Review of Front of the Class

Front of the Class, Brad Cohen and Me There are two versions of the FRONT OF THE CLASS, BRAD COHEN STORY The book and the movie Both are very interesting The movie is based on the book by Brad Cohen detailing his life as a Tourettes sufferer The movie does take a few liberties for dramatic effect but as a whole it remains very true to the book For me, both the book and the movie should be compulsory reading and viewing at schools once a year The reason They both deal with a topic that affects many children in various different ways and sadly leads to a lot of misunderstanding, teasing, bullying and in general making affected children lives very miserable It's a habit Attention seeking They will grow out of it The child just wants to make my life difficult and hard There is a great lack of understanding about Gilles de la Tourette syndrome It affects children in so many different ways OCD Shaking Twitching Swearing Jerking clutching Biting Aggressive behaviour Stretching Horrible side effects Concentration Feeling of insecurity Shyness Self consciousness Lack of self worth Inferiority FRONT OF THE CLASS EXPOSES many of these hardships that Tourettes sufferers go through on a daily basis In the early days depending on where you lived what Tourettes was was very misunderstood For Brad in a way he was lucky There were support groups but very much under the radar Very little was known about the syndrome and a lot of research was needed to understand it Here in South Africa in the 60s and 70s it was relatively unknown Fortunately now it has come more to the front and has been identified as a problem and steps are been taken to spread the word Posters, banners, support groups, pamphlets are now been circulated Teachers, parents and doctors have now been drawn into the net and are now better informed FRONT OF THE CLASS tells the story of Brad Cohen and his battle with Tourette's It is an inspirational story of how a young boy with Tourette's was determined to not let his Tourettes dictate his life The full title of his book is FRONT OF THE CLASS - HOW TOURETTE SYNDROME MADE ME THE TEACHER I NEVER HAD When Brad was young he was a hyperactive child, more so than his brother He started grunting, twitching, squeaking and jerking His father could not stand it and thought he was just playing around and jerking everyone off Not been able to take it he divorced Brads mother and it was thought that this is what led to his Tourettes starting Nothing could be farther from the truth His mom was determined to find out what was wrong with her son and did a lot of investigative work finally getting the message through to Brads doctor and teachers about Tourettes Yes. Sad to say even many doctors at that stage were unaware of exactly what Tourettes was all about In the movie this part was Somewhat Hollywood glamorised but the message gets through When Brad started high school it took a very caring principal to bring Brads Tourettes out into the open by calling him onto the stage after a music concert and exposing him as the noise maker He then got Brad to explain exactly what Tourettes was all about Afterwards Brad got a standing ovation from both the parents, teachers and students By getting Brad up on the stage to explain how all he wanted was to be treated like a normal child and not some attention making freak the principal helped both Brad to the students to be more understanding It was thanks to that principal that Brad went on to become a teacher, win the teacher of the year award and become an inspurational speaker After school Brad battled to find a job No one wanted him, seeing him just as a noisy strange person which frightened them and they were scared he would frighten the children at school Yes, Brads ambition was to become a teacher He persevered been rejected twenty four times and even though he became disinhearted he persevered and finally one school decided to give him a chance and allow him to teach His unique way of teaching won the kids over and as said above he won the teacher of the year award plus many other awards Brads story is an inspirational one and definitely should be watched and his book read The film only touches on the terrible effects of what Tourettes is all all about In many cases it is far worse I can relate very much to Brads story because I too have Tourette's Up to here I have dealt with Brads story but I would like to expand more on what was not shown or explained You may stop reading at this point as this next part is part of my story and how I have dealt with Tourette's Tourettes is a Syndrome that to this day no cure has bern found It is a life time sentence A problem that waxes and wanes but never goes away Sometimes it's better at other times worse Sometimes you do one form of Tourettes and at other times For me I went through various types of Tourette's Fortunately not the Copellia (swearing) But at various stages squeaking, grunting, head shakes, jerking, twitching and some of the other things mentioned above I'm 71 years old and still have Tourette's I have to watch what I eat because certain foods and condiments have an adverse affect on me In my case, just for example I love woustersauce but for me I turn into a giraffe neck stretching tic Not fun and very painful Like Brad I experienced many of his Tourettes symptoms and thanks to him and others I too have risen to better myself and others around me Some of the other effects of Tourettes that are torturous to Tourette sufferers are Shock treatment Yes shock treatment In an attempt to cure my Tourettes I was given shock treatment Wired up and every time I twitched grunted or shove they would run an electrical shock through me Did it work No - in fact it actually made it worse Mount Krakatoa which blew its stack in the 1800's was mild compared to the eruption of my Tourettes running wild after a treatment Fortunately they saw it wasn't working so they stopped Medication Before I decided to go cold Turkey with my meds I was taking 15 tablets to stop it Only one tablet was for my Tourettes, the other fourteen were to counter the side effects of that one tablet Side effects Drowsiness Aggression Paranoia Loss of labido Claustrophobia Anger issues Depression Many of these were not shown or spoken about in the book or movie or just briefly touched on I was introvert/extrovert Would walk into a shop, greet everyone then CRINGE at the way I was bringing attention to my self After I did a personal development course I learned that people just need to accept you for who and what you are and as long as they know you not going to hurt them we all get on just fine My catch phrase is I HAVE TO ACT CRAZY OTHERWISE PEOPLE WILL THINK IM NORMAL AND THERE IS ENOUGH NORMAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD Now wherever I walk I greet everyone and make sure that they know and that I appreciate having them in my life Just like Brad I am using my Tourettes to spread the word at schools and everywhere If I can just change just one child's life for the better and stop the bullying and tormenting them both Brad and I have achieved something worth while As said earlier Reading his book and watching the movie is an inspirational experience.