Monday, January 30, 2012

A Smile As Big As the Moon

Last night my mom and I sat down on the couch to watch "A Smile As Big As the Moon" together. If you haven't heard of it, A Smile As Big As the Moon is a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie that premiered last night on ABC. The movie is based on a book and a true story about a special-ed class that was the first group of special needs students to go to Space Camp.

One of students in the class has Tourette's so I was very excited to watch the movie! My mom is a Speech Pathologist who works in a special-ed school and is the mother of a daughter with Tourette's and OCD (me!) so she was excited to see the movie too.

When we sat down to watch it though, my brother was doing his homework in the other room and only let us watch it at a very quiet volume. My mom and I tried to fight him on it, but we  lost and still had to keep it the volume down.

My mom fell asleep half way through, and by 10:00 I was pretty worn out so I decided to turn it off and watch the rest later at a higher volume. Even though I only watched half of it at a low volume I enjoyed it a lot.

The portrayal of Tourette's in the movie was very very accurate which I greatly appreciated. The boy who had Tourette's had other problems as well such as ADHD and learning difficulties which is why he was in the special-ed class, but in terms of the Tourette's and tics it was portrayed very accurately without any stereotypes like outbursts of profanities.

Of course I didn't expect any less from Hallmark, the same people who produced Front of the Class (Brad Cohen's story of becoming a teacher with Tourette's) very accurately and beautifully. 


Anyway I plan to watch the rest of the movie sometime this week or weekend which I am sure will be fantastic! I would definitely recommend watching the movie or reading the book to any educator, or anyone else especially those who who have Tourette's, OCD, disabilities, or special needs.

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