During the last week of school, one of my kids (who has autism) got fixated on the word “crocodiles” after telling us a story in which he had apparently fed a (dead) chicken to a crocodile in a Thai zoo.
He started yelling the word “crocodiles” in a strange falsetto. Another kid grabbed a guitar I have in the class, and this song evolved.
It’s great on its own, but a magnifying bit of coolness is the clear example of honest integration that happens when we encourage it. Nobody was laughing at the boy with autism, but they weren’t pretending it wasn’t crazy to yell crocodiles all day long. They were free to enjoy it.
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Tags: improvised music, integration, teaching
