On Friday I shared a visual. Today I will share the same quote but with a different image.
This is , hands down, my favorite advocacy quote for children with learning differences. For many years, I met with my son's teacher(s) before school began each year. I explained many things about his diagnosis, best practices and some helpful hints that were specific to him. One thing I tried to stress was that he was very capable but some of the ways to reach him academically might be very different than they had ever done. I tried to emphasize mastery of the subject was all that was necessary. He didn't need to do it in ways that other children did. I wanted to emphasize that methodology was up for grabs. Mastery of the methods typically used may never happen. The bottom line was that he learned the material!
In those meetings, most teachers gave an affirmative nod. It sounded great when we were sitting around a conference table in the school office. The problem came after a few weeks of school and things weren't going so well. We would call a meeting and the conversation went something like this. "I give the class time to work on the assignment and he just sits there. I can't give him accommodations when he's lazy in class."
Now, the tiger mama starts to rise in me. I often took a deep breath and prayed a quick prayer about keeping my cool and not making the situation worse by losing control emotionally. I slowly tried to lay the ground work for what a classroom environment does to my son. I had to bring them along understanding his communication deficits, sensory bombardment, slower processing skills, handwriting difficulties and the list went on and on. We had a talented and gifted teacher who had come to understand our son quite well. In his high school years, she would let teachers know that he could do what they wanted: just not everyday, in a hectic classroom and in the way they were use to assessing students.
As my husband and I advocated, some the ways my son accessed curriculum were
1. Minimizing the need for handwriting.
2. Teachers came to his study hall once a week and he did the written daily work orally.It only took a few minutes but caused a lot less stress for everyone.
3. Upper level math and science teachers came to his study hall once a week to answer any questions he had about the material.
4. Teachers would send an email with any missing assignments at the end of the week.
I am sure there were other great accommodations but this will give a "flavor" of ways of bringing instruction to a student in the way he learns!
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