Monarch School - a gentle and safe place

I’ve been to quite a few schools since the release of Look Me in the Eye. Wednesday was one more school appearance, this one in scenic downtown Houston. Something about the Monarch School was different, though. I could feel it right away.

The Monarch school felt gentle, and safe.

I don’t have a very good social sense. I can’t read people’s faces or tell what they are thinking. That said, my ability to sense safety and danger is excellent. Why would that be? I don’t know. Temple Grandin says the autistic mind is closer in some ways to animals. She thinks this sense of danger is more basic, more animal. Perhaps she’s right.

And I could just feel it at Monarch. The place was safe. And I'd like to clarify something with respect to the other schools - they did not feel dangerous. But they lacked the safe and gentle feeling I found at Monarch. At least, that's true for me. There's a difference between places that feel "not dangerous" and places that feel "gentle and safe."

Last week, there was some lively discussion about Billy in the movie Billy the Kid, and why he looked around like a hunted animal in certain scenes of that movie. Indeed, I described him as a hunted animal, while others contended that his look was nothing more than a common autistic behavior.

Well, at the Monarch school, the difference was evident. The kids there looked around, but their gazes lacked the anticipation of danger. I could feel it myself. It’s just an instinctive thing; I know it but it’s hard to articulate. They looked around, but the expressions were subtly different from what I saw on Billy's face in the movie, and different from how I remember my own school experience.

When I spoke to the students, I mentioned this, and I think they saw it too. At my talk Wednesday night, at the United Way Community Center, I brought it up again.

We need more schools with that safe feeling.

I don’t what they did to bring this about, but whatever it is, it’s a remarkable achievement.

After visiting the school, I went on a little tour. I’d like to take you with me, via some photos of my trip. First, check out the potted plant in front of the Art Museum – a far cry from the snow and ice and frozen plants back home





Things are already looking green and lush, as you can see from this view of the street outside my hotel:








Houston has a fine light rail system, and it passes right by the museum. It's clean and modern. The cars roll silently on welded rail, which is set artistically into the pavement with decorative stone. Here’s one now:




Next, I headed for the Houston Ship Channel. With the post-9-11 security, it’s hard to get close but you can see the channel from the Battleship Texas park site. Here’s the Texas:



Here’s one of the quad 40mm antiaircraft guns that was added in WWII:




The Ship Channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world. It was teeming with motorized aquatic life the whole time I was there. At one point, I counted five tugs in motion at once, all on separate missions. Here's a tug moving two bargeloads of petroleum product:





Here’s a tanker headed into port. To my surprise, there were no tugs tethered to provide control in case she lost steering. Why don’t they do that? I don’t know.





I will close with this. Many of you have heard the phrase, “Better living through chemistry.” This is where it originates: