What do you notice?

It's really fun and interesting to have a student who doesn't have much of a social-appropriateness filter... I can learn a lot about what they think, and what their parents think too.

Yesterday I introduced myself in person to the mom of one of my students. The encounter was brief: I told her who I was, shook her hand, and told her how much I am enjoying working with her son. She smiled and thanked me and said she was glad I approached her. Today when my student came in, I told him I had met his mother. He grinned and said, "Yeah, I know! She said she was surprised to find out you're in a wheelchair!"

Two things about this statement amused me... The first was that my wheelchair was of some importance to his mom - positive or negative, I'm not sure - if it was worth her commenting on it. The second thing was that I realized my wheelchair wasn't very important to my student, because he obviously hadn't felt it necessary to mention it to his mom before. He's pretty talkative about everything in his life, so it says a lot that my wheelchair wasn't a big deal for him.

Of course, now that his attention was drawn to it, he was curious about why I'm in a wheelchair, so I filled him in on some of the details. I wonder if my other students want to know or if they care? Maybe I'll ask them about it tomorrow.