On Friday, I shared this image but I wanted to share it again since I wanted to make some comments about it.
I found this image on Pinterest and it was orginally posted by Ms. Fultz's Corner.
There is a lot of confusion with the concepts fair and equal. When I have suggested an accommodation for my son, I have often heard a teacher say but that wouldn't be fair when the other students don't have that accommodation. At that point, I usually needed to take a big breath (a coping strategy I wanted my son to employ). I knew this would go no where unless I could bring this teacher along and gain understanding of fair plus equal. I thought I would share a sample of what this dialogue sounded like.
I understand that you want things in your classroom to be fair. I don't want you to do something unfair. Let me try to help you see this from my son's point of view. Our son's psychologist recently did some testing for us and I want to share some of the results. There is a test called the Test of Written Production. The results of this test showed that if handwriting is required that my son's functional IQ goes down 40 points. This is common in dysgraphia which is a handwriting disability. The thing that equalizes the academic playing field for him is not being required to use handwriting. This enables him to perform at his true academic and cognitive level where the requirement of handwriting causes his academic performance to be far under his potential. There are many ways this could be done. I have a list of various ways to assess his abilities without requiring handwriting. Let me share some of these and then we could talk about what this would look like in the classroom.
Team building is so important when advocating at school. It is important to have school personnel to have "buy in" and want to do it because they believe in the nesessity of the accommodations. It's important to help others to understand the difference between fair and equal.
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