The kids in Amy Tracy’s classroom are having a ball, but so is she.
On a recent school day, her elementary school students at Elim Christian Services Bridges Program in Crestwood played “Stop and Go,” going around the school in a makeshift train with four boxcars and one student as a crossing guard with a sign labeled on its side with the words “stop” and “go.”
The game helped the 6- to-10-year-olds, who mainly are non-verbal, learn communication skills they need for class and beyond.
“They need to recognize communication signs,” said Tracy, an Orland Park resident who has been teaching at the Palos Heights school for two years. “I wanted something that’s interactive and made it more fun and engaging for them. I knew we had tons of boxes at Elim, so I requested some of them and we decided to make some vehicles.”
Tracy, who frequently refers to her pupils as “kiddos” and has an infectious smile when she talks about them, has a long history at Elim that predates her job there. She first toured the school with her family at age 13 when her brother enrolled as a student. He’s now learning life skills in Elim’s Adult Services Program.
One of three triplets along with Tracy and another sister, her 24-year-old brother loved the program and would get on and off the bus to and from Elim with a big smile on his face, she recalls. Even just touring the grounds for the first time, she remembers the pool and other neat things.
“He’s the main one who inspired me to go into special education,” Tracy said. “I think coming to Elim and seeing how much progress they made with him made me want to come here to teach. I was like, this is where I want to be.”
Tracy, who attended Lewis University for a combined special education and elementary education degree, also volunteered in the same Elim classroom where she now teaches when she was a teen and a student at Marist High School in Chicago. She remembers one time being in a store and hearing someone refer to Autism Spectrum Disorder as a disease and wanted to clear the air about it being more complex, affecting the brain in social interaction, communication skills, and cognitive function.
“I think one thing is this field is so misunderstood, I just wanted to be an advocate for more kids, ” she said.
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She also noticed how everyone seemed to help everyone else out at Elim, which she still experiences as a teacher.
If Tracy is stumped with how to reach a student, she has her trusted registered behavior technician Kayla Mauch to turn to, along with an assistant teacher and other paraprofessionals who can weigh in. Tracy gets to work every morning around 6:30 to start preparing her lessons and chat with other employees. She’s well known at the school.
“Amy is such a positive person and brings such joy and excitement to the classroom,” said Kari Miller, an assistant principal in the Bridges Elementary and Middle School program at Elim. “You can tell she loves what she does and cares very much for her students and staff that are in the classroom.”
Miller, who has known Tracy since her volunteer days, said she had talked positively about her brother’s experience.
“I could tell right away how passionate she was to be a teacher at Elim, so that other families could have the same experience that she did with her brother attending Elim,” Miller said.
Lately Tracy has been using animal labels to get her pupils’ attention and boost their communication skills. With March Madness right around the corner, they began using pictures of animals for a type of basketball game, throwing paper with the animal labels into a basket after they’d named them.
The class voted dog and pig as the best animals, split into teams and played the game, then using other creatures. They also wore jerseys with pictures of animals on them.
“Team dog won this year,” said Tracy. “They were like, what did we win?
“I was like, bragging rights,” she said.
Fun aside, Tracy said she wants the lessons to help her students long term.
“My main goal for them is to gain more independence,” Tracy said, explaining they need to know how to grab their backpacks, walk the halls, etc. “So when they go to middle school, they’re ready and confident and know how to follow rules.”
Each student has a communication device like a laptop where they can point to words and things they need, whether food, a bathroom break or help. The communication efforts go beyond physical needs.
“They can talk about their feelings here,” Tracy said.
The students also have left an imprint on her feelings. She has rows of pictures of current and past students decorating her walls and desk.
“I just love hanging out with them, making those one-on-one connections,” she said.
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.