Finding My Passion for Teaching

Dear Phoenix,

There is a certain kind of giddy I get when I think about the students I teach.  Every one of them brings to me a renewed sense of the world around me.

When I first started teaching, I worked as an after school music tutor.  After a few sessions, I knew that teaching was misunderstood as a profession in the United States.  This certainly was not a job for “those who can’t.”  Curious on how I could expand my approach, I started the way all of us did before there was google – I asked more experienced teachers for advice.

One afternoon at Waffle House (a cheap diner in Atlanta that was the frequent meeting place before Starbucks arrived) I met with a teacher whom I had respected for many years.  I listened as she complained about difficult students, red tape, problems with parents, and lack of resources.  She had recently retired and was excited about walking away from nearly 30 years of teaching.  At the end of our talk, I asked her if she had any positive advice for me as a new teacher.  She said, “Children are empty water glasses, and you are the water pitcher.  It is your job to fill all the glasses and keep them full until they leave your class.  That is all you can do.”

I thanked her for her input, left Waffle House, and cried all the way home.

How was it that teaching was seen as an exhausting, one way dump of information, and children were seen as empty?  True, I may have over-extended the analogy as it applies to most others, but in this scenario it seemed accurate.  To this teacher, her work was not much more than just an assembly line.  Fill them with facts, most likely by rote, make sure they retain it, and then move them along.

I carried this experience with me for many years, and backed away from teaching.  Being only 16 years of age I had not completed my own education, much less had the experience to know why her water glass analogy bothered me so much.  I knew it didn’t feel right, but I had no way to articulate an alternative approach.

It wasn’t until I re-united with my mentor some years later that I was able to understand what I wanted to do as a teacher.  My mentor, Ms. Stefanie, had been diagnosed with cancer and wanted me to step in as her substitute teacher.  I had been removed raising 2 young children, my first child born when I was 21 years of age, which took up most of my time.  But I did have the occasional student or two that came to my home for lessons.  Despite my withdrawal, Stefanie reached out to me to support her and her students.

We met at a local pasta and pizza place near her home,  Bounding with excitement over getting to visit with my favourite person on earth, I found it difficult to focus on anything.  In fact, I got lost on my way there because I started to daydream instead of following the mapquest directions I had printed out.

The conversation started like we had just seen each other yesterday.  We laughed and reminisced about my early days as a student with her.  We talked about my children which she carefully made segway into a discussion about my isolation.  I told her I missed music, but I have a feeling she already knew.  She made her proposal about teaching for her, and seemed confident that I was the right person for the job.

My mood fell.  I was juggling feelings of inadequacy and questioned her faith in me.  I shared with her the water glass analogy I had heard when I was a teenager and how much it bothered me.  She stayed positive and calm, and gave me the reassuring smile that said everything was about to get better.  Then she said, “Laura.  You think about everything on your own terms, and through your own eyes.  Why should this be any different?”

She gave me a few moments to digest what she had said.  Then, she gave me the most powerful piece of advice in my teaching career.  She placed her hand on my shoulder and said, “You need to come to the city and teach for me.  This way the students can remind you why you love music, just as you did for me.”

In two sentences, my entire perspective on teaching was unbounded.  The water glass analogy had bothered me so much because it was one way and removed of passion.  I saw students as learning partners.  I would be learning as much from them as they would from me and in that exchange, we would both feel a deep love for music. Though Stefanie succumbed to cancer shortly after that conversation, I can relive it in my imagination as though it happened yesterday.

As I enter my 25th year as a teacher, I continue to stay true to Stefanie’s words.  Each lesson is an exciting adventure with the student, sharing our love and passion for music.  I share everything I know and everything I am, placing myself in a state of vulnerability, rather than authority.  In that moment, when the student connects with me, it is then we both realize life has a soundtrack and we are playing along.

Until tomorrow,

Laura (snamuh)

The Story Behind – As the Ice Speaks

Dear Phoenix,

I have been thinking about my students today, wondering how all of them – past and present – apply what they learn in music class to life.  It never occurred to me that my students got anything from lessons other than learning the instrument until I got the opportunity to observe a friend working with his students.

It was my first time observing teaching in the sports venue, and honestly it was one of my first hockey games.  The ice has a particular energy that stadiums and fields lack.  As if the life giving qualities of water speed up and push upward from the ice.

