In
Memory of Paul
In
Memory of Paul
Paul Schaeffer
Paul wasn’t cut out to be a Scopus kid.
Scopus, in those days at least, was academic, academic, academic. [If you couldn’t make the grade, you might be told, “Maybe you’d want to consider…”] Within the Jewish education world at the time, learning disabilities just weren’t talked about. Period. Physical disabilities weren’t catered for. Period. It would take years for the Jewish schools in Melbourne to catch up with the rest of the world.
But Paul came up to Burwood with those of us who came from the former Moriah College, in Elwood. That’s where I first met him. And he was different then. Physically awkward, intellectually challenged – none of us really knew what Paul’s condition was, but we knew that he couldn’t do a lot of the things that many kids take for granted. (The late Mr. Wreschner, who was headmaster of Moriah, once told me that he had labeled Paul’s condition as “atalexia”. Don’t bother trying to Google it – it isn’t there.) He had trouble writing, doing arithmetic, running, catching a ball. He sucked on pens and pencils. And, unfortunately, because we were kids, he was the butt of our jokes.
After a while at Scopus, Paul went somewhere else. I think that the school he went to was more open to kids who were different.
And then, I don’t even remember when, at some point I heard that he was no longer.
We live in a more enlightened time now. We are aware of kids with ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, LD's, this condition and that syndrome. You name it – we’re willing to take it into account, make allowances for it. We are more accepting of kids who are different.
I wish we had been then.
Perry Zamek
(Step-father to Doron, a 17-year-old, high functioning boy with autism)
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