Creative Learning and Educational Supports

City Mouse or Country Mouse?

Posted on July 2, 2006 | 5 comments

I grew up in a small town two city blocks from my local elementary school, where I walked each day, and came home for lunch, walking again. Right when I started junior high school, we moved to the country of that same small town, literally a stone’s throw from the city limits sign, on four acres, across the street from my grandparents. We soon built a barn and bought two horses: one for my mother and one for me, around my junior year in high school.

My hubby grew up in the country on the opposite side of this same small town. They had a pond and some woods, but no animals. They lived down the street from a family campground where he spent just as much time as well.

When we were dating, we often conjured up images of where we wanted to raise our children. Both of us agreed it would be in the country, with animals, and a tractor, and lots of acres. Well, almost 21 years of marriage later, we’ve not ever lived in the country because of the path that life led us on, but we are now really wanting to finally make that desire a reality.

But . . . I find myself nervous. I mean, we’ve been “corporate gypsies” most of our married life, both when we were in the working world and even while we were in university. We’ve lived in various places anywhere from two weeks to three years, until North Carolina, where we have been living for the past six years. We’ve lived in Allegan, Michigan; Okemos, Michigan; East Lansing, Michigan; Tempe, Arizona; Allegan, Michigan; Ypsilanti, Michigan; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Delaware, Ohio (two places); Gibsonia, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Kentucky; Elliottsburg, Pennsylvania; Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania; and now here in Trinity, North Carolina. That’s fourteen homes, twelve cities, and six states. All of these locations have either been in rentals in the city or in suburbia.

So, my role as woman, wife, mother, homeschooler, and citizen has been as a city mouse. That’s all I’ve ever known for the past 21 years. What if that’s what I’m now comfortable with? What if I don’t know how to be a country mouse? What if I hate it after all? What if I’m biting off more than I can chew going into my 40s? What are the cost/benefits to each individual child? The tale of the country mouse and the city mouse certainly comes to my mind, and it has an interesting tale (tail?) to tell about appreciating where you are from and to each his own. On the other hand, I remember having to be the main breadwinner for our family the first seven years of our marriage and being worried that “what if” I don’t like being a full time mother? But I loved it. It was something I had always wanted, and certainly I was doing it some of the time, so maybe it’s not as big a leap as going from city to country living.

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Here are what we have enjoyed as suburbia dewellers: a nice, big house that gives us room enough for our big family of mainly introverts to have their own “space” to get away and/or keep their projects, “safe” neighbors although not always the friendliest, safe roads to ride bikes on (and we’ve almost always chosen a cul-de-sac location), manageable yard care (we usually live on acre lots), easy access to convenieces and community activities, right now we have a bit of both worlds with a 97 acre farm adjoining our backyard and an empty lot next to us (for exploring in the woods and taking our dogs and children for long walks in the field, although the owners are trying to sell it and our subdivision just beat a recent proposal to put an “anthill style subdivision there”, so it is probably a matter of time . . . .).

What I think we’ll enjoy about being in the country is being able to get horses and other farm animals of our choosing, room to run and explore and move particularly for my high energy younger boys, more opportunity for outdoor work (again great for my younger boys), land enough to give to some of our children who will probably live with us for always and even to those who might want to stay around, a larger garden, more space away from neighbors, being able to do what we want with our land/place without restrictions, working toward more self-sufficiency, etc.

Some of the downsides for country living as I’m contemplating is that it might be more work than I realize and do I have time? Most likely, with investing money into the land and barn/fencing aspect, we will have to have a smaller house, and am I ready for that change and is everyone else? Although we are SO different from our neighbors in our “fancy” subdivisions and are often ostracized from them for not acting “rich enough”, will we fit in with the country personalities any better, especially down here in the South (and us being from the North)?

I would love any input from others out there in blog land about your experience with country versus city living!

5 Comments

Posted in Family

My Snake Lesson

Posted on June 27, 2006 | 7 comments

I was prompted to recall today some of the lessons I learned from my firstborn son the first year we began to homeschool. Don’t we all have these? My most important lesson I learned was the snake lesson.

I had tried to do school at home . . . hey, in a FUN way . . . with my son for two weeks in August. I chose to do it then because I was eight months pregnant with child number four and wanted to “get a jump start” and have a rhythm going before I gave birth. Well, what ended up happening was I realized it wasn’t working and had to come up with Plan B. I always say having a newborn saved my son’s education! I just didn’t have time to hover and micromanage with a newborn, a one year old, a three year old and a five year old . . . LOL!

So, we slowly tested out some unit study books from time to time over most of the school year. Eric let me know what he was interested in, I would find a unit study book on it, and we would play around with the ideas in it together. Well, around April, he wanted to do a study on snakes. Well, I couldn’t find a unit study on snakes, but since we had done a couple of them, I felt I was up to the task of putting one together myself. Although the newborn was now about seven months old, with four young ones, it still took effort to carve out the time to put something like that together.

So, we started off by going to the library and finding a bunch of books about snakes that I could use as fodder. I also gathered whatever we had at home. By this time, we had quite the stack. Well, it took me two weeks before I was able to find a weekend to put it altogether. In the meantime, Eric had been going through that stack of books. He was a non-reader, but he would ask me a lot of questions about what he was seeing, or ask me to read certain blurbs.

Well, the weekend came and boy did I put one great unit study together. It would last five days and Eric was so excited he could barely contain himself Sunday night. Monday morning came and he was there with bells on, eager to jump right in. How wonderful to have such an enthusiastic “student”, ready to be fed. So, I began with my first lesson. Immediately, Eric’s face fell.

