Redding School District

Partnership Educators,

Chris was the child of the slums.  At four years old, his mother noticed something was wrong.  The doctors of whom she took him said he was an irreversible cripple. A hopeless imbecile they said. Those were the doctor’s words.  What it turned out to be was a severe form of Cerebral Palsy. 

 The boy’s mother refused to believe that her son’s mind was functioning as they suggested.  She had already raised five youngsters and deep down she knew that Chris’s body was tangled; there was nothing wrong with his thinking brain.   Yet still, at age five Chris was still as helpless as a newborn.   Eventually, there was talk among the relatives about institutionalizing him.  It would be the right thing for everyone concerned the argument went.    Mom, on the other hand, said never would that happen.  Even though she had no evidence that Chris would be anything but a quivering unaware person.  Alas, she insisted that he would stay with the family and be much more. 

Then one long cold December day, not long before Christmas, something occurred that shook them all.   The family was warming at the hearth as outside the snow was swirling and the bitter cold was settling around the small little house.    As the firelight danced about, in the corner of the room, one of the children played with a chalk and a slate.  Five-year-old Chris was lying nearby.  Chris had for a long time demonstrated an interest in his left foot and especially his toes.   Because of this interest, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, that Chris reached out with his left foot and snatched the chalk from his sister’s hands.  Everybody suddenly stopped talking and stared silently at little Chris.  Moments later mother was kneeling by the child.  Taking another piece of chalk, she drew on the slate the letter “A.”  She then looked at Chris and said: “Copy that.”  Slowly and painstakingly, grasping the chalk with the toes of his left foot, Chris did copy as best he could what his mother had written.  It was on that afternoon when a not quite helpless youngster found his voice.  As the doctor’s had predicted his talk would remain unintelligible.  He would never be able to walk, nor eat or drink on his own.  However, the higher functions of his brain, well they were wrong about that.

When Chris died in 1981 at the age of 49, he was mourned by his family and the local folks who knew him but also by so many more.  Because the voice of Christy Brown, which rose from the slums of Dublin, Ireland, was heard all over the world.  His novels, his volumes of poetry would become best sellers.  The New York Times would call him a man of genius.  There was a film about him (1989), My Left Foot, which was produced from the autobiographical book of the same name.

Chris’s literary career was a monument to a mother’s love.  Without being able to speak, Christy Brown spoke through the one limb that had full use.  The hundreds and thousands of words, which made up his adored works, his dazzling descriptions, his remarkable insights, were all typed one letter at a time with his little toe.

Love, understanding, and continuing hope is sometimes a difficult thing to continue to grasp.  When a glimmer was realized within the firelight that winter day, his mother helped him to develop the one skill that facilitated his growth.  As trustees for children’s education, we are constantly looking for the moment that might assist us in facilitating growth both emotionally, behaviorally and academically.   Thanks for the continued commitment to Capturing our students through hundreds of interactions while we look for that glimmer or insight into how to make a difference with that student that continues to be difficult to reach.