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special education

The silly 911 script

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I’ve written before about scripting, how it’s safe and comforting to our kids, how it’s often a way for us to get “in” to their brain and form a connection, how scripting can be so positive and we should utilize it. (And as a side note, I thought of another real-life example of scripting. When my favorite yoga teacher ends a class, she always, ALWAYS ends it with, “Drink water, be good to yourself.” And it’s a routine and I love when she says it, and if she didn’t, I would feel unsettled)

There’s a script/routine that I do at least once a day with one of my kiddos, Joey [not his real name]. Joey has high anxiety and often feels as though a problem is an emergency, and will react as such. For example, in the past, his anxiety combined with his impulsivity would lead Joey to push a child if he lost a game, call a peer stupid if Joey wasn’t picked to go first, or just get stuck ruminating if he wrote his name messily. Joey has learned all about the problem scale and though in a moment of calm he can understand and identify what’s an emergency and what’s a glitch, and what’s in between, he has a hard time accessing that in the moment.

When I teach the Problem Scale, to any of my kids, I often say that since a number 5 is an emergency type problem, if there’s a problem for which we don’t need to call 911, it’s probably not an emergency (e.g., though your pencil falling on the ground might feel like an emergency, we don’t need 911 to help with it, so we don’t need to react as though it’s an emergency). Joey latched onto this almost as a security blanket, and for whatever reason, it clicked in his brain.

So when a problem arises, like he spills water on his worksheet, he often turns to me and mimics dialing on a phone and says, “Do it, boop boop boop.”

And I hold out my palm like a phone and I pretend to dial and the noise I make for the pretend numbers is, “Boop boop boop.”

I hold up my “phone” to my ear and I say, “Hello, 911? Yes, we have an emergency. Joey spilled water on his sheet. Oh. Really? Hmm. Okay. Thanks. Bye.”

Then I “hang up” and tell Joey, “911 said it’s just a glitch and they don’t need to come.”

And Joey laughs and laughs and then moves right on. Calm. Comforted. Reassured.

We have done this countless times. For not winning a contest, for tearing a corner of his paper by accident, for not getting to have speech one day if there’s an assembly, for losing a game. The script is always the exact same, and it brings Joey comfort. For whatever reason. The reason doesn’t matter.

So yesterday when there was an assembly and a something happened that Joey perceived as upsetting and problematic, he tugged on my sleeve and I knelt down and he mimicked dialing, so we whispered the script to each other – and he was fine. He rocked that assembly and not only was I psyched that the script worked, but I was proud. He sought it out, he used self-advocacy, he knew what he needed and what he needed was reassurance, and this is how he got it. And that is no small accomplishment.

Common Core Rambles

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Disclaimer: If you are looking for a well-researched blog post, this is not it. If you are looking for a post written by someone who is impartial and who doesn’t let her emotions get in the way of her opinions, this is not it. This is not organized, likely not going to be proofread (and why not, you ask? Because often when I proofread, I delete things. Things that I really had wanted to say. I’m more raw and real, and ME, when I don’t edit. And, as always, you can take it or leave it. It’s all good.), and realistically contains a misconception or two. It might be idealistic and impractical. It might be downright wrong. But, it’s my brain right now. 

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.” (Henry David Thoreau)

So, I’m thinking about the Common Core State Standards. Because today we had the first of many in-services about them. And I have thoughts.

Like: I’m all in favor of trying to get everyone on the somewhat-same page. Trying to make things more universal. Striving for progress. I like the hypothetical idea of a step-by-step staircase and structured, linear, hierarchy. I love making reading and writing part of all of the content subjects, instead of an isolated part of the day. Kind of like how Social Thinking shouldn’t be taught solely in an isolated once a week environment, but should be infused, embedded, and reinforced in all contexts.

But I feel the anxiety rising in me when I think about the other parts.

Like: the people behind the Common Core development have acknowledged that they are making things harder. That they are continuing to raise the bar for our students, and they have actually said something along the lines of, “Standardized test scores are predicted to fall, not because students are doing worse but because we’re making tests harder.” I cannot wrap my head around that.

There are all of these statistics and graphs and facts to show how many kids in our country are not at grade level, and how many are not even at basic level, which is several grades below their grade level. And it’s a lot of kids. The logical solution to me, then, is to alter our education system, go with some new approaches, work on training our teachers to teach in a way that kids learn. Not to raise the bar even further. It’s not as though raising the bar is going to make our kids say, “Oh! The bar is higher? Okay, I’ll just jump even higher to get there!” This isn’t a motivation thing, on the part of teachers or students. And, raising the bar further, increasing expectations, doesn’t do anything to ensure that teachers are teaching in a way to get kids to achieve those possibly unrealistic standards.