The players hit the ice, and the music started to flow.  The harmonious melodies of the the players indicated they were more like a family than teammates.  Music gently journeyed to my ears, despite the intense energy of the game itself.

As my gaze shifted over to the coach, his shadow song rose up but never overtook the melody of his team.  Like the flower to the butterfly the coach’s energy fed the players.  his melody supported theirs.

It was stunningly beautiful.  As the ice spoke, the players bonded and the coach pushed forth his energy out of pure love for the kids.

When you listen to this piece, see if you can find the ice speaking, the players song and the coaches melody.

As always, I am grateful for your autism energy, my dear Phoenix.

Laura (Snamuh)


Presuming Parental Compentence

Presuming Parental Compentence

Dear Phoenix,






My mother and me, 1979





So what can we do?










Now, I have vented,

Laura (Snamuh)

Traveling with Autism is getting harder, not easier. Why?

Traveling with Autism is getting harder, not easier. Why?

Dear Phoenix,



















Hopefully better things to write tomorrow, Phoenix.


Laura (snamuh)

Today I am Proud of my Autistic Son

Today I am Proud of my Autistic Son

Dear Phoenix,

I have to tell you today about my son, Jacob.  After years of hard work, struggling with people telling him he would fail because of his autism, and many mistakes, he graduated high school.  He will be 17 on Friday.

Like it?  I think his ideas for design are fascinating.  You can see more on his portfolio.

Jacob’s Portfolio

I am so very excited to see what he will do with his life, and his talents.  So today I don’t have much to say.  Just wanted to share what he did.

Till tomorrow,

Laura (snamuh)

Monday Grievances

Monday Grievances

Dear Phoenix,

I’m filled with so much frustration over the way things are going for me lately that all of my carefully built filters are burning off.  I am finding it more and more difficult to keep quiet about the things others do that hinder progress, or create barriers.  I wanted to write to you about it today, but your flames are too hot.  Emotions are burning the paper upon which my mind writes.

This is an experience that others don’t often see – how Autism manifests inside me.  I can write about it every day, and speak about it all over the world, but it falls to deaf ears.  I don’t jump, or chew, or moan, or sway uncontrollably.  Some people with autism do all of those things, some don’t.  In that image of Autism intelligence is overlooked in those who jump, while Autism is invisible in those who don’t.

Today I got a letter from someone offering a special diet to help me. A few weeks ago it was a supplement.  My email box is filled with offers for vitamins, drinks, foods, diets, even chemicals that will “ease my pain” or “cure me of the scary things that stop you from being truly great.” (Those are real quotes from emails).

Am I on some proverbial canyon edge of success that is impassable because I am tainted with Autism?  What will your pills and diets do?

I wrote about being stuck between countries and how I am not yet able to be a Canadian but feeling like I no longer matter as an American.  But that is not the only place I feel stuck in the middle.  There is a divide in the Autism community between the speaking and non-speaking communities. Low IQ and low-functioning are inexplicably linked to non-speaking Autistic people, despite their efforts to prove otherwise.  How many nonspeaking authors, advocates, bloggers, and presenters must there be before we see the grievous error in linking low IQ with non-speaking?  But the problem isn’t just in the NT world, the stereotyping comes from the speaking Autistic world too.  I read comments daily by angry people with Asperger’s who hate being called Autistic because they are intelligent and function independently.  This completely baffled me, until today.

The reason the divide exists is because the narrative of the Autism experience is controlled by non-Autistic, sensation seeking publishing houses, news reporters, and other professionals who see only the conflict.  They place the stories of Autistic people that they think tugs at the heart strings, and places an NT kid as the hero.

  • The lonely Autistic boy who eats alone until an NT kid sits with him.
  • The lonely Autistic boy who can’t get a date until an NT kid invites him to prom.
  • The lonely Autistic boy who is given the football and told to run.
  • The lonely Autistic boy who is marveled at because he can recite pi to the 1000th place.
  • The lonely Autistic boy who can play Chopin at age 8 but was ignored until he was discovered by an NT run talkshow.

See a pattern?  Yes, they are usually boys, because that is what people like Simon Baron-Cohen want us to think (and if not male, than having an “extreme male brain”) .  They are usually depicted as lonely, because lonely sells, and they are usually rescued by an NT, because everyone wants recognition.

Tell me, how many people who rescue Autistic people would choose to live with them?