“What’s wrong?” I quieried.

“I already know that!” he lamented.

“What do you mean?” I asked incredulously.

“I already know it, I mean,” he insisted.

“No problem, we’ll just skip to the next part,” I concluded.

“I already know that, too!” he cried at this point.

So, I decided to share with him all that I was going to teach him, and he realized that he knew everything already from his going through the resources before I was able to get to them. He was interested in doing a couple of the craft projects, but so ended my fabulous unit study.
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Ah, but wait, I noticed that he knew everything you never wanted to know about cobras and pythons and constrictors, but nothing about rattlesnakes and vipers!

“How about I teach you about those?” I questioned.

“No, thanks. I’m not interested in rattlesnakes or vipers,” he calmly pointed out.

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me that, and I prepared it, and you don’t know it, so how about I teach it,” I insisted.

“No, thanks.”

Well, I was about to go into a tirade about all the time and energy I put into it, and by golly, he was going to learn about rattlesnakes and vipers, but then, a sudden idea entered my mind and turned the learning experience from him to me. Something urged me to go ahead and teach him one concept about what he didn’t want to learn about. Just one. So, I decided to teach him why a pit viper is called a pit viper. He listened, and we went on our merry ways through the day.

Before going to bed, I asked him why a pit viper is called a pit viper. He couldn’t remember. I rehearsed to him again the reason. We then had a long discussion about all the things I never wanted to know about cobras, pythons and constrictors for a good 30 minutes. The next day, I asked Eric why a pit viper is called a pit viper. Couldn’t remember. Repeat, try again. Repeat, try again. All to no avail. And yet, a month later, a year later, that boy could tell you all the types of cobras, what country they lived in, if they were venomous, how they gave birth to their young, etc. as well as about constrictors and pythons.

Lesson for Mom: I can put lots and lots of energy and time into preparing “the perfect lesson”, and if he’s not interested in learning it, it is all for nothing. Being a person who had chosen to raise a large family close in age, time was valuable. Why would I waste my precious time, let alone weaken my relationship with my child as we battled over his willingness to listen to my lessons?

It was right after this point that unschooling completely took over how Eric pursued his learning world.

Eric at 5

7 Comments

Posted in Beginnings, Homeschooling, Interests, Learning

Learning Differences

Posted on June 26, 2006 | 1 comment

I thought when I started my blog that my first focus would be the topic centered around my Homeschooling Creatively yahoo group. However, I wanted my blog to evolve naturally, so this is the first opportunity I have taken to really discuss this particular passion of mine. I was prompted to put some of my thoughts about learning differences from some comments on my post entitled, “When Waiting Isn’t Enough”.

I said:

As it pertains to the plethora of “school-created labels” such as ADD, ADHD, gifted, LD, etc., I think the biggest problem with school is that they blame the child instead of the system that doesn’t account for the child’s learning timeframe nor their learning style.

Steph of momof3feistykids at A Room of My Own said:

However, I feel that issues like learning disabilities and ADD are very real, and create challenges for a child whether he is in school or not.

First, I’m not saying things like inattentiveness, hyperactivity, high intelligence, and learning differences don’t exist. They do. What I’m saying is that these things can be part and parcel to someone’s personality and/or learning style type that bring great assets as well as challenges from time to time, particularly when the environment and expectations do not match these traits.

I am particularly passionate about the right-brained, visual-spatial, creative learner. What I have discovered about this learner are:

1) their learning style is not valued in our society (it values left-brained traits, which is the style of learning conducted in school for which we have all been conditioned to value as well),

2) they are one of the two most labeled children in schools (ADD, gifted, LD, and dyslexic are some of the school-created labels; Asperger’s Syndrome, high functioning autism, and sensory integration disorder are some “disorders” that often strongly resemble the traits of this learner),

3) they develop certain (left-brained valued) subjects later such as reading, handwriting, writing, spelling, and math computation (they are bested suited to learn these topics between the ages of 8-10 years of age),

4) they have a core attraction to one of the following: drawing, music, theater, dance, building things (like Legos), computers, or video games, and

5) they are misunderstood by school personnel and parents by having things said of them such as “they are smart, but lazy” and “they are not living up to their potential;” and in homeschools, they often resist your teaching and they are also apt to say, “this is stupid” to everything you suggest.AT&T’s campaign to reach out and touch someone made me reach out for a tissue – not a phone. try this link levitra no prescription

Inattentiveness is a strong component of this learning style when they are placed in an environment that does not enhance their strengths for attentiveness: toward things that interest them . . . particularly highly creative outlets! I believe strongly that dyslexia would all but disappear (mostly) if these learners were allowed to wait until 8-10 years old to begin to learn to read, and are started with a sight word program with pictures. Learning disabilities could not exist if these learners were allowed to pursue their strengths and gifts, which are not valued in our society. They need to be able to pursue their creative outlet at a young age, and also be exposed to pictures longer as they develop their extensive pictorial library of images that will be an asset to them as they tackle the symbolic nature of the left-brained tasks of reading or writing later.

Steph goes on to say:

Also, while the issues that go along with a diagnosis like Asperger’s Syndrome are not the same as those that accompany autism, they are pervasive and significant and require more intervention than simply creating an enriching environment and respecting the child’s inner timetable.

Well, let me give you two sides to this coin. Once a parent can recognize the learning style of their child with Asperger’s, which is highly likely to be this creative learner, and you provide that enriching environment that respects the child’s inner timetable and learning style, then I think the learning/academic part is a breeze!

Now, the flip side of this coin is the “living with” portion of this “high maintenance child”. They have strong social, behavioral, emotional, and sensorial needs that should be addressed in order to help their futures be bright. The beauty of homeschool is that we can create a holistic facilitation environment that not only tackles the academics, but includes these other all-important arenas. I call it a success-based, mentor-supported, skill-developing environment.

Now, an important aspect of facilitating in these areas is to recognize the two sides of the coin. For instance, it is common for a creative learner to be highly sensitive. I find these creative learners either meltdown (cry and fall in a heap) or burst out (anger and lash out). It is because they feel so deeply. This is essential to their creative expressions! To dance in a way that moves someone is to feel deeply and express it through dance. To paint something that stirs another is to feel deeply and it shows through the art. However, with this same asset comes places where it interferes with one’s life. This is where we need to help our children develop skills that manages this two-sided trait of strong emotion.

There is SOOOO much I could write about this learning style that two of my children in particular have taught me extensively about for which I have shared with others. For now, I will create a page with my outlines that I follow when I present workshops about this learner. One is about how they learn: “Understanding the Right-Brained Learner” and the other is about living with them: “Living with the Right-Brained Learner”.

I hope to talk about this learner many times on my blog 🙂

1 Comment

Posted in Homeschooling, Learning, Right-Brained/Visual-spatial Learners

When Waiting Isn’t Enough

Posted on June 25, 2006 | 12 comments

I posted a long comment over at Every Waking Hour under the post, “Thinking About Readiness”. Although I published it there, I thought I would post it on my own blog as well.

Willa said:

I’ve read some Piagetian theory in the context of special needs education…. just a very little. One very interesting book that talks a bit about Piaget’s theories is “When Slow is Fast Enough” . It is a thought-provoking book about the flaws in the way Early Intervention programs tend to be set up nowadays. The author Joan Goodman discusses Rousseau, Locke and Piaget in terms of their ideas of child development. She thinks that EI nowadays tends to be Lockean (”filling the vessel” or “writing on the blank slate”) with a thin and slightly hypocritical overlay of Rousseau’s child-centered theories.

And the later conclusion was:

The point of her book is that all the therapy tasks in the world cannot jumpstart or advance a child’s readiness.

Her solution is to create a rich environment both in terms of open-ended resources AND in terms of creative, warm personnel who are willing to play with the child on his or her own terms and be sensitive to the child’s developmental timetable.

As an unschooler type myself, I embrace so much of what is being said about learning in Willa’s post. As it pertains to the plethora of “school-created labels” such as ADD, ADHD, gifted, LD, etc., I think the biggest problem with school is that they blame the child instead of the system that doesn’t account for the child’s learning timeframe nor their learning style. So, that connects huge with what was being said throughout Willa’s post about a rich learning environment, honoring different learning styles, and waiting on each person’s timeframe. In fact, I present a workshop on this very idea called “An Individualized Education: Learning Styles and Time Frames.”

However, I take exception with trying to connect these ideas with more challenged children, such as those with autism (not high functioning or Asperger’s), Down’s Syndrome, mental retardation, etc.. I have first hand experience in this area, and it is very, very different than just providing an unschooling environment. I have several children with autism and one with other pervasive developmental difficulties. If all it takes is the typical learning environment that values and respects the child’s timeframe, there would be no such thing as autism! There are some biologically different brain structures that prevent a child with autism, for instance, from learning from their environment.

The intervention that ended up being my son’s learning style is not about “writing on a clean slate”, but about helping to “rewire the brain” in the areas that were not functioning or did not develop in utero. The brain is an amazingly elastic thing, and it has been shown that it can create new pathways around “disabled parts” or non-existant ones.

I would like to share two examples. Adam had zero imitation skills at 3.5 years old. This is how children learn a LOT, right? Such as speaking, which he was unable to do. (I wonder if learning to walk and eat is a biological response versus an imitative one, by the way.) Well, we worked and worked on retraining the brain to create such a pathway, and when he was tested three years later, it was listed that “imitation is a relative strength”. Pretty exciting, huh? He was also finally able to learn to speak and potty train once he learned even the basics of imitation. It took years, but at about age 9-10, Adam was beginning to learn from his environment naturally, although not to the level of someone without his brain differences. As another interesting side note, social interaction is a more complex imitative skill, so imitative progress has to be made to a more abstract level in order to accomplish this.

William had near zero visual-spatial abilities at 5 years old. He couldn’t even place one block on a piece of paper in the same manner as another person. We worked and worked on blocks and 1.5 years later, after some testing, it stated that he demonstrated a “strength in his visual analytic skills (block design).” It was the only place he did not have a weakness, besides his natural strength in gross motor skills!

To share a different outcome, Alex exhibited the same type of difficulties as his brother Adam. He was diagnosed with autism at two years old. For three months, I had the EI people in our home six hours a week of one on one for speech, occupational therapy and play therapy. It was all very child-led learning . . . joining in with him, etc. He learned nothing in that three months except bye-bye. I started the intervention that worked so well for his brother with him, and within the next three months, he had accumulated about 50 words, some imitative skills, and playing some games and songs. After another four years of consistently and actively helping him learn in the way that made sense to him, his brain was able to do whatever it does, and the floodgates were thrown open.

Alex had strengths in areas his brother did not that helped this transformation occur when it did not for his sibling. We were then able to help him delve deeper into the social arena, abstract reasoning, etc. Alex would be considered a person living with high functioning autism now.Millions of people with impotency issues have tested and taken its treatment and thus, recommend its medication strongly. levitra 40 mg icks.org

If difficulty with learning is about being slower, or learning differently, then all that was said in the book cited by Willia would apply! If learning is about something serious missing in your brain functioning, then it is about something else. One extra copy of a chromosome causes serious differences in learning for those with Down Syndrome. Lacking imitative skills causes serious differences in learning for those with autism (that’s just one of many differences that combines to make living with autism difficult). It’s not about waiting, but helping them learn in a different way. It’s not going to change if you wait.

Definitely all my opinion, from my experience . . .

The top picture are the people who all lovingly worked with Adam to bring him his smile the first two years after his diagnosis of autism.

The middle picture are the people who all lovingly worked with Alex to bring him his social outlet the first year after his diagnosis of autism.

The bottom picture are all the children after the party I held to thank everyone for all that they did for the two youngest before we moved away to another state in 1998.

Adam’s Circle of Love

Alex’s Circle of Love

The Children, May 1998

12 Comments

Posted in Autism, Learning, My Opinions, Uncategorized

Homeschooling Mommys: Freedoms and Development

Posted on June 23, 2006 | 4 comments

Moonshadows made a comment in her “The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars” post that got me thinking . . . She said:

Another problem with the current “social situation” is that (assuming a two parent household) if one parent is working and the other is not, the non-working parent’s future is potentially jeapordized.

I was the primary breadwinner in our family the first six years of our marriage, as my hubby made his way through university, while we simultaneously grew our family and shared the responsibility of caring for them on a daily basis. Upon graduation, it was time for me to get to stay home finally, full time. So, the past 15 years, I have been a stay-at-home mom, and the past 14 years, a homeschooling mommy. So, is my future potentially jeapordized?

An interesting thing happened in the middle of this time I have been a SAH/homeschooling mom: my hubby was jealous! Not because he wanted to stay home and be a househubby, but because he recognized the unique opportunity I have to develop my passions and make a difference in the world in the way that I choose as important to me. He was SO right, and I am grateful for my unique place in our home that grants me this opportunity.

What have I been developing with the freedoms being a homeschooling mommy affords me? I have learned oodles about learning! Visual-spatial learners, structured learners, unschooling learning, therapeutic learning, teen learning, toddler learning . . . I have learned about learning challenges like autism, memory differences, attention differences, sleeping pattern impacts, hyperactivity, impulsivity, auditory processing differences . . . I have found talents within myself I didn’t know existed like writing, public speaking, facilitating, a natural behaviorist, patience . . . In my free time, I CHOOSE to read materials that will enhance my understanding in any of these areas, attend conferences to gather new advances, and collaborate with other parents in gaining new insights. My hubby shakes his head and feels I don’t know how to just relax. Well, I really LOVE learning!

Although I have this plethora of experience and knowledge, am I still lacking for not having a degree to back it up in today’s world? Maybe. I’ve certainly gone back and forth regarding pursuing a degree in order that I might gain credibility. But, since I’ve come this far, I’m trying really hard to discipline myself enough to write a book starting in the fall, and see if I can get it off the ground enough to see if that can take me anywhere in sharing my experiences to a broader segment of people.But is this the case? We did a research and there are quite http://amerikabulteni.com/2018/02/06/frasierin-salonundaki-bos-koltuk/ levitra samples a few unbelievers.

I feel blessed to be a woman today. I feel blessed by the freedoms I enjoy in my life to explore and discover and development myself in areas I never thought would enter my life if I had tried to plan it out, or if I had to walk a path that had limits, like being the main breadwinner of a household of nine. Boy, do I appreciate my hubby and all he does for our family. And girl, does he slightly envy my opportunities, but fully supports and celebrates all that I bring to our family.

At this time, I feel like my life has been full to overflowing with extraordinary opportunities and I have taken them. I see my future full of hope and giving back and full of possibilities. I see it as more than what financial value I can bring, but what worth I can give. I’ll end with the motto my daughter has chosen to live by, that she put in her Build-a-Bear:

It’s what you give that makes you beautiful; it’s how you live that makes your dreams come true.

Yep, I think that’s what being a homeschooling mommy did for me. And my life is more than I ever dreamed of 🙂

4 Comments

Posted in Family, Homeschooling

What to Read?

Posted on June 22, 2006 | 4 comments

Faith over at Dumb Ox Academy wrote a post called “Teens and good choices” that got me thinking about how my children have come to make good choices as it pertains to reading material. She wrote:

I have been thinking about censorship and how homeschooling moms often have the job of prereading their kids books to see if they are acceptable.

You know, I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me to censor books! It’s been more apparent to me to be mindful in sharing my opinions about movies and music, clothing and language, but not books. Hhhmm, it got me to wondering why. Then, Faith went on to write this about her mother:

I think if my mother had been constantly looking over my shoulder at what I was reading, I would have rebelled, but I never felt the need. Instead she talked to me about what was right and wrong and why she saw things that way. And she engaged me in discussion about what was right and wrong. What did I think? And this taught me to be self-censoring. I only want to read what truly interests me. And what truly interests me is trying to be a child of God who honors her Father. I don’t want to read pap and twaddle (for the most part!).

This definitely hit on what I do in my home. Censorship has never been a part of our home; but discussion and opinions and perspectives shared, often! And yet, I still don’t see myself specifically and mindfully discussing book choices by sharing my perspective in order to guide and model for my children good choices in this area. Instead, I believe this is an area that is near and dear to my heart, and I have shared that instead . . . my love of books!

Books were treasured by me as a child. I begged my mother the summer between kindergarten and first grade to teach me to read. She simply kept a chant up of, “Wait until first grade” to my ever increasing insistence. (She wouldn’t have made a very good homeschooler, I think.) So, I waited, and all but inhaled the reading instruction in first grade. In fact, the only part of the process I remember is the Dick and Jane primers, which I happened to have really enjoyed, by the way 🙂

Anyway, after that, I foraged through that room and read every book, according to the first grade teacher report card I have. When my mother went through a season where she would take me to the public library, I decided I was going to read every fictional animal book they had, starting with the “a’s”. I loved the smell of that library. It was my lifeline to books, coming from a home of little financial means. My Christmas present often entailed a book, that I cherished and would place upon my very special bookshelf of honor. It is one of the few things I took with me when I left home . . . those books.

It is my secret dream to have a library like those of olden times, when there were no public libraries, and people had to have their own personal libraries. I am Belle of “Beauty and the Beast”, who revelled in such a location! We turned our formal dining room into a library, so I have a mini feal of a library in our home. We own at least 2,000 books. The access my children have to great books in comparison to what I had growing up is like comparing a pauper to a prince. Is that why I didn’t ever consciously think to model good choices as it pertains to books? Because my love of books overflowed into their everyday lives, and the modeling naturally existed.

I remember when I was bored growing up, I would go look for some books to look at. There was basically one set of nature/animal books available to me to look through, a set of encyclopedias, and the Childcraft book series. I usually looked at the animal series or the Childcraft series. I used my past experience of how I spent my bored moments, as well as my love of my own homemade bookshelf, and created a similar opportunity for my children to savor books.Another reason that causes bankruptcy amongst order cheap levitra cute-n-tiny.com individuals is their credit card debt.

I started when my children were very tiny. Each child would have their own bookshelf in their own rooms. Within each child’s room, on each child’s bookshelf, would accumulate those titles they were most interested in at the time. It was where I could put some of my “finds” from the bookstore that I thought they might like or would add to their current interests. Unlike my few favored books I owned, I found the children often rotated which books would reside in their room based on interest, age, and style of reading.

We had a rhythm to our evening hours. There was a time when it was “time for bed” in which each of us retired to our own bedrooms. We would then “settle down” doing some quiet activities, enjoying alone time, or . . . reading. This is when I thought the opportunity would most arise for my children to seek out what was in their bookshelves in their rooms, and I was right. It holds fond memories for them. An hour or so later, we would peek in and say, “Time to go to bed, to bed,” which meant REALLY go to bed. LOL!

So, that’s what my children grew up hearing about . . . my love of books. Since Faith specifically talked about her teenage daughter’s good choice of books, I will gear my last thoughts toward my teenage daughter. She has my books from my childhood now. It really wasn’t that much her style, but she knows my reverence toward them. I talked about the books I read as a child, as a teen, as an adult, to my daughter. I would share what I loved about them, if I hated something, if it moved me, if it inspired me.

The other thing I shared specifically with my daughter, because she has my “organizational love” within her genetic make-up, was how from about age 9-14 I wrote out on index cards all the books I ever read, and wrote a little “review” about each. I kept it in a yellow flowered metal recipe box. Abbey, my daughter, so loved the idea, that she thought she would try her own version of it. She did both a (plastic) recipe box style as well as the technological style that she excels at. Abbey’s reviews SO exceeded mine by a long shot! I love it 🙂

4 Comments

Posted in Homeschooling, Learning, Reading

. . . and Fresh Water

Posted on June 21, 2006 | 3 comments

This is a continuation of my post referencing Susan’s post of Imperfect Genius called “Perspectives on Autism”. In my last post, I shared my story about my short-lived and very specific reasons for testing out the waters of institutionalized school for my child with autism. In this post, I want to share where we are as homeschoolers of my children with autism and quote some passages from Susan’s great post. Susan said:

“Perhaps more importantly, it gives an alternative viewpoint on living with autism. . . .

My advocacy on here might be subtle, but it’s definitely present. I feel that every time I post a photo of my happy, smiling kids I’m sending a message. I’m pointing out that living with autism doesn’t have to be a fearful, miserable existence but can instead be a happy, interesting one. When I write about how their knowledge and skills are growing by leaps and bounds I’m showing that autistic children are capable of many things. When I talk about the adventures we embark upon and the discoveries we make I’m showing that children diagnosed with this disorder can lead rich lives full of wonder and natural learning opportunities. . . .

It comes with both frustrating challenges and wonderful abilities. . . .

Our blog will never be exclusively about autism because there is so much more to contemplate and discuss about their lives. . . .

I do not want to label them as autistic in every post I write. . . .

I didn’t feel compelled to write any of this post until I was challenged by someone who made me feel as if my experiences were not valid simply because our family presents a different face on the issue.”

Even at the beginning stages of our journey into autism, because of our unschooling lifestyle and our religious perspective, “our family presented a different face on the issue”, and people noticed. About a half year after the first diagnosis of autism, I met a woman named Sherri who became a really good friend to me. Our sons were diagnosed with autism right around the same time, our typical daughters were around the same age, and we were both “educators”: she at a model school and me as an unschooler.

