The Human Calculator

One of Rusty’s elementary school teachers had given him the nickname of “The Human Calculator.” Amazingly, he was even referred to as “The Human Calculator” in his official school record.  What was even more amazing is that it was true.  You could throw complicated multiplication problems at this smart 6th grader and he would sit straight up in his chair with a finger pointing to the sky and declare the correct answer (which I often had to check on the calculator myself).

Rusty was so confident in his computation skills, however, that he thought he had all math figured out and didn’t need to pay attention in class.  Math concepts that were new to Rusty were often lost on him as he made waves with a piece of paper over and over or repeatedly shoved the cap of a glue stick on his thumb and took it off again. 

Rusty’s self-entertainment became a source of frustration for both of us.  It drove me crazy that he had fantastic math skills but refused to open himself up to new information.  It angered him when he had to demonstrate what he had learned and had nothing to show because he had escaped to waving paper and the glue stick cap on his thumb.

I silently waged a Cold War with Rusty to keep him engaged in learning.  I asked him questions constantly in class.  I made him the expert for one step in each learning process and called on him to repeat it every single time our class got to that step. If Rusty drifted off in class while my co-teacher was instructing, I stood right next to him so there was a hair’s breadth of space between us.  Sometimes I quietly put two fingers on his shoulder to keep his head in the game. 

After weeks of carrying out my clandestine operations, our class was ready to take a quiz.  Rusty accompanied me, a teacher assistant, and several other students to a room where everyone could work with fewer distractions.

Rusty immediately got to work interpreting the data and statistics facing him in the quiz.  I was elated.  No groans or moans or paper waving.  Halfway through, though, I could see a question stumped him and Rusty sputtered to a halt making a smattering of dots and squiggly lines in one compacted corner of his paper.

Knowing that our teacher assistant, Ms. Sally, was full of love and compassion at all times (and perhaps knowing that my frustration with Rusty was rising), I asked her to simply sit next to him and offer him encouragement to keep working.  Being the kindhearted soul that she was, Ms. Sally eagerly accepted the task.  Several times I heard her tell Rusty how well he was doing, how smart he was, and how she was impressed that he was almost done.  None of it seemed to jump start Rusty but I heard Ms. Sally give it one more try.

“You can do this,” she said in her gentle Southern drawl.  “I know it’s hard.  It’s hard for me sometimes.”

Rusty’s head snapped up as if he had been struck by a jolt of electricity and in a most straight forward manner asked, “Are you autistic, too?”

As only a special educator would know how, Ms. Sally replied, “Well, you know, I just might be.”

A smile spread across Rusty’s face, he shook his head, put pencil to paper, and finished his quiz in a flurry of brilliance.