I am not discounting the genuine NT people who work tirelessly to provide opportunity for people with Autism.  I know many of those people.  But I also know that once a badge is pinned on the lapel, there is nothing required of the person to keep it.  Join a committee, run in a 5K, accept a seat on an advisory board, but don’t touch Autistic people outside the photo op.

This narrative is so invasive that many of my fellow speaking Autistics have bought into it.  They yell at me for being positive about my Autism, wallowing in their own tragedy, as they hear the same story every day that we are not wanted.  As the camera pans to my non-speaking friends, the negative dialogue is voiced over, and their achievements, and intelligence, are left completely out.

Only you, Phoenix, know how much energy it takes to fight the constant criticism I receive for being proudly Autistic.  Criticism from both the Autistic and NT world.  What an odd dissonance.

And though I am weary, and though I am breaking inside and out, I refuse to feel sorry for myself.

I refuse to accept the pop-culture, pain sells narrative and I reject any criticism that my Autism is not Autistic enough, or male enough, or too verbal.  Last I checked I live alone, travel alone, eat alone, and sleep alone.  No one lives with my autism.  Not one of my critics has lived with Phoenix.

I refuse to stop fighting for my non-speaking friends, or female autistics who are marginalized by this narrative.  It is time for Autistic people to take over our own stories without apologizing that it isn’t sad enough to sell on prime time news.

But most of all, I refuse to be anything but me.  Loud.  Autistic. Female. Proud.

Yours always,

Laura (snamuh)

The Story Behind River Oasis

The Story Behind River Oasis

Dear Phoenix,

Did I ever tell you about why I wrote the shadow song, River Oasis?

I struggle with knowing who my friends are.  People say they are my friends, but I sometimes get confused with the term friends. Everyone seems to have their own definition of what a friend is, so I just really never know, until a confirmation event.

Confirmation events are small moments when it is revealed to me what a person means when they call me their friend.  In one instance recently, I learned I had a friend when she told my parents how she felt about me.  Her words to my parents, and watching my parents react (something I am quite familiar with now) confirmed that she and I had an equal meaning of friend.

Back when I was living in Atlanta, I was having trouble with your fire.  I know you love me, Phoenix, but that was just a rough time.  I was spending too much time isolated, which peaked one New Years Eve night as I cried myself to sleep.  This really bad night taught me that I could no longer wait for confirmation events.  I needed to create moments for them to occur.

My love of the outdoors and the amazing shadow songs could set the stage, so long as the places we met didn’t compete with the shadow song of the person I needed to understand.  A system of parks along the Chattahoochee River worked perfectly.  The river was energetic, but soothing, erasing out the intense pressure created by the inharmonious relationships that buzzed around Atlanta.  It was present, but not loud, yet loud enough to cancel out the city noises.

I met a friend there, curious if he really was my friend, at a coffee shop right on the river.  It was warm that day, but the cool water created a refreshing mist that was carried on the back of the breeze.  The river song would swirl around us only filling in the moments of silence, but when he would allow himself to be open, his song was the soloist and the river his orchestra.  It worked, and way better than I had imagined.  Within the first visit, I got my confirmation event – a moment of honesty and vulnerability that showed me I was trusted.

One by one I starting inviting friends there to listen to their songs, and look for those moments of friendship clarity. When I started recording pieces for my album, it seemed only fitting that I should honour the river that brought peace to my friendships.

Thanks and love always to you, dear Phoenix,

Laura (Snamuh)




Dear Phoenix,

Vendergood.  It’s a real thing.  Sometime in the early 1900’s a rarely known man by the name of William James Sidis created a constructed language called Vendergood.  He combined Latin, Greek, French, German and other Romance languages to create his very own.  He had taught himself 8 languages.  He did this by the age of 9.

Intelligence is one of many aspects we have decided to measure in humans.  But it remains a mystery to me why we believe we can truly quantify intelligence and what good it does us to filter learning potential.

My fellow Autistics who are non-speaking are often given assigned IQ’s below 70 (labeled as definite feeble-mindedness).  In college, I argued that the reasons for this was not that non-speaking Autistic people are feeble-minded, but that the tests used are socially, verbally ,and culturally biased.  My view was not a popular one, and my theory was dismissed on that basis that I had no empirical data.

But, they didn’t have Empirical data to support that low IQ was comorbid with non-verbal Autism.  No one finished the test, no one created alternative measures.  Failure to finish the test was assumed to mean incapable, unable, and incompetent.  So I was to accept this with no formal study, but my theory was trash?

