Writing class

When I walked into Chance's writing class to help out, I was a little late. I peeped through the window in the classroom door and found Chance sitting at a table with a friend.

I made my way over to him and noticed that several of Chance's classmates were telling Chance that I had arrived, yet he didn't really respond or look up.

That was O.K., I figured he was just really immersed in whatever he was doing. And he was really immersed.

While the rest of the class hummed with the sounds of kids memorizing a poem, Chance sat calmly focused looking at his computer.

He finally saw me when I sat down next to him and then signed to me that his implants were turned off.

I nodded in acknowledgement realizing that was why he did not respond to the kids telling him I had arrived, and set my purse down.

Then it hit me that Chance had just told me that his implants were off while he was sitting in class.

I tapped him and asked him why.

He said that he could focus better on the poem he was supposed to memorize. And focus he did. Chance sat totally unperturbed by the girls at the next table over who were making up a hand slapping rhythm to memorize the poem.

In fact, the entire room had a low buzzing quality to it as a classroom full of kids repeated the verses and sometimes worked with a friend next to them.

Chance had a friend next to him too, who just kind of looked at Chance every so often. It's not like he could talk to him or ask him a question. He seemed just to understand that and sat alternating between looking at his own computer and checking out what the other kids in the class were doing.

Later when Chance got home from school, he informed me that he had gotten his poem all the way memorized.

I congratulated him and could not help but think that being able to turn off the rest of the class had major benefits sometimes.

I did tell Chance that he might want to let his teacher know when he removed the processor off of the magnets to let them dangle in unhearing bliss. Just so the teacher would know that if he did say something of importance, Chance was blissfully unaware:)