Elena Montecalvo is on a mission to teach her students an important lesson: it is not OK to call someone “autistic” as an insult.
Montecalvo is an English teacher at Regina Assumpta, a private French school in Montreal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough.
She said she had started to notice a disturbing trend among her Grade 8 students.
“I started hearing some students using the word ‘autistic’ as an insult,” she said.
“We have no autistic students. They were really using it to hurt one another and that broke my heart.”
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The insult hit close to home because Montecalvo’s five-year-old son is autistic.
“We invited these students, some of them, to come spend the day with my son,” said Montecalvo.
“In the spirit of, well you want to use the word? You want to know what autistic is? You’re going to find out.”
A group of nine students went to school on a day off to meet Montecalvo’s son.
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After, the group decided to start a campaign, calling themselves ‘Les bogoss’, a nickname that translates to “pretty boys.”
Their mission is to help spread awareness about autism.
“From now on, when I hear people saying this word, I tell them to stop because they don’t know what it means for real,” said Grade 8 student Vladislav Bogutchi.
To help spread the word, Montecalvo, with the help of another teacher and the students, launched a website.
It consists of photos and videos of students with Montecalvo’s son; it also provides resources to educate the kids on autism.
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“A lot of them use the word autistic without knowing what it means,” said Montecalvo.
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