A book writing itself in eight days

In 1979, Torey Hayden wrote about one particular child in her class, a six-year-old victim of sexual molestation who retaliated to the hostile world around her by lashing out and eventually tying a three-year-old boy to a tree and setting him afire.

Torey wrote furiously, more as a personal story to record for herself her extraordinary time with "Sheila", but found at the end of the eight day that she had just completed a book.

It took only 42 days from the time she started writing One Child until she signed a contract with G.P. Putnam's Sons to publish it. The book is currently in 28 languages and has been adapted in several diverse forms, including a one-act opera, a Japanese puppet play and a TV movie.

Her other books, now published in 32 languages around the world, include Somebody Else's Kids (1981), Murphy's Boy (1983), The Sunflower Forest (1984), Just Another Kid (1988), Ghost Girl (1991), Tiger's Child (1995), The Mechanical Cat (1999) and Beautiful Child ( 2002).

Seven of those books -- which basically are a record of her work with the children -- are published in Indonesian by Mizan, which sponsored Torey's recent visit to Jakarta.

Her work is considered inspirational by many parents, teachers and carers of children with disabilities and other special needs. They packed the hall of the Ministry of National Education in Jakarta, vying for time to talk and ask questions to Torey. Some of them learned about Torey's planned visit weeks in advance from the bulletin board of her website (www.torey-hayden.com) which has a forum for Indonesian readers.

Children with special education needs are one issue that Indonesia is still struggling to deal with. Statistically, an estimated 48 million Indonesians have special needs in education. Close to one million are those classified as intellectually- challenged, such as mentally retarded.

Some 100,000 children have multiple disabilities, with only a fraction of them having their special education needs met. This is also a country where the education budget is among the lowest.

Clearly, Torey said, funding limitations were the biggest obstacle toward meeting the special children's rights for education. As comparison, she cited how a decade ago it cost the U.S. government US$4,400 to educate a child, at least double that amount to maintain a child in special education, but at least $ 32,000 to keep a prisoner in prison for a year.

Teachers, parents and carers have to innovate but remain realistic as to what could be done.

"I'd start small, and support those already working on the field because they are actually doing well, working under those limitations," Torey suggested.

Overall, however, what every society needs is larger funding for education, both for those with special needs and those in the mainstream education. At the end of the day, she said, "you need to realize that you are raising the future citizens".

-- Santi W.E. Soekanto