1-1 Premeier Issue FINAL PROOF.pdf Mar. 2014 | Page 16

TEACHING H

By Anora McGaha & Photography by Martha Manning

Diane Tilgner

I

called Diane Tilgner, it was at 4 p.m., sitting
in my car in front of the Chatham Restore;
she had 30 minutes in a day that runs full
from morning through night, and I’d just come
from a 2 hour meeting at the Roadhouse.

Have you heard of Diane Tilgner?
She’s not in the news much, and hasn’t been
published about her work, but she’s ... well,
see for yourself.

“Diane?” “Anora? Hello.” As soon as
I heard her voice, I heard a warmth that told
me even more than the stories she’d share for
the next half hour; hers was a voice that could
calm a storm.

Diane’s life work has been with those
who don’t fit; don’t behave “normally,” don’t
keep up with regular classes for their age and
don’t have the required skills expected of their
age. Children and people who simply don’t fit
into schools, jobs or society. Diane works with
children (and adults) who have what is called
“disabilities,” or put otherwise, Diane works
with those who are “differently abled.”

She has, not ten, not 20, not even 30
years of experience; she has been doing this for
forty-eight years. For forty-eight years, she has
been learning, observing, trying, training, observing, learning more, trying more, expanding
to different “disabilities”... You get the picture?

Diane has lived and taught in Princeton, NJ; Albequerque, New Mexico; and
Durham, North Carolina. She has worked
with children with autism, before it was identified. She’s worked with adults and adolescents with autism; with preschool children;
in a sheltered workshop for differently-abled
adults; in a head injury rehabilitation center,
and more.

Diane started at sixteen, babysitting
a girl whose parents wanted to take her to a
hearing specialist, thinking that was why she
wasn’t speaking right. But Diane heard the
girl singing a popular song while swinging,
so she knew hearing wasn’t the issue, it was
something else. Her observation skills were
already strong.
16

continued page 18 a