Hope and Healing: Are We Brave Enough to Speak the Light?
Pow!words. That’s the term I’ve coined for my vocabulary students. I’ve told them that words have power and the more words they know, the better words they choose, the more power they have to communicate. After all, communication is what it’s all about. I’m a speech-language pathologist.
In the spring of 2020, when the world went into lockdown mode, my work changed dramatically. First, there was a quiet period of waiting. Of sending messages through Google Classroom letting my students know I didn’t want them to forget to practice their speech. As time went on, and it became obvious we weren’t going back to school any time soon, our school district instructed the SLPs to provide activities online, have paper packets available for pickup at school, and offer “Zoom-therapy” to our speech students.
I did as I was told. But in return, there was much silence. It was hard to connect with parents, who were already upended by their own changes in work, household responsibilities, and monitoring their children’s schoolwork. Speech was put on the back burner. It was pretty obvious: speech therapy was not essential in the midst of a pandemic.
Unlike the healthcare workers, grocery store cashiers, and public service professionals, my role was not considered essential. In fact, it seemed quite frivolous compared to the crucial work of nurses, doctors, and scientists.
I began to question the importance of my life’s profession and my value as a person who is “non-essential.”
Fall, 2020 brought the start of a new school year and again, a new approach to speech therapy. The long hours I worked preparing to deliver therapy virtually and in-person were reminiscent of my early days as an SLP. I was exhausted. And yet, I was invigorated. Seeing my students again and providing them with the help they needed gave me the sense of value I had been missing. The clear face masks I issued them allowed their smiles to shine through. They were happy to see me too.
I now realize that essential or not, my role as an SLP is a crucial part of these kids’ lives.
I think of the 9th-grade girl who is too afraid to speak in front of her class for fear that everyone will hear her stutter. Her face mask now hides her lips as they twitch in a disorganized effort to speak the words that are so often trapped.
The less-severe 4th-grade boy who says, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-I don’t know why those boys are so mean to me. Thuh-thuh-thuh-they won’t let me sit with them at lunch.” I know kids can be cruel, and I hope I can teach him some strategies before these “mean boys” start teasing him about his speech.
And then there are my “R” kids. It’s the hardest sound to learn with its many different shades. I spend much of my week saying “Don’t forget to lift the back of your tongue. Is it touching your molars?” Some lift their tongues. Some don’t. We continue the uphill climb to good speech.
I teach grammar and vocabulary and social interaction as well. Skills that will come into play as these kids become young adults and find themselves working as a cashier, a cop, a waiter, or a lawyer. Perhaps I’ve got a future preacher on my caseload. A talk-show host. Maybe I’m teaching essential workers–the doctors and nurses of tomorrow.
Not long ago, on another SLP’s caseload, there was a young “skinny Black girl” who couldn’t say her “R” sound. On January 20, 2021, with the whole world watching, she recited her poetry at the presidential inauguration.
And even longer ago, there was a little boy who stuttered, but who persevered in chasing his dream of becoming President.
Seeing President Joe Biden take office and listening to his fluent inaugural speech reminded me again that my work is important. And hearing young poet laureate Amanda Gorman recite “The Hill We Climb” showed me that even the “R” work I do may pay off in a big way someday.
“Words, as I teach my speech kids, bring power. And power can be abused.”
But this isn’t about me. And it’s not even about my work.
What this is about is the right that every individual has to communicate. Our freedom of speech is so important that our forefathers included it in the first amendment to our constitution. Still, with rights come responsibilities. And it’s what we do with that right, with our gift of speech, that matters.
Words can be used to build up, or to tear down. They can encourage love and unity. Or they can incite violence and insurrection. They can bring about peace, or they can draw out discord.
Words, as I teach my speech kids, bring power. And power can be abused.
Along with free speech, our forefathers also granted citizens the right to peaceably assemble. Sadly, there have been many non-peaceful assemblies in the recent past. Blame it on the past president. Blame it on the thugs. Blame it on right- or left-wing extremists. Or blame it on the pandemic.
The fact is, most of us are appalled by this violence. By the destruction and loss of life. We all want the same thing. We want the right to speak. To be heard. And to live in peace.
As the violent protestors around and in the capital building on January 6, 2021 showed us, hateful words become powerful weapons, driving people to madness, chaos, and violence. Those words are not worth repeating. They need to fade now.
PC: BBC News
The young poet in the bright yellow coat showed us another way. Through the power of healing and uplifting words–words of hope and peace–she showed us how to shape our world for good. Those words are worth remembering.
What will we do with the power, the right, and the responsibility we’ve been given? How will our words impact the world around us? Will they lead to more darkness? Or bring us closer to the Light?
In the words of Amanda Gorman:
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it,
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
Are we brave enough to be, and speak, the light?
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