The humanity of mentally-retarded children

By Guan Xiaomeng (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-06-29 16:44

A 15 year-old boy was making a plasticine face on a paper plate at the Shanghai Pudong Youth Palace. Asked what part he was working on, he replied he was touching up the lips; but when further asked why he put one of the teeth outside of the lips, he couldn't answer.

This teenager, along with his pals in the Youth Palace is mentally retarded and sometimes they don't know what they're doing. But here in the Youth Palace, they are enjoying making handicrafts under their teacher's instructions.

They make all kinds of interesting crafts, including painting umbrellas, making flowers out of dough, and even using burning incense to burn little holes that form the outlines of a design on paper.

But today they were keen to show off their work to a group of reporters visiting Shanghai to cover the 100 days countdown to the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games. One teenage boy jumped in front of me and showed off his plasticine doll face. "Take a picture of my work, mine is the best!" he exclaimed with a big smile, and waving his arms.

I snapped a photo of the proud student. He was about to show me another piece when his teacher came over to stop him and apologize to me, "He is very friendly to you, I hope you won't mind," she explained. The boy quietly returned to his seat and continued making his doll face.

"Mentally retarded children are not the same. Some of them are extroverted so we need to tell them to be polite, while others were introverted so we have to encourage them to communicate with others," said Du Chuanyuan, a teacher at the Shanghai Pudong Special Education School.

Watching their teacher talking to a stranger, two of the students left their table and stood near us, staring at me.

Du physically led them back to their seats before continuing our conversation. She went on to say that these children used to stay alone at home before they entered the school, but they are now happy to be with other students. "The school brings these children back to the society," Du said with a smile.

Having worked as a special education teacher for more than a decade, Du has a love of children and even has five-month old child of her own. "A nice greeting from my students is equal to hugging my child, or even happier than that."

The boy who first showed me his doll face finished another piece of work and asked his teacher to critique it. "Good! Well done!" Du praised him and clapped her hands. The boy gave another big smile and went back to do another one.

The teacher told me the doll face exercise helped the children to recognize human features and making a smiling face will make they themselves smile.

I walked back to the table where children were using burning incense and found one of them was trying to reach the candle at the other side of the table to rekindle his incense. I helped him to do that. "Thanks," he said, casting a shy glance at me and lowered his head before returning to his work.

I was very happy because he accepted my help and appreciated it too.