Sherri was almost traumatized by autism. She fretted and worried over it, but tried valiantly to think optimistically. She is the one whom I gained the saying, “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.” She felt that she had been “keeping her worry” from her daughter, but alas, she was to find out differently. One of Sherri’s peers at school shared with her that her daughter had confided in her that she had a brother with autism and that she was worried about him and that her mother was worried, too.

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Sherri called me up to share this new information about her inability to keep her worries from her daughter and now she was worried about her daughter. She mentioned that she noticed that we seemed so different in how we were viewing autism, and that our daughter seemed so calm and at peace with it all. She asked if we could get our daughters together in order that my daughter, Abbey, might be a positive and calming force for her daughter. I readily agreed.

Sherri dropped off her daughter at my house, and she and Abbey played for about three hours. Autism never came up for either of them. When Sherri picked up her daughter, she casually mentioned to her, “Did you know that Abbey has brothers with autism?” Her daughter quickly turned around with large, round eyes and asked, “Really?” Abbey looked at her, and non-challantly stated, “Of course!” with a flick of her wrist like, “doesn’t everyone?” The girls became good friends.

I’d like to hope that our lives have continued to reflect this “naturally” perspective as it pertains to our differentness in our home. Susan mentioned that there are both “frustrating challenges and wonderful abilities”. We like to view the wonderful abilities first and foremost, like all of us would like to be portrayed, and we work on our frustrating challenges as a work in progress, again, like we all are. This is our religious beliefs in action, and unschooling was embraced because it so easily fit this perspective. So, all of our children have had lots of discussions about improvement and baby steps and each individual has to figure out their own imperfections that need to be worked on in order to grow and stretch and learn.

On the other hand, we’ve all been blessed with gifts that we are to celebrate, improve upon in order to bless ourselves and the world, and to be a shining crown. Eli’s music abilities, and Lego skills, and computer proficiencies are admirable. His sweetness and straight compass should be emulated! I’ll give you a quick example: I was bringing Eli to get his new glasses (he lost his last pair), and I went to check the CD in the player in the van, knowing my oldest son, who had used the van earlier, had probably put one of his in and taken mine out. Sure enough, he had, and I was quite sure he had tossed it into the center bucket. Yep, there it was, ready to get scratched and ruined. I noticed all his CDs scattered all over the floorboard of the van, so I commented, “Well, since he doesn’t seem to care about his CDs, I’ll just toss his on the ground.” Eli simply looked at me and innocently stated, “Treat others as you would want to be treated, Mom.” Yep, he’s absolutely right! We put ALL my son’s CDs away 🙂

I could list other traits of my other children, but will stop with the delineations now 🙂 You get the point. I think Susan is spot on in that homeschooling our children with autism can show a different face. Not necessarily a better one, but a different one . . . an interesting one, a calming one, a celebratory one, a viable one.

I end with an explanation of the titles to my two posts. When I pulled Adam out of the public school in PA, I sent a letter explaining why and I ended with this analogy: We both are in the water (education), and you and other institutionalized schooling are swimming in the saltwater (large bodies of water, undrinkable was an added bonus ;-)), and myself and people I know are swimming in freshwater (clear, drinkable, running here and there). If we try to swim in each other’s water, we choke.

That’s what I realized when I was done with this particular adventure. We were still trying to be homeschoolers, using public/charter schools to meet some of our goals. It doesn’t work is what I discovered. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I couldn’t change my nationality! For us, homeschooling works . . . it works really well!

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Posted in Autism, Homeschooling

Salt Water . . .

Posted on June 20, 2006 | 2 comments

Susan, over at Imperfect Genius, wrote a post called “Perspectives on Autism” that shared so many of my perspectives and beliefs that it awoke in me a lot of experiences I went through in forming them that I thought would be worth sharing.

She tried to get on an autism webring and was denied for not advocating enough. Susan tried to figure out the advocacy he was desiring for the webring and considered that he might be like some people’s typical reactions she had previously witnessed who feel strong and active parents should not “abandon the system and children”, but stay in to help. Susan doesn’t feel that way for various reasons, and neither do I. Here is some of what Susan wrote:

“I don’t know, I think he’s taking a narrow view of what advocacy looks like. . . .

These folks feel that I should be screaming for more and better services from the school. That I should have to deal with red tape and IEPs and ridiculous meetings where school employees talk down to you and insist that they know your child better than you do. That I should subject my child to an environment which doesn’t fit so as to create opportunities for change. . . .

Furthermore it’s our experience that schools do not want active, vocal parents to have any serious, effective involvement. It’s okay to be active in your child’s school life as long as you know your place – decorating for the Spring dance, holding bake sales to raise money for the library, donating time or space to after-school clubs, and chaperoning field trips. In all other areas they want to do things their way and do not want any interference. They’re not in the business of taking helpful suggestions.”

In the beginning of my autism journey, I totally immersed myself in understanding it, helping my child(ren) learn despite it, adjusting our environment and rhythms because of it, and overall just putting it as number one priority in our lives. Simply speaking, we were in crisis mode.

Well, after two years of this, we prepared for a move to another state. It was the first time I cried to leave an area. Once I settled into our log cabin home deep in the mountains of central PA, I finally was forced to stop long enough to face the grieving process. I did a lot of thinking, and sitting, and swinging my children. Frankly, it was the perfect setting for this period in my life with autism.

To make a very long story short, we found ourselves moving inward more toward “civilization” and my hubby’s work place (which had been an hour’s drive over a mountain) less than six short months later. It’s interesting how these physical moves depict such distinct stages in my journey.

