I had a bad night’s sleep worrying about a problem I am having with some people. I don’t like conflict; Mike hated it. The difference between us was that I was more optimistic about the possible outcome after working it through. Mike was not, or it just wasn’t worth it for him. He remembers his parents in constant conflict; he had little tolerance for that. He could work issues through with me because he trusted me to have his interests at heart as well as mine. At least that’s what he said, and I certainly hope that was the case.
I had plans to go to Bikram in the morning, but between having a lousy night’s sleep and having the SUV parked behind my Prius, and not knowing where the key to the SUV might be, I gave up and stayed in bed longer.
Elsa and I went for a good long walk. Damon, Cylin, and August were heading back to California today. They found out that the wind that got them to Hawaii an hour early was alive and kicking, and their flight home would take six hours instead of five. Would August be able to make it to school on Tuesday morning? He certainly didn’t want to. He calculated his grade average and showed his mom that he had a 4.3-grade point. It’s higher than 4.0 because he has AP courses that count for more.
Damon, Cylin, and I went out to check out the sea turtles at the harbor beach. It was a gorgeous day to be at a beach. The harbor beach was constructed as a fish trap by the Hawaiians. They built a rock wall at the sea edge of the bay. The little fish swim in and feed. When they get larger, they can’t get out—fish farms. We did see three turtles. They must have been adolescents. The full-grown ones are huge. They can be seen in the water at the shoreline or sunning themselves on the beach. This is a state park. The signs state you have to stay within 20 feet of these creatures.
We took Elsa with us. She wasn’t thrilled with the experience. I don’t know if she ever experienced sand before. She certainly wasn’t interested in the turtles. She did poop on the beach. We had a poop bag with us that saved the day.
We stopped off at the transfer station on the way home. Damon remembered that we had the blow-up queen mattress with a missing power cord in the back. I could never have gotten it out myself; he and Cylin dumped it down the shoot.
Our next stop was at Subway. Cylin hated the food offered on the flight over. Since they were traveling back on the same airline, she wanted to buy food ahead of time. Since we had taken Elsa with us, we had to sit outside. We had been welcomed with adoring arms at the coffee shop we went to in the morning. I think the company is locally owned, and they felt they could do what they wanted. Subway is a national chain and feels more obliged to follow ordinances.
When we got home, August wanted to walk Elsa. I put the harness on her, but she didn’t want to go anywhere without me, so I went with them. I got over 10,000 steps in with all the walking I did that day.
Cylin was at the house stripping beds and dumping dirty linens in my laundry room. The crew finished packing. I drove them to the airport at 3:30. While I was reading in bed before going to sleep, I got Damon’s text that they were home safe and sound and would I look in the bathroom drawer for his wedding band.
Musings:
I had a conversation with someone about the merits of classifying disabilities for educational purposes. I argue that classifications are meaningless for a teacher. The only value of the labels in a school is for securing extra services for a child. But for the hands-on teacher, the special education teacher does not know how to work with that child; the label serves no purpose.
This does not mean that the labels serve no purpose in a medical context. Whether a child is mentally challenged because of a birth defect, lack of oxygen, insufficient nutrition, prenatal care, a head injury, a brain disease, an inherited disorder, or a chromosomal mutation makes a difference there. The medical profession devotes its energy to prevent these disorders, as well it should. For me, as I work with a student, it makes no difference.
I am currently working with a child who couldn’t even add without using blocks and didn’t fully understand subtraction. There is no medical diagnosis for this child. While this child reads on grade level, I believe if she were evaluated, she would be classified as learning disabled because of her profound problems with math.
I worked with a student who suffered from Willian’s syndrome many years ago, which is a genetic disorder, either inherited or caused by a mutation. It is associated with several cognitive disorders. I was told by her mother that problems with math are characteristic of this syndrome.
As an educator, the causes of the problems with math are irrelevant. I had to assess what they were able to do and what they were not able to do. With the third grader I am currently working with, I could determine with a few questions if she had any number sense. Can she count to 1000? Can she read this number, 41,014? Which is larger, 10 or 7? Which is larger, 37 or 32? Then I observed her adding two numbers: 5+2=. She arranged the blocks in a pile of five and a pile of two. She started counting the group of five blocks and then added on the two others.
My diagnosis: she only used her right brain to do the math. She could only do the work when working with concrete objects; she couldn’t use abstract symbols. First off, I asked her if she used only her right brain to do the math. She said yes. I told her to use the left side of her brain. Given how quickly she understood my instructions and focused on the left side of her brain, I have to assume there was no problem in the medical sense of the word. Her problem was probably caused by mental habits. There was nothing wrong with her brain or nervous system.
I was able to get her to add using counting-on with her fingers. (In the problem 5+3=. You don’t count from 1; you count-on. 6,7,8.) She had some continuing problems with the procedure. I told her to always start with the larger number, add on the smaller amount by putting out fingers to represent the smaller number, and count on touching each one. She went home and continued working with this procedure. She didn’t remember it perfectly. This was not a problem with abstract recall; this is a procedural problem that involves a different part of the brain than abstract thinking.
The girl with Williams’s syndrome was in second grade. I sometimes felt like Margaret Sullivan pushing Helen Keller through exercises. I only worked with her on one exercise. I had a frame of the numbers 1-10 on the top row with a column under each one with 10 spaces. Under number 1, she colored in one square. Under number 2, two squares. I wanted her to see that the number sequence represented ever larger quantities. That’s all I did for her for a year. I was told that the next year, she could participate in math classes with the other children who were also having problems. The work I did with her caused this breakthrough. Would I do it differently now? Possibly I have developed different methods for teaching basic number sense for students who have difficulty with it.
The point of all this is the categories of learning disabled and Williams’s syndrome didn’t guide my teaching strategy then and wouldn’t today.
I have an issue with the educational profession. I feel it overuses medical diagnoses. Most teachers who work with children who needed extra help or are classified as special education care a great deal about these children; however, some teachers care more about what is convenient for them than how best to teach children. I have seen incidents of both types of teachers. However, I do think even caring teachers are overwhelmed by their helplessness to teach certain children and attribute their defeat to the medical diagnosis.
I think we, as professionals, should do what the medical profession does. We should say I don’t know how to help this child; our profession doesn’t know how to help your child-yet. The medical profession is always trying new ways to deal with medical problems and admit the limitation of their knowledge.
My husband died about a year ago of pancreatitis. All medicine could do for him was to support him, hoping that his body would know how to heal him. Their hands were tied, and the doctors told us as much. In five, ten more years, they may develop a more aggressive approach that might have saved Mike’s life. We all have to live with our limitations and own them.
I have successfully worked with children whose teachers ignored them. One boy’s mother said she doesn’t want her son classified because then teachers will say he’s stupid and feel free to ignore him. I told her the classification is irrelevant. They don’t know how to help him. They ignore him because they want to put their energy into children they can help. Sadly, the neglected children feel it is their fault the teachers make no effort with them when the fault lies with the educational system's limits. We don’t know how to teach certain children. It is too painful to admit it is our fault despite all the caring and effort. It is our ignorance, which is the problem, not the child’s limitations.
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