A lot of the philosophy around the Common Core seems to be related to what skills students need to survive, and thrive, in college and in their careers and beyond. But it still seems illogical. I support the idea of being able to comprehend complex text, of being able to create, synthesize, evaluate ideas and concepts, of being able to think out of the box. I get how those skills are necessary for college, for graduate school, for succeeding in many careers. The problem is, I don’t know that continuously placing more and more demands on kids who are already falling apart, is the answer.

We are so stuck on preparing kids for careers and college, but WHY? Are there really so many kids who fail as adults, and is it truly because they didn’t learn enough in school? (Aside from contributing factors like ESL, low-SES, etc.) And – we turned out fine. Granted, I’m an intelligent woman, but still – the things I was required to know and achieve in each grade were not the demands being placed on our kids today. And I went to high school, and I didn’t take all AP classes, and I went to college, and I didn’t get straight A+s, and I still took the GREs, and I didn’t get a perfect score, but I still went to graduate school and I did well and I have a wonderful job and I am successful. The people my age, the people my parents’ generation, we’re okay. So what is this disconnect that is making us believe that all of a sudden schools are failing to teach us what we need to know for life? (Again – aside from teachers who truly are not competent, overcrowding in schools, lack of access to materials, etc.)

More and more time is being spent on making our kids work harder, learn more, develop skills earlier and earlier. Kids have more homework, less time for play, less time to be a kid, less time to just…..BE. Mental health issues are increasing, kids are more anxious, depressed, hyperactive, inattentive, vulnerable than ever. More and more kids are diagnosed with learning disabilities, as they are not achieving grade level content. More kids are being referred for special ed services, as they aren’t reaching these arbitrary “grade level” benchmarks when they “should”. As early as kindergarten. In my core, I don’t think this is all a coincidence. In my core, I believe this is all connected. And that’s not research-based, that’s not a substantiated claim, and I am not claiming it to be.

What about all of the studies showing that kids learn best when they are allowed to play, allowed to naturally explore? What about studies showing that a lack of play is so detrimental? That sitting at a desk all day is actually not the most effective method of teaching. Teaching, knowledge, learning, they can all be defined in a myriad of ways. And our education system is stuck in one set way. In a one-size fits all. And, might I add, all of these issues are pertinent for general education students. Adding in special education to the mix is a whole other post for another day.

The bar continues to rise. Demands continue to increase.

But at what cost for our kids?

Writing a paragraph

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Each year I think of more and more things I want to help my students with. Each year I feel like I have less and less time, and that there’s more and more they need. One skill that is constantly requested by teachers, parents, and districts, is writing a paragraph. Despite that fact that our kids have language and learning disabilities and often do not have the fundamental language skills to write a well-constructed sentence, let alone a paragraph, writing is how progress is measured these days. MCAS, PARCC, formalized testing….so much of how it measures “success” is being able to write a well-constructed 5-paragraph essay. You already know my feeling about standardized testing, so we’ll let that one go for now.

So, okay. This year we will work extra-hard on written language when my kids come for speech/language 3 times a week. Despite the fact that there are a zillion other benchmarks to be targeted, vocabulary to be learned, auditory processing deficits, need to learn language comprehension skills and strategies, reading anywhere from 2-6 grades below their current grade level, lack of inferential knowledge, inability to summarize or extract the main idea…..yes. We will squeeze in written language.

But I was thinking hard the past few weeks as we get into a groove at school. We have to start at a basic level for our kids. And then an even more basic level than we had thought. There are so many holes, things that must be explicitly taught, things that our language/learning disordered kids don’t naturally pick up on. So, I did some reading on Bloom’s Taxonomy (Revised) and decided to use that as my framework for writing benchmarks and targeting skills this year. Because really, if our kids haven’t mastered the first tier, “Remembering” (e.g., remember what a paragraph is, what it contains), or “Understanding,” the second tier, we can’t expect that they will be able to jump right into “Apply” and “Analyze”, let alone “Evaluate” and “Create.”

I tried something out. I see kids elementary through high school, so I posed the following question to an 8th grade group and a 9th grade group: “What is a paragraph?” Some of the answers I got?
-(Silence)
-“I don’t know”
-“A  bunch of words”
-“A rectangle shape of writing on paper”
-“Sentences that talk about something”

And right away, that reinforced my gut feeling that we have to start at the basic level. Remembering. So, we talked about four vocab words. Paragraph; Topic Sentence; Details; Clincher. We talked about what each of them meant and why we needed them in a paragraph. We didn’t do any writing. Just Remembering. We used a color-coding system. Topic Sentence is green, Details are yellow, and Clincher is red. We wrote the terms and their definitions in colors. The next day, we read several short paragraphs (short and simple – probably around a 2nd grade reading level) and practiced finding the topic sentence, details, and clincher. We underlined each in their respective colors. We reviewed the terms and the colors. It was hard for them. We talked about it. We took it sentence by sentence.

