BookView Review

Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we interviewed retired special education teacher and author Darlene Pscheidell Kwarta about her writing and her recently published book, Once There Was a Child, a heart touching, poignant, and beautifully crafted memoir. (Read the review here.)

What made you decide to take the jump from teacher to writer and chronicle your experiences as a special education teacher in Once There Was a Child?

For over 10 years the staff, including teachers, itinerant teachers, administrators, custodians, secretaries, PTA members, etc., started to change.  People began to retire, transfer, move, advance in their career, earn higher degrees, and the atmosphere changed.  New ideas, new teachers, new curriculum, and suddenly all that I loved, taught, counseled, no longer seemed as welcomed as before.  I was considered more or less an “oldie” but not necessarily a “goodie”. It was time for me to retire.

Were there any anecdotes you wanted to include in your memoir, but later decided to cut?

There were often sad times working with “my kids,” but I didn’t include all of them because it would change the “tone” of the book.  Students died, a few teachers wouldn’t accept my kids, parents wanted to know what colleges their severely handicapped child would eventually attend, and why didn’t I do a better job making their child get higher IQ test scores?  After many years of being blamed by a few disappointed parents, I needed a break.  Also, I was getting towards retirement age, and wanted to spend time with my grandkids.

What was the easiest part of writing Once There Was a Child?

The easiest times, the fun times, the happy times, seeing academic and social growth, taking kids on field trips to places that regular ed. kids enjoyed and learned from, made my job easy. Helping a child climb a tree at Outdoor Education, having regular ed. students teaching deaf kids songs to sign/sing on bus rides, having parents tell me that their child was learning and happy made the job enjoyable. But best of all was when “my kids” were invited to sit at someone’s lunch table, or sit next to them on a school bus.  Writing about these happy things was easy.

On the flip side, what was the hardest part of writing Once There Was a Child?

The hardest part of writing this book was remembering the sad times, the “bad” things that happened. Students dying, disappearing, being abused, unable to ever be even marginally able to do what other kids took for granted, brought back sad memories.

Who are your writing inspirations? Any favorite books or authors?

I was inspired by the Little House on the Prairie books as a child, and by a made-for-TV movie from a long time ago called Teacher, Teacher.  It was about a teacher who helped a child who was not interested in learning, or just couldn’t learn from “normal” teaching methods, learn.  It was not an easy job, but the teacher developed a relationship with his student and the student accomplished more than expected.

If you could tell every special education teacher in America one thing, right now, what would it be?

If you don’t like/love your students, find a different job.

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