Where before, I had thrown myself into the “doing” part of autism to deal with everything that had happened, now I had made my way to true acceptance, and was ready to embrace what came with that. Interestingly, I threw myself even deeper into the intervention aspect of autism than ever before, but there was a peace and calm to it this time, versus a “blinder’s approach” and freneticness. But, during this same period, I was also asking myself the questions, “Can I keep this lifestyle going without sacrificing other things that are important?” “When is it time to pace ourselves for the marathon versus the sprint?” “Is there a better option for our children with autism to assist us in balancing our lives and rhythms?”

Well, right after the move, I began to have promptings to put Adam in the local public school. Our school district was considered the best around, Pennsylvania had some of the best public schools in the nation, and our local elementary school was considered THE place to send your special needs child, because, for one thing, they automatically gave you a one-to-one aide. Well, after two withdrawals from the IEP process, and ten months later, I was finally willing to put Adam in school. Talk about advocating . . . LOL! At an IEP meeting once the third attempt was being made, the speech therapist, who was someone I liked, good-naturedly declared as she plopped Adam’s three-inch thick file on the table, “Mrs. Gaddis, this is Adam’s file. It is thicker than any child’s I have, and he hasn’t even stepped foot in the school yet. Let’s get it done!”

Let me tell you, I had really worked the system in my favor because of a very open-minded principal. I was sending my own aide to school with Adam, who had worked with him the previous five months at home, I would transition and train her myself in the classroom, and I had an open door policy. Couldn’t be better, right? Well, at first it was. I took at least a week to stay in the classroom training the aide, and then faded myself out. I was in constant contact with her as she came to my home after school to work with my other son with autism. She took notes as I instructed her to and worked on Adam being independent in the classroom the way I instructed her. The other aides for other children with autism sure saw the difference!

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Anyway, again, to make a long story short, within one month, a glitch occurred, and we patched it, another month and another glitch to patch, and the third month, a huge glitch happened, and we were walking out of the school. Tender egos and an inability to work with a parent as a true professional team member were the undoing. As the principal said to me at one IEP meeting in exasperation, “In 30 years, I have never seen a parent like you.” As Susan said, schools really don’t want a true partner in the education process, just a good follower.

Shortly after pulling him from the school after three months, we moved our family to North Carolina. Lo and behold, I heard that a charter school was being created by a mother of a child with autism in order to include our children in each and every classroom. Thus, the size of each class would be capped at 12, there would be a lead teacher and an assistant particularly trained to help our child with autism, and a behaviorist hired at the school to put together all the inclusion programming utilizing the intervention that had worked best for my two children most affected with autism. Couldn’t get better than that, right?!

Well, for the first year at this new charter school, there would be only four children selected to start the kindergarten grades and each year would build on the previous by adding four more. There would be a lottery to determine which children would get those slots. I decided to place Adam in the lottery, although he was technically supposed to be in first grade. He was selected! To make another long story short, he was pulled from this charter school within three weeks. (As a side note, unfortunately, three of the four children were pulled from the school within the first three months, and each of those teachers were fired, unethically and unfairly in my opinion!)

So, why was I prompted from my Heavenly Father to pursue this path when it was so unsuccessful? Well, I have several ideas why.

1) I am in a much better place to empathize with other families with children with autism who have been through the school system before deciding to homeschool. I have a yahoo group supporting families homeschooling their children with autism called aut-home-fam, so it is helpful in giving that support.

2) As I was trying to move into marathon mode versus sprint mode, I was struggling with the idea of doing “less” purposefully. I was afraid my perfectionism wasn’t going to allow it, and yet, if we didn’t pace ourselves, I felt we were becoming emotionally unhealthy. What these experiences showed me was this: “My less is more than their best.” (Being that I had experience with an “excellent public school” with the best possible supports in place, as well as a charter school specifically set up for my child and his preferred intervention, little to nothing was gained for Adam while attending.)

3) I confidently realized that homeschooling was the way to go for my children with autism, even at a “paced” level.

and 4) All of the stress and energy I had expended on making the above situations work, if only by a thread, was far better placed in making true and good progress forward for my children in an emotionally healthy environment that truly had his best interests at heart and was the truest “least restrictive environment.”

Stay tuned for the next half of this post . . . the homeschooling part!

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Posted in Autism, Homeschooling

My Brother’s Keeper

Posted on June 16, 2006 | 10 comments

As I was talking about our large family dynamic in an e-mail today, and all the high maintenance personalities, and about how I can often rely on various children at different times to help out with each other, it reminded me of a time in my life when I was struggling with feeling guilty about how difficult it might be to grow up in this family. As things like autism came to the forefront, again and again, and more children came into the home, again and again, I started hearing people “warn me” about protecting my more typical children from the hardships of our family’s logistics. “Make sure they have a childhood.” “Don’t make them do too much.” “Don’t forget about them amidst all of your challenges.”

Well, about three or four years after the diagnosis of autism first hit, I remember particularly feeling the guilt and strain and worry over these sentiments. “Was I expecting too much of my more able children?” “Should I protect them from the life they have been given?” “Should I keep them separated from the sometimes harsh realities of our lives?” I was tormented as to my stance about it all. I mean, on the one hand, one of the beauties of choosing to homeschool was to live and love and learn together as a family, yet represented as individuals that we lean on or support, love or hate, be angry at or forgive, etc. I felt the underlying ideal in our home was that we would always strive to work it out together, not against one another, or reject each other. We embraced the opportunities that existed together!

