Lessons From a Boy Named David

David learned to jump rope last week.

It may not seem like much of an accomplishment for a strapping fourth-grader. By the time kids reach the fourth grade, haven’t they mastered rope jumping, and soccer, and dodge ball and capture the flag?

Not all of them.

Jumping rope can be a source of pride for an awkward boy who has spent most of his time on the sidelines, watching other children . . . and for my daughter and her friends, who taught him how to play.

*

I don’t know much about David. Only the stories my daughter tells.

He sits near the teacher, in the front row, and struggles through even the most basic tasks. He giggles when nothing’s funny, speaks out when he hasn’t been called upon, mumbles to himself. He has a distracting habit of constantly wringing his hands. He spends part of each day away from class, with a special teacher.

“I think he’s handicapped,” my daughter says, not as judgment but as explanation.

It takes me back to my days as a reporter and all the stories I wrote on “mainstreaming”--the practice of teaching disabled students alongside other children, instead of isolating them in classes labeled “special ed.”

Over the years I’d duly noted the pros and cons: the advocates’ claims that disabled kids benefit by making friends and learning social skills from other children, and the critics’ concerns that handicapped kids might be shunned or belittled, or take up too much of a teacher’s time.

What neither argument acknowledges is what I see: that the benefits of this social experiment flow not just one way, but back from the disabled child to mine.

Because, while David may be struggling to learn, he is teaching without effort--providing his classmates with new opportunities each day to learn and practice patience, tolerance, kindness, ingenuity.

I know it’s not always easy, for him or for them. He is annoying at times, tagging along, interrupting conversations. I’m sure he tries the teacher’s patience.

He fails, it seems, as often as he succeeds. That hurts, and he doesn’t know how not to let it show. He cries sometimes. And on the playground, the older kids tease him.

But his classmates comfort him and rise to his defense. They encourage him when he’s afraid to try something new. They teach him songs, tell him jokes . . . even if it means explaining the punch line over and over, until he understands it well enough to laugh.

And every day at recess, my daughter and her friends take out the long, red jump rope that David likes. They station him at one end, put the rope in his hand, take his arm and start it turning. Then as they jump, they swing their arms in big, wide circles, so David can keep pace by mimicking them.

Then it is his turn to stand alongside the rope and jump.

My daughter laughs with glee as she tells the story. I can imagine the grin on David’s face, his fists clenched in determination, his pride as he launches himself airborne. And I can almost hear the shouts of his cheering section, yelling at him to lift his feet: “Jump! . . . jump! . . . jump!”

*

It has taken my daughter days longer than her classmates, but she finally has completed her computer lesson. Now everyone in class has finished and has received an award . . . everyone but David.

My daughter’s sense of accomplishment is tinged by a tender sort of pity. “I wish everything wasn’t so hard for David,” she says, putting her award aside. “It’s just not fair.”

And I have to fight back tears . . . but not for David. You see, my daughter is no stranger to struggle. School has never come easy for her. She knows how it feels to be last, to be wrong . . . to miss the joke’s punch line, to jump at the wrong time.

Fourth grade has been a good year for her. She has earned A’s and B’s, learned long division, won a solo in the school’s musical, become a standout on her soccer team.

But if you ask her now what she’s proudest of, she’s liable to tell you that it’s teaching David that he can jump rope.

Because she has learned how one small achievement can lift you up, make you believe that big things are possible. And she wants David to learn that too.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.