps on them to run these organisations like professional entities.
She supervises not only Pathlight and Eden Schools, but also ARC and AAS which operate early intervention centres, the Eden Centre for Adults and a large regional training centre, equipping hundreds of teachers and professionals in autism education. She manages it much as a professional juggler would. Sometimes she does this standing on a plank balancing on a rolling cylinder. And sometimes people suggest