Let’s go back to Sidis a moment.  He had mastered high level mathematics at age 9.  Shortly after he became the youngest person to attend Harvard, finishing his Bachelor’s degree cum laude at age 16.  At age 17, following some bullying at Harvard over being a pacifist and recluse, he became a graduate fellow working on his PhD and was given a job to teach at Rice University.  He taught maths for one year and then left.

Sidis talked about wanting to live celibate and isolated.  He struggled to understand people. His parents intervened often for him (they got him the teaching job) as Sidis struggled for independence.  He was arrested at a socialist May Day parade that turned violent in Boston.  Stories about his life certainly indicate that people were difficult for him to understand.

His sister declared that his IQ was the highest ever recorded.  No proof exists of this, but the rumors remain that Sidis had an IQ between 250 and 300.


Never mind that the IQ test was never meant to measure that high with 180 being the top score on the Stanford-Binet.  So, this could easily mean that scores above 180 are estimations with larger margins of error. Nonetheless, what could one possibly benefit from having an IQ of 300?  Or even 200?  And how do we score that?

If we start using IQ measurements to explain intelligence after otherwise unexplainable intellectual anomalies like Sidis, none of us have a snowball’s chance in hell of being anything shy of a bumbling idiot.  William J. Sidis had shown some amazing promise to learn everything really fast, but what did it get him?  What contributions did he make?  He spent the rest of his life running adding machines, and obsessively collecting streetcar transfers.  He published one book and held a patent on a rotary calendar. He died alone from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 46.

What if no one “discovered” Sidis at a young age?  What if Harvard had denied the boy access to University until he was proper age?  Would they have believed such intelligence came from an adding machine operator?  Would Sidis pass the SAT’s or even qualify for a scholarship to attend Harvard in the 21st Century?

What if Sidis were non-verbal?

Take into account Stephen Hawking, another exceptional mind.  Dr. Hawking is bound to his chair unable to speak, but his IQ is still estimated to be over 180.  Would people still believe that if he had made his achievements in science after ALS took away his speech?

Neither Sidis nor Hawking have a published IQ score to date.  Their IQ’s are estimates made purely by onlookers looking to categorize human achievement.  Now I am not denying that Dr. Hawking’s intellectual capacity is higher than average.  But what a travesty it is to throw around this number post-achievement, yet also use it to create exclusive access to education among children.  In the disability world, an early IQ assignment of 70, creates barriers that imprisons the minds of the non-verbal, while also adding undue weight to the academic achievements of speaking ASD kids.  For everyone else it creates the illusion that world changing ideas come only from people with IQ’s over 140 (genius).

Google DaVinci’s IQ and the number is 220.  What the f_ _ k?  How did DaVinci get such a high score on a test invented 400 years after his death?  If DaVinci were alive today he would have been yelled at by his teachers about how he would be a starving artist, have his journals confiscated by the police, and likely subjected to hundreds of hours of therapy for creating sketches of inventions that look like devices to bomb the school.

The sad truth is we give posthumous vanity IQ’s and honorary appointments to amazing thinkers long after they could have benefitted from acknowledgement, mostly to make us feel better about kicking them around while they were alive.  Innovation doesn’t come in a clearly marked bottle safe for human consumption.  Innovation is unstable, anti-social, irreverent, and chaotic.  If we all saw it coming, we wouldn’t need innovation.

Sometimes intelligence is easily recognized, but most of the time it is not.  Especially when it is unspoken.  But unspoken does not mean silent.  Unspoken words are the loudest to those who have learned to listen at a different frequency.  The dog is not crazy for hearing the whistle that is silent to humans.  Just as I am not crazy for hearing the intelligence of my non-speaking Autistic mates.

You are howling, my dear Phoenix. Now let us show them what they are missing.

Laura (Snamuh)

How to Love without Anyone Noticing

How to Love without Anyone Noticing

Dear Phoenix,













But then there is love.





























Laura (Snamuh)

On the other hand, what if an Autistic is recognized as a prodigy?  


Dear Phoenix,

Yesterday I was stuck in a loop.  This topic of presuming competence vs the prodigy effect cuts so deeply.  The word prodigy was uttered around me as a child when I was learning violin.  I didn’t think much of it, I just wanted to play music with everyone.  Whatever word was used to describe why I could learn music so fast did not reflect the fact that I did work hard.  I practiced so much that my parents actually asked me to stop and go to bed.  I would rather play violin than eat, sleep, or do anything else for that matter.  My passion for music was the bulk of my progress.


