THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410110106
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WINDSOR LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
It was almost as though an imaginary arrow pointed the direction for Anita Lee to take when she left Franklin High School and headed toward Virginia Union University.
Lee, now the new teacher for early childhood handicapped students at Windsor Elementary School, knew exactly where she was going, exactly what she wanted to do with her life. And she says she has never had regrets.
``I think I made the decision when I was maybe a junior in high school,'' Lee said in her colorfully-decorated classroom. ``I wanted to teach, and I knew I wanted to work with kids with special needs. Public Law 94142 (which provides for educating the handicapped) was initiated the year I graduated from high school - 1975.''
And it paved the way for Lee's chosen career.
The law says that children with handicapping mental, physical or learning problems have the right to a free and appropriate education in public schools, that the school must meet their individual needs and that they have the right to be placed in the least-restrictive classroom environment.
Looking back, Lee said, she believes she made her career decision for two reasons, or rather, maybe, for two people.
``My father has had problems with his vision for as long as I can remember,'' Lee said. ``He has glaucoma and cataracts. His vision would get bad, and he'd have to stop working. When it improved a little, he'd go back to work.''
The other person Lee thinks about, she said, is a former classmate. He was mildly retarded but never got special help because his problems weren't serious enough to require his parents to put him into an institution, and he was too bright to stay at home.
``Those were the only alternatives when I was going to public school,'' Lee said. ``He was mainstreamed until we reached high school. Then he was placed in a special class. I never knew what happened to him. He has always been very vivid in my mind because he was treated very differently by the other students. He may have been more successful if he had gotten special help.''
Throughout her career, Lee said, she has thought about that special classmate, and giving children like him the special help they need.
Lee completed requirements for her bachelor's degree in education at Virginia Union in December 1978, just 3 1/2 years after she started, and got her diploma the following May.
She immediately started working on her master's degree in early childhood and pre-school handicapped education, while beginning to teach full-time the following fall.
``My friends and my parents encouraged me,'' Lee said. ``I was the first in my mother's family to go to college. She was very proud. And I have never looked back. Honestly, truthfully, I have always known I made the right decision.''
Lee taught in New Kent County from 1979 until 1984 and got her master's that same year. Also in '84, she moved to the Richmond public school system, where she worked for 10 years.
``I worked with self-contained, emotionally disturbed children on the elementary level, with pre-school handicapped for the last 10 years,'' Lee said. ``But I have worked with students from kindergarten through high school.''
Lee's mother died last year, and when she found herself making several trips a week to Franklin to help care for her father, she decided it was time to move back to the area.
``I applied in all of the local school systems this summer,'' Lee said, smiling. ``Windsor has been wonderful. The people here are great.''
Lee has only three students in her spacious classroom, all of them developmentally below normal.
``We no longer label them mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed or learning disabled so early,'' she said. ``Many of the kids I teach go on into regular classes. They may have some immediate concerns, but they may be age-appropriate in some areas.''
In the classroom, Lee focuses on the children's attention and memory, pre-requisites for successful learning.
``We work on their individual educational goals,'' she said. ``The children work at learning centers - arts and crafts, science and nature, blocks. They learn to make a choice and to stay in that area until they make another choice.''
And they make small strides every day, she said.
``For the most part, children who participate in early intervention are likely to do very well,'' Lee said.
Lee's small number of students is likely to increase throughout the year, since young children who are not accomplishing skills as they should can be recommended for the developmentally delayed class any time during the year, usually by their pediatrician.
Lee remembers one little boy she taught in Richmond. When she first met Patrick, she said, he had very little muscle tone and couldn't walk.
``He was leaping, like a frog,'' she said. ``By the end of the year, he was walking and using the bathroom. I can still see his little, smiling face.''
The job, Lee said, is ``always rewarding - quite rewarding.''
In addition to her classroom duties at Windsor Elementary, Lee is case manager for the school's student assistance team, a group of teachers and administrators who look at particular students who are experiencing problems. The team tries to identify the problems and recommends possible solutions.
And nearly every day, Lee said, she thinks about the boy she went to school with and wishes somebody had helped him. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
Anita Lee teaches early childhood handicapped students at Windsor
Elementary School.
by CNB