"I am your wild card, and that's why I take that medicine every day." A student says to me on the first day of class. I immediately cringed, panicked and then felt guilty for doing so.

Every teacher has that moment with children on the spectrum. Your mind goes through a roller coaster of thoughts. "Great. Another headache." "It's not his fault." "How will I make this work?" "This is going to be exhausting" "What can I change?" "How will this affect the other kids?" "How will I handle the inevitable laughing?" "Man, I'm an ass"

And then the guilt. Oh the guilt for thinking all this, while the child deals with not only the illness, but the social anxiety and possible ridicule that comes with it ALL the time.

The thing is, theatre classes are designed for every child on every spectrum. It not only allows them to be free to explore, be strange, speak out and be who they are with ticks, blurts and all, but encourages it.

In Korea, there was a child with full body tourettes who was forced to sit in the back of my classroom. The parents ignored his mental illness and children laughed at him. Yet his mind was incredibly sharp.

So, I put him on stage.

The school thought I was crazy for even bringing theatre into their walls, so I figured me and this kid would be crazy together. BAM! Freedom. He came alive and his full body tourettes became an asset not a hindrance.

On the road, I found many kids who had crippling OCD, stuttering, and a myriad of quirks that would typically hold them back socially and in the classroom. But, on stage, oh my, everything changed. They were the stars! Others looked up to them, laughed with them (not at them), and found courage to be themselves.

The Statue of Liberty asks for the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

In the theatre, we ask for your quirks, your crazy, your spectrum kids yearning for acceptance for their entire selves.

And so, back to my student. After consulting my lesson plan for the day, I changed it. I went back to all of my lesson plans and sculpted them in a way that fostered inclusivity and ensemble.

The result? "This is the best class I've had yet!" Student says as he exits the building.

And so, lesson plans should be organic, ever changing. A theatre class is ultimately led and sculpted by the students, while the teachers are there as guiding force. We theatre teachers need to embrace that and love that because this truth makes our daily lives interesting, challenging, and soul quenching.