This is where we’re at. But. We have to build a foundation first. I really truly believe that. And eventually, we’ll be writing a paragraph.

Learning Rambles 2

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I have been avoiding writing this. Shocker, I know. I (still) feel like I have to justify my writing, put out the disclaimer that it might not be that good, so that if it ISN’T that good, I already prepared myself and won’t be let down. Or something. But anyway.

I wrote Learning Rambles the other week, and more and more thoughts are swirling in my mind. I finished reading Your Brain on Childhood, and we just finished two horrendous weeks of administering MCAS (state testing), and all of that combined is making me think.

Our education system is SO messed up. For all students. And/but especially for mine, who are all special ed students.

During MCAS, my students were required to sit in a room and read grade-level texts, and answer grade-level questions, when they often aren’t at grade level. My 7th grader struggled through the reading comprehension part. She reads at a 2nd grade level independently. She got frustrated. Yes, I could read out loud to her. No, that didn’t help. She has a language disorder among other learning disabilities. The point is that there is this push toward getting all kids on grade level. And this push is doing more damage than good.

There is SO much research to state that kids don’t learn best when they are stuck in a classroom all day. Many studies, even other countries who do it better than we do, demonstrate that less homework, more time outside, more free play time, and more time to focus on what they’re interested in, make happier, more creative kids. AND, most importantly, it does NOT hinder development of intelligence! That’s the problem. That’s the fear, the false belief. Neuroscience, psychology, it all shows that kids are meant to learn and develop in one way. And our educational system is forcing them into another way.

And we wonder why anxiety, depression, attention issues, etc., are all on the rise? 

Grade level shouldn’t be the goal. That’s not to say that learning isn’t important, that acquiring new knowledge isn’t important.

Grade level doesn’t mean anything. I’m sorry, I know that’s a bold statement, but it doesn’t. Many of my kids are nowhere near “grade level” but have far more skills in various other areas of intelligence than I do. “Grade level” does not equal happiness. It does not equal success. It does not equal a future.

“Grade level” is an idealistic term, a way of trying to cram every student into a box, when in reality, most students don’t fit in that box. “Grade level” is why I hear parent after parent of elementary and middle school kids stress in IEP meetings, saying, “If she isn’t reading at grade level, how will she ever graduate high school or go to college?” 

Along with the “grade level” issue is the “teach to the test.” I wrote, a few weeks ago, about how my students seem to learn more, and are happier and calmer, more creative and more interested, when we are learning about things THEY want to learn about, things they naturally stumble upon. And oh, how I want to do that all day every day. But I feel like I’m in a constant battle. I can’t NOT teach them how to answer inferential comprehension questions from random reading passages, because that’s what’s required for them to pass MCAS, and to graduate high school. And even for those parents, and there are so many of them, who have similar opinions as I do – what are they supposed to do? We are in the minority. What will we do – band together and decide to boycott MCAS and extracurriculars and homework? Sounds pretty ideal and great to me – except when, because the system is so flawed, these kids aren’t going to get into college, because despite being clearly intelligent and creative, they don’t have a high school diploma (not from not learning, but from not passing a standardized test that in no way captures what a student actually knows and is capable of), nor do they have 100 hours of extracurriculuar activities to “prove themselves”. 

I just don’t get how that is fair. I don’t get it at all. It frustrates me to no end because I feel stuck. I have these beliefs and what I know are truths – and I also have the system. And I’m not strong enough to fight against the system. 

If you have made it through this incredibly disorganized and not even remotely logical rant, kudos to you. Dare I say it, I want to hear what you have to say. 

Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you have a way of explaining what I’m trying to get at that’s much more succinct and cohesive than how I said it? Is this an uphill battle that isn’t worth fighting?

What do you think?

 

Learning rambles

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This is going to be incoherent but I have to write before I lose the thoughts and the concepts deep into the folds of my brain, never to be even partially articulated. 

I’m reading a book. It’s called Your Brain on Childhood, by Gabrielle Principe. I’ve only read about 60 pages so far, but I’m captivated. It’s very research-heavy, citing lots of studies regarding child development, animal development, and ultimately the clear theme is that our kids aren’t being kids. Between phones, ipads, computers (all screens), lack of true “play” time (which is actually a necessity for kids! It’s how they learn – truly learn! Not just memorize what they’ve been taught), and a push to be fastersmarterwisermoredeveloped, we’re causing more problems than we’re solving. In trying to help our kids be smart and brilliant and successful, we’re actually doing the opposite sometimes.

Now, I speak as someone who is NOT a researcher, not an expert in human development, not (yet) a mother. So I can’t speak with fact or certainty. But I can speak intuitively, and I can speak from experience, with about a zillion kiddos, all across the spectrum.