And yet, I had heard stories from people who lived lives that went beyond childhood into adulthood way too early. There was resentment and life choices that resulted from that upbringing. Is that what I was creating? And yet, as I pondered those stories, it was often the product of an ill mother, whether mental illness or physical illness, and the stories often were about the child serving in the role of parent. That’s not what was happening in our home . . .

And then the answer came in an issue of the Reader’s Digest. I wish I could find it to share with you all, but I can’t find what I did with mine (because I distinctly remember tearing it out), and I can’t find it on google. Well, anyway, it was about a family living in Arizona who had at least a son with autism, a typical son and a typical daughter in the picture. If I recall correctly, the three children were home waiting for the parents to return home from work. The boy with autism escaped out the backdoor and directly proceeded to climb one of those huge electrical towers that was not too far from their home. The older, typical brother went running after him, as did the sister. The older brother yelled to his sister to call their parents as he followed him up the tower. As is often the case with autism, the boy had no fear as he climbed higher and higher. The brother, on the other hand, had an intense fear of heights, but he simply kept his eyes focused on his brother, determined to catch up to him.

Well, he finally did, near the very top. By this time, emergency vehicles had been dispatched, and the story leaked to the news, and before long, helicopters were circling above. The older brother gripped the hands of his brother with autism to the tower and tried to keep his attention focused on him as he sang favorite church songs. (The song they referenced made me quite sure they were actually members of our church!) The boy with autism wanted to stim by flapping his arms as he watched the helicopters go by, so it took a lot of effort on his brother’s part. It took many hours in order for the rescue workers to bring them to safety as the tower was too tall for the ladder on the local firetrucks to be effective, so a large power truck was called in. Rescue workers still had to climb a certain distance to reach them and thankfully, both were brought down safely.

Well, naturally, the older brother was lauded as a hero, and he wasn’t really sure how to take it. When asked if he was afraid, he replied that normally he would be, but he tried to keep his focus on his brother instead of thinking about the situation. Another question was asked similar to, “Why would you go after your brother when it was so dangerous?” He matter-of-factly replied, “He’s my brother. I love him. It never crossed my mind not to go after him.” And then the clincher occurred when the article ended with these poignant words, “Are you your brother’s keeper? Of course!”
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Well, I all out bawled. YES! This was it! This was who our family was. Why apologize for any of it? Our world today is so caught up in what’s best for me, look out for number one, step on anyone in your way. Family’s are so often caught up in mainstream thinking where everyone is plugged into their own life, duties, and schedule. One reason we chose to homeschool was to embrace “old fashioned values” of family togetherness, developing character, being bored, playing together, working together, looking out for each other, etc. Autism didn’t change that. Difficulties don’t change that. Struggle doesn’t change that. In fact, it should strengthen it!

I would no longer apologize for who our family is . . . and that had to emanate from the inside out. Once I embraced that ideal, that we DO believe in looking out for each other, no apologies necessary, it was easy to move forward with head held high and heart solidly believing in the right thing for us.

We embrace who we are; we honor each other; we are our brother’s keeper 🙂

About 1997; three oldest_________________About 2003; 4 of the 5 youngest

10 Comments

Posted in Autism, Family, My Opinions

“Special Needs”

Posted on June 15, 2006 | 9 comments

In the book, “The Seeing Glass: A Memoir”, by Jacquelin Gorman, she writes in chapter eleven about her brother, who was living with autism:

I hate anything having to do with the word special ever since they started using it to describe my brother. Robin has special needs. He has to go to a special school with special teachers. Now it’s called special education, but there is nothing special about any of it. It’s the perfectly healthy child who is special, who gets to live the privileged childhood that is denied their “unlucky” sibling.

I remember this really striking me when I read it. There were a lot of things this book made me really think about. It was a book that took me places I had not anticipated going when I first read it. She has such a good point . . . why did they pick the word “special” to represent those who have challenges that most of us don’t have to contend with? Maybe it was society’s way of trying to even things up for these people . . . give them a little leverage.

Sue Klassen, editor of the RAHA (Rochester Area Homeschoolers Association) News newsletter, wrote in their June/July 2006 issue about this topic:

My son contends that all children have special needs, and I heartily agree. One child needs hours of intense physical activity each day while another needs an endless supply of books at bedside. Some learn best through auditory channels while others learn best through seeing things. Others can learn anything if it’s set to music and still others thrive on a logical-mathematical approach. However, I resent when the term “Special Needs” holds overtones of “Defective Child.”

This is exactly what special needs has come to connotate . . . being defective. And yet, as she so aptly delineated, we all have our very own specialness . . . uniqueness . . . individuality. At the beginning of the diagnosis of my children with autism, it was such a foreign word to my lips. Admittedly, however, I soon found myself using it as a crutch, wanting to convince people that the differentness they were seeing in my child was not due to poor parenting, but to something biological. And yet, these very insecurities were deepening these negative perceptions of different people.Men who are stressed out, get less than 6 hours in duration. on line cialis browse around this web-site

After living and learning more about someone with extraordinary perspective differences and having needs that cognizantly address things we all take for granted, like being sensorially balanced, it has helped me become more comfortable around a higher level of differentness. What have I chosen to do within my own home at this time as it pertains to how I view my “special needs” children? I’ve come to the place where they are simply themselves now, as they have always been, without a label attached to help others feel more comfortable. If my children need additional information shared with others in order to help themselves be more comfortable, then so be it. Otherwise, it is simply, “This is my son, Adam.”

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Posted in Autism, My Opinions