JUST A SPAZ

By Louis Tagliaboschi: Do you know what spaz means?  My son didn't.  He didn't understand why his teacher would call him that just because he had to do something with his hands and his feet while he took tests or did his math. Things like tapping rhythmically.

When his teacher said that to him, and then put him out in the hall to take his standardized test, he was heartbroken. He didn't know what he had done wrong.

For the entire summer after that, he was a different child. What was normally a child that was excited about going to school, was now a child who would cry when he thought about going to school.

Luckily, when my son met his new teacher the next year, she showed him that he wasn't going to be put out in the hall anymore. When he got to his desk, there was a piece of carpet on the desk, and one underneath, so that he could tap all he wanted to.  The smile on his face was proof that the label was not going to stick to him.

Labeling a child is not only cruel and wrong, but it’s dangerous for them too. A label can cause a child to give up on school, their family, and their friends.  But at the same time, it only takes one person to shatter those labels … will you choose to be that person?