Knowing What You Don't Know

I have a friend from when I was much younger who was something of a mentor when it came to understanding the world.  One time, when we were discussing what kinds of behaviors and knowledge made people truly good at their jobs, my friend said something to me that has stuck with me through all these years and is something that I believe applies to the relationship between parents and educators and is something all of us need to think about.

My friend said that those that can truly make things work well are those that take the time to know what they don’t know. 

That really is something that has stuck with me all these years and is something that all of us should give some thought to.  Over and over again, I believe that asking myself that question has helped me be better at what I do.  It has helped me find weak areas and learn, and discover more about what I need to know to be better at what I do.  I also discovered that the more I do learn, the more I find that out what I still don’t know and have to try and learn.  Yes, it is a never-ending cycle.  But it is a cycle that helps make me better at what I do and who I am. 

Now, how does that apply to the relationship between parents and educators?  Let’s start with parents. 

Too often, in the emotional turmoil that can go along with trying to raise a child with special needs, parents can fail to understand that the professionals they are dealing with at schools have worked hard, studying and learning and practicing their craft.  Professionals learn how to look at children and try and see that long-term potential, then envision the long term path to get a child to that potential.  Often, and especially with young children, that path can be slow.  As parents, we often don’t know how that process works.  While we have our own kind of training in the world of special needs, the staff has theirs as well.  Ask yourself how possible is it that there are things in this equation that you do not know but that the teacher or other professional does.  Do you know what you don’t know?  Maybe. Maybe not. 

It was instructive to me when an Occupational Therapist who I greatly respect told me one time, when I was complaining about lack of educational progress in, I think, 2^nd grade, that our son was really just getting to a point physically where his body was ready to allow him to learn.  They knew what they were seeing, but I did not.  Funny thing, that next year the learning began in earnest for our son.  That OT must have been right, since Ian graduated high school and is now in college.  I did not know what I did not know.  Since then, in our family, we look at everything new in special education or raising a child with a disability as a graduate level class.  Figure out what it is we don’t know.  Then start learning it.  Find the people who do know.  Tap into those resources and research.  Learn what you did not know so you can then know what you still don’t know and learn that.  It is a quest that goes on and on.

Now, let’s flip the coin and talk about professionals in the schools.  Do they know what they do not know?  Truth is, some staff are subject to the same kind of hubris that parents can be.  Many, in fact the great majority, know what they don’t know.  They also understand that when dealing with parents and raising a special needs child, there is a great deal of knowledge that cannot be found in books or a class.  This is knowledge that can only be gained by living in the world these families live in.  Staff may have a window to that world, but are not truly part of it.  Those that know what they don’t know understand this and can function with a great deal of empathy and understanding.  These professionals – and I’ve known quite a few, are some of the best to work with.  These are people who, from the family’s perspective, engender a level of trust that creates a partnership with that family that will be hard to break.  There are teachers and specialists in our life that we will remember until the day we die.  Our first early intervention specialist had a son on a college football scholarship.  She and her husband also both have cerebral palsy.  The teacher of the deaf who, while not having children of her own, looked treated the children and their families as part of her extended family.  She was never too busy to talk.  Often, and maybe more important, she was never too busy to just listen. 

But there are others.  Professionals who think the education in college or experience alone gives them all the information they need to understand families of children with special needs.  Often it is a young teacher without a lot of experience, or maybe one who does not work in a classroom or one who just does not ‘get it’. These professionals do not know what they do not know.  They may be very good at what they do – most are.  But they do not know what they do not know.  If you are one of those professionals, I have one very important piece of advice.  DO NOT tell a parent you understand what it means to raise a child with special needs.  The truth is it is a place you cannot understand unless you have lived there.  Unless you have walked through the hills and valleys, dark forests and sunlit glens, and the beaches and swamps that exist in that place, and dealt with the unique demons and knights that inhabit these parents’ dreams, you cannot understand.  Even worse for a professional who makes this kind of a claim, the parents of the child will know that you do not know what you do not know. 

So, on both sides of this educational relationship it is time for all of us, parents and professionals to stop, lose our egos, and take a good, long look around us.  Figure out what you know you know.  But above all, know what you do not know.

Then use that knowledge to keep growing as a parent or as a professional.  It will help each side meet in the middle and help that special child.