A wonderful monkey bar story

This is a letter I wrote to Silvia's teachers this morning. I think it gives good insight into Silvia's school life and the type of school she's in. Pretty amazing!




Brenda and Yaffa,

Yesterday I witnessed one the most amazing things I've seen as a father and I wanted to share it with you.

Silvia, as you know, has no depth perception which makes some activities extremely difficult for her. Luckily she is blessed with tenacity. Every day for the past two months, she's been working on doing the Monkey bars (the hanging rings). She can't tell how far away from her they are, so this is an immense challenge for her but she keeps working at it.

Yesterday, after school, we went to the playground. Silvia, Maayan, Dina, and Niv were playing. They immediately started playing on the monkey bars. Silvia tried several times and never got further than two rings. I lost track of them in conversation with other parents, but turned in time to see Silvia do three rings for the first time! All of a sudden all the other girls started shouting and getting really excited. I heard them saying "Silvia did three!" over and again and congratulating her.

I smiled and thought to myself that maybe they all had difficulty with Monkey bars and this was a big deal for everyone. I then watched as all the other girls adeptly went through all of the monkey bars. My mouth fell open as I realized that these six year old girls had recognized something as a challenge for Silvia that wasn't for them, then supported and congratulated her when she got better at it. There was no condensation or judgement involved to put Silvia down for having difficulty only coaching (we'd heard about that before) and encouragement.

Whatever y'all are doing, you're doing it right. Thank you! It, again, makes me realize JCDS is a special place.

Aaron