And I can observe. And notice what is hardly a surprise: that the rise in learning disabilities is increasing. That more and more kids are on IEPs. That more and more kids are falling behind in school, and more and more kids are hating school. That anxiety and depression are consuming kids younger and younger. I can’t convince myself that this is random, that there’s no reason behind this. Why is it, well, I can’t state with certainty. But from my observations, of my own students and my friends’ children? I’m observing the amount of homework is increasing. That kids have less and less time to play. That more of an emphasis is placed on MCAS and other state testing. That the “fun” units can’t be taught in school because there’s no time. That kids are taught rules and things to memorize but there’s no time to learn what they want. There’s no more time to learn naturally. 

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that my most successful speech/language therapy sessions are the ones in which we veer off course and have a completely child-directed, randomly-flowing, session. It can’t be a coincidence that my students seem to learn more when we’re talking about something that they brought up or noticed. It can’t be coincidental that what they seem to retain most comes from natural learning opportunities, and often ones they have brought upon themselves.

I don’t know what else to say. There are clearly a lot of thoughts in my head and I realize this is anything but coherent, and probably full of vast accusations and gross generalizations. But I gave you the disclaimer that this is based on absolutely no fact, nothing but my own brain, my life, my experiences. I’m sure they’ll be more to come, more to say, and maybe some cohesiveness eventually. But in the meantime?

Does anyone else, whether you’re a student, a professional, a parent, get this? Feel the same way? Totally disagree? Tell me your thoughts. It’s okay if they’re not based on anything other than the neurons firing in your head. 

Slaberty

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I can’t stop thinking about an encounter I had with one of my students last week. In the spirit of extreme anonymity and privacy, all I will tell you is that he’s an adorable little elementary schooler, with a sensitive soul and wisdom beyond his years.

He walked into my office and announced, “You know what I was thinking about?”

“What?” I asked.

“My old school was like slaberty.”

“Slavery?” I questioned.

“Yeah.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well. You know how the blacks and the whites were all people but they were still treated differently cuz people didn’t realize that they should be treated equally? Well my school was like that. Like, I was a student! Just like everyone else! But since I was in the [name of special ed program] program, other kids didn’t realize that! They treated me differently. Like at recess? They wouldn’t play with me! They ran away from me because I was in the [special ed] program. Just like the whites felt about the blacks! It wasn’t fair! It made me feel stupid and dumb. I was a student just like them!” He was animated, pacing around my tiny office as he talked.

“Wow. I like that comparison. I don’t like how you were treated, but I like how you are thinking about it.” I told him.

He smiled. “Yeah. You know what? Teachers care about me here. I never, EVER thought that teachers could care about kids!”

And then I fought back tears.

Progress Reports.

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It’s Progress Report time, which, for a special education school, means reporting on the progress of each benchmark within each goal, for each student. For me, it’s reporting on their progress towards their Receptive/Expressive Language (speech/language) goal.

And while doing that, I’ve realized how much of our data is confounded. I mean, obviously. There are a million different factors and that goes with the job, with the therapy. But I have so many students who live very much in their heads. Some who can even express what it’s like to be inside their minds and their bodies, who can explain, whether it’s through a script or a drawing, how their brain works.

And it isn’t easy for them to come out of their heads. And it isn’t easy for them to learn in the way that we teach. Easier when we modify, easier when we cater toward their needs and personalities, but still not easy.

So when I report that a student did not achieve a benchmark, did not obtain x/y/z skills, I’m struggling with it. Because I want to put in bold underneath:

Disclaimers:
-Student may know way more than s/he is able to show us.
-Student’s performance varies based on his/her internal state and sensory regulation.

Now I don’t know how much the Dept. of Ed. would like that (sarcasm) so I don’t do that. But I want the parents of my students to understand. That it’s not necessarily that their child can’t do something. Yes, there are things they can’t do, can’t understand, can’t comprehend. But I truly, firmly, strongly believe that more often than not? It’s that the world around them is not shaped in a way where they can SHOW what they know. Where they can access the knowledge that’s being taught. Where they can truly express their knowledge, thoughts, and comprehension.

I just want parents to know that. That I think their kids, all of them, are brilliant. That I understand them. A lot. On a nonverbal way, on that I-understand-him-through-my-soul way. That no matter what my Progress Report says, no matter how many benchmarks are or are not achieved, I will not give up. I will not think their child is incapable, not think that they have plateaued in development, not think that they do not or cannot understand something. I will not stop trying to meet them on their level, and I will not stop trying to teach in a way that they get. And if that means scripting back and forth with a student for 20 minutes so that I can explain a concept in a way that they understand? You bet I’ll do it.

Your kids are brilliant. All of them.

Please know that I know that.