This one is going to break your heart.

This past Tuesday I went to school, knowing that I was scheduled in a learning disabled room. Now, I've done a LOT of learning disabled classes. they're usually a guided study-hall environment, a place where kids who have problems concentrating or have short attention spans or have mild learning impairment can go and get their homework done with an adult or two around to help them out. Often there are student tutors there as well. So that's what I thought I was getting into.

NOT.

This was a severely emotionally handicapped classroom. It's a day-school lockdown environement, you'll see why it's lock-down, later.

I walked in and realized this was something different when the guy who opened the door for me introduced himself as the County behavioral psychiatrist. Two more adults, and these were big guys, showed up. I noticed that in addition to two classrooms, there were a couple of "quiet" rooms, two "counseling" rooms with soft furniture. The staff offices were behind soundproof doors.....with windows.....so that the staff could talk about the kids while seeing them, but the kids couldn't hear what they were saying. The complex had it's own bathroom. It had it's own kitchen.

When the first student arrives, I thought he was very autistic from his body language and in how he'd stare at me over and over again...I was "New" you see? We had two "crack babies" in there, and one "alcohol baby". I learned this at the end of the day from the District Occupational Therapist.

The kids arrive and get breakfast. They get lunch as well, because the truth is that if they don't eat something worthwhile at school, it's likely that they won't eat anything worthwhile at ALL, all day long. While I was there I heard one kid tell the OT that the reason he'd gotten so upset during their college visit the previous day was because his he and his dad had gotten in a fight that night, and his dad had left. He was glad his dad had left, because last time he'd been there, he'd beaten up the kid....but yet this kid was worried about his dad; was worried that he was out drinking and would come home nad hurt his mother, or get hurt himself. Later on, this kids mother came in for a conference with the District Pyschologist. I think she hadn't combed her hair in a month, and she certainly hadn't bathed in a week or two....but at least SHE CAME IN. The father did not.

I broke up a fight while I was in there...second time I've done that in a month.

During the assigned reading time (twenty minutes every day) I took a chance and I printed off copies of two of my poems and handed them out. I told thekids to read them and then if they wanted to, write one of their own on the back. You'd have just DIED....

One kids wrote about how much he loved his mother, she was always there for him, no matter what happened or how much trouble he got in. Another one wrote about how she loved her horse and how sad she was that he had died this past year.

I about lost it when another kid with a serious disorder and need for attention told her that her horse should be cut up and eaten...that's all horses were good for. But you have to understand, that kid was one of the crack babies. That was a horrible thing to say, but his values and brain is scrambled from the white dust that his mother snorted while she was pregnant, and by God-Knows_What is going on at home, right now.

Two kids got out....it happens once in a while, and the next thing we knew we had the Sherriff in the classroom because they'd verbally abused a teacher and had thrown another ("normal") kid against a steel post int he hallway and split his head open.

You get the picture? THAT is where I spent my Tuesday.

But you know what happened, to the utter astonishment of the Psychologist and the two aides and the OT? I took twenty minutes to talk about my kilts.

I told them about the history of the kilt, and that MEN wore kilts, and I told them about the tartans, and that the thing around my waist was a sporran. I showed them that my wallet and my cell phone was in my sporran. I told them about the Gaelic language and what a sgian dubh was. I told them about my clan: MacNaughton.

One kid asked about my kilt pin, and I pointed out that if you looked at it closely, it was a knot that had no beginning and no ending. I pointed out that it was a lot like my belt......

and I told them that the knot, in Celtic lore, signified how all people were entwined with one another. I told them that the knot represented how people were tied to the Earth and the world around us. I told them that the knot was a way to show that we are all brothers and sisters, and that when I wore a kilt...

....I stood like a man, and I treated people with respect.

They got it. I told them that when I wear a Celtic knot, it's my way of telling them....and I gripped don black kids hand, one of the ones in the fight that I broke up.....that MEN wore kilts, and MEN treated each other with RESPECT, and that I RESPECTED them, and if they respected each other and treated each other like MEN....

...then we were brothers.

And you know what happened? They listened. They asked questions. They didn't tune me out, like they tried to tune almost everything else out, all day long. Every single kid in that room paid attention, listened, asked questions, learned where the UK is on the map and agreed that we were all brothers and sisters.

The staff was open-mouthed. NEVER...NEVER did the entire class act like that. Kids who NEVER asked questions, asked questions. Kids who tuned out EVERYTHING, now knew where England, Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are.

WHY?

.....because someone talked to them with respect, and that someone wore a KILT. Two boys want kilts, now, and if they still want them when I go back to that classroom, I personally will BUY THEM kilts with my own money.

Without the kilt on, I'd be just another substitute in that classroom. With a kilt on, I got their attention and for at least twenty minutes of their day, those kids learned something, and we were all equals.

The Kilt teaches. It opens doors. It makes a difference.

Wear it with Pride.