As a teacher, I cannot ignore the fact that some students do have aptitudes that others don’t.  I hesitate to say talent, because I do not think it is purely inborn.  I believe aptitude is an intellectual cocktail comprised of exposure, passion, persistence, heredity, necessity, and privilege.  I was fortunate enough to have overflow in all of the necessary areas and thus labels such as talented and prodigy were added.  I am aware of the social constructs that label the science behind why we accel.  But without the hard work, the other elements are quite useless.


I started teaching young, around age 14 or so, when I was asked to stay after school and help tutor classmates.  I was thrilled to help my fellow orchestra members so that we could play more interesting music.  I had an engaging way of teaching the material.  This was because I had an intimate knowledge of what I was teaching purely from my involvement with music.  I often could do what I was teaching and had usually experimented with several approaches before settling in on a technique.  Because of my multi-dimensional analysis of every musical concept, I could teach it like it was simply a tour through my own living room.


As I barrel rolled into adulthood, any perception that I was a prodigy was diminished.  What I could learn and how fast I learned it, or even how well I played it, was no longer important.  My lack of official credentials redefined me.  I was put aside by many because I did not have a degree in music, nor a seat in a professional orchestra.  I could learn to play any instrument in minutes, but that was overshadowed by the fact I couldn’t recite theory on demand.  More times than not, less skilled teachers would replace me simply because they had a college degree, and not necessarily in music.


Once the word Autism entered my vocabulary, this issue of not having a degree became a bigger problem.  You see being an autistic prodigy made me a marvel as a child, but played no role in defining me as an adult.  My excelled music abilities should have put me in a conservatory of music, but it did not.  This is where the blurred line between aptitude and discipline is most evident.  I wanted to explore music my own way; to change the system.  My disobedience made me fall hard from favour as others deducted that teaching me the traditions of music and it’s theory was not possible.  As a child I was a marvel.  As a teen I was a disobedient youth destroying my future.  As an adult, I am just a has-been of the music world.


This perception that causes professional execution of the unruly prodigy is not unique to the Autism world, but it does have a greater impact.  Low self-esteem, hindered social interaction, and brain-body disconnect make the loss of a special interest as a career path catastrophic.  Music was not merely some heightened skill inside me, it is my way of telling the doctor what is wrong.  It is my way of calming the fears brought on by my misinterpretation of the world.  Recognition of my music means the listener hears my story and if only for a very brief moment, connects with me at the deepest possible level.  Being told my music was lesser because I couldn’t place it in the Neurotypical worlds box bound by rules created by the post-partum observation of those who became great before me, broke the lifeline that connected me to other humans beings.  It was just another way of saying my voice didn’t matter because I didn’t perform the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto at age 10 as that was the age I started to play.  Apparently age 14 wasn’t good enough.

Enter you, Phoenix.  Your excitement and need for expression made my body rock while I played.  You and I could dance together, instead of fighting to operate in the same defined space.  This was the place where we connected, in my mind, and made the music fill every cell of my body.  It was uncouth, and many of the traditionalists of the music world found it offensive.  Remember the man that held my shoulders and said I was better when I was still?  You didn’t like the black dresses either, so my grandmother made me one I could tolerate. If only they would let us play in the orchestra in whatever was comfortable. I mean even Ellen DeGeneres wears sneakers with her suits,  

The fact I learned it mostly by ear was unbelieveable.  It remains so.


In Autism, it is truly an unwinnable scenario when the entire approach lacks a presumption of  competence at it’s core.  If we are seen as competent humans worth teaching only after we reveal some super power or prodigal skill, then we never have a chance to view life from a seat of accomplishment.  And when we have a skill, it should not be yoked with this superhero complex of savants and prodigies.  As soon as the flapping 10 year old becomes a flapping 20 year old, the word prodigy expires.

Prodigy or not, either way, we are always proving ourselves and measured by a ruler that has infinite parameters between each mark.  After all, what better way is there for society to protect their intellectual hierarchy than to dismiss non-verbal genius?

No worries, Phoenix.  I’ll never let them put out your flame.  You shine brightest when you sway my body to the music.  The only way to get them to open their minds, the only way to love louder, is to never end the dance,


Laura (Snamuh)