Barclay had cerebral palsy. I had him as a student in Grade 9 and then again in Grade 13, as it then was. A cheerful and friendly lad with an infectious grin, he had little or no control over his physical movements or his vocal cords. He could not hold a pencil, let alone write with it, or take his own notes, and had to type all his assignments letter by letter with a metal pointer strapped firmly to his head. Bound to a wheelchair from birth, and escorted from class to class by an educational assistant, he could only attract attention by wildly flailing his raised arm like the sail of a windmill from his seat, and could only make his answers understood by a supreme effort of will, with imperfect and sometimes unintelligible sounds, often patiently repeated until understood, but this apparent bar to communication only made him more determined to make himself understood. There was nothing wrong with his hearing, nor with his mind, nor with his indomitable spirit. Time after time he demonstrated to those persistent and patient enough to listen carefully to what he had to say, an extraordinary sensitivity to the great moral questions of literature, and a profound understanding of flawed human nature. He was wise beyond his years. My favourite memory of him is of seeing him playing twelve chess games at once in the foyer of the school, indicating by smile, gesture or grunt which piece was to be moved for him, and to which place on the board, as he was wheeled from one game to the next during the lunch hour. Perhaps it is needless to say that he won all twelve games.
Sonya came to Canada in the wake of the Communist takeover of her homeland.
Dispossessed and traumatized by weeks at sea in a leaky boat, she and her family spent weeks in a crowded transit camp until they were accepted as refugees by Canadian authorities. Initially homesick and friendless, timid and terrified by all she met in an alien school environment where all the other students were so much bigger and louder than she was, she would flit like a shadow to the safety of my English As a Second Language classroom, where I was at first obliged to speak to her in French, the only European language she knew. Gradually she warmed to encouragement and praise and a sympathetic understanding of her predicament, and began to respond with smiles and understanding herself. When the class read George Orwell’s Animal Farm in a simplified edition she was the first to see in it a condemnation of the duplicity of the totalitarian regime now regrettably installed in her own native land. Within a short time, her warm good nature had won her a small circle of Canadian friends, and she was well on her way to integrating herself into the social fabric of her adopted homeland. I last heard from her many years ago when she invited my wife and me to her wedding, an event we were, unfortunately, unable to attend.
The witness of all three students’ struggles is a tribute to the unconquerable human spirit, which, when faced with adversity, is more often than is commonly realized, able to rise above it, demonstrating again and again its resilience, and inspiring others in similar situations to do likewise in dealing with their own difficulties. I was their teacher for a short while, but their examples taught me lifelong valuable lessons about patience, determination, and persistence.
