To this mother, these children deserve nothing less than the best.
All that effort and heartwork calls out to you the moment you step into the Pathlight School grounds.
The 4th Step
I arrived at the Pathlight Ang Mo Kio Campus 1 on the day of the meeting. Within ten minutes of entering the school, I was goggling like a child in a candy emporium.
It is a place of beauty, to rival the best of mainstream primary and secondary schools, even junior colleges. Children were in lovely uniforms, transitioning between classes, having breaks in the cafeteria, having Physical Education lessons. The school has an elegant bookshop, wonderful open grounds and proud buildings, housing happy learning children.
The cafeteria was a delightful place, with the chatter and laughter of the children and the voices of teachers. It also looked like one of those chic, professionally decorated cafes where hipsters lounge about drinking fancy caffeine beverages. There was no ruckus with all the activity. You could not have called the sounds around you noise. It was nothing less than music.
That was where we met Denise. She came flying over to us with her notes and books and pens and enthusiasm. We exchanged greetings, and she told us about the workings of the cafeteria. The stalls are manned by autism youths, graduates who had received job coaching. Sometimes teachers or supervisors peep in to see that they are doing alright, but they run the stalls mostly by themselves.
I do not know how to run a stall. These children probably have a better sense of how to run a business. I am not joking.
And I remember the little details. We had soy milk from one of the stalls. It was delicious. It reminded me of the time Jan cooked rice and mixed an assortment of miscellaneous beverages in the kitchen without my mother’s knowledge, with messy but unexpectedly edible results.
I remember doing or saying nothing much for the first few minutes; I kept on staring at my surroundings. I had landed right in Denise’s Wonderland. Dear Reader, you ought to meet at least one person like her in a lifetime.
Students at Pathlight are able to manage mainstream schooling to a large extent. They are then taught and groomed to be ready for regular society. The school enchants them with self-esteem and confidence. The aim is for these children to grow up with all the access to further education, employment and the social world that regular children have.
Pathlight School is not an exclusive, private school for the rich and famous, with parents who wear diamonds and smoke imported cigars; a great number of the students come from needy backgrounds. The enrolment is now over seven hundred, with another hundred children in ARC’s Early Intervention Programme which is also based in the same facility.
Hundreds of smiling autistic children. It is a fact no one can argue with.
The 5th Step
Denise and her team are trying their utmost to meet the demands of the special needs community. According to the ARC, two hundred and sixteen new cases of autism are being diagnosed every year.
I was introduced to some members of Denise’s team. There was Patricia Cheng, Vice Principal of Eden School. She has a background in psychology and more than twenty years in the field. Paula Teo is Senior Manager of AAS’ early intervention programmes and adults’ services. Stephenie Khoo heads ARC’s Early Intervention Programme as Principal, overseeing the diagnosis, therapy programmes for the two- to six-year-old groups.
But never mind titles. It was clear Patricia (whom everyone affectionately called “Pat”), Paula and Stephenie were passionate about the field, the children and youths and about helping. No one sings their tales of heroism, nor asks for their autographs, but they keep ploughing ahead like a steam train. (I say a steam train. They do not yet have enough means for a bullet train. But theirs is a very determined steam train which deserves shiny new wheels and tracks and the finest fuel.)
Another personage I met was one of the students, a boy named Desmond, who was spending his break time in the cafeteria. He approached us and asked us if he could tell us a joke. (Denise fondly called him their resident comedian.)
He asked, ‘Why is the dog afraid to go out into the sun?’
‘Because he’s afraid of a sunburn?’ one of us guessed.
After a few more dubious answers from us, Desmond responded with a triumphant, ‘Because he’ll turn into a hotdog!’
I chuckled politely because I was in public.
At home later that evening, I remembered the joke and our collective expressions as we tried to solve the riddle, and laughed myself to tears. I was laughing so hard my parents ran to check on me, thinking I had had an accident and was hollering for help.
The 6th Step
Denise and her team would do whatever they can for a special needs individual, whether it was a student or an alumnus, to be trained and find work.
She said, ‘ARC is starting a new Employability and Employment Centre this year. The government is also rolling out more help for those with special needs in 2012. There are the new extra benefits that will be given to employers who hire special needs employees.’ She went on to explain what it was all about.
For instance, the Special Employment Credit will be granted to employers who hire Special Education school graduates. Employers will get a credit of sixteen per cent of these employee’s salaries. The Workfare Income Supplement Scheme will also be extended to all working graduates from Special Education Schools. These schemes have big and complicated names, but it simply means more special needs students will be able to have jobs and earn money.
Denise added that employers might be willing to employ special needs workers. But the latter might not be ready for outside employment, and the challenge is to prepare them for working life.
‘Even if they are
