She's a middle school teacher. Before that she worked for our state's TTAC, the Department of Education Training and Technical Assistance Center. TTAC's website says their staff will:
•Promote collaboration and teamwork with school teams families and community agencies, to build stronger educational communities.
•Promote access to educational opportunities for all children and youth with disabilities.
•Provide technical assistance that promotes evidence-based practices.
•Remain current in our knowledge of effective practices in the areas of education and technology.
•Deliver quality evidence-based training opportunities to meet the diverse needs of the adult learner.
•Foster a work environment that promotes healthy, human relationships.
The students in her classroom all have the label of severe disabilities. Some are deafblind, some with autism, some otherwise diagnosed.
Last week she directed one of the classroom aides to take the 'highs' to another classroom. It was clear that she meant the higher functioning students.
So now, besides having all the other labels assigned to them by the school district, these students have one of two other labels - High and Low.
You know what, Madame "Teacher", and I use that term loosely, I have a few labels for you....
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Listen To The Real Experts
Catherine's cousin said, "People who are the experts on disability are not the doctors. It's the people with disabilities." Well said, Catherine... My state legislators need to view this video...
Thursday, April 26, 2012
My Cat in the Closet
**originally posted January, 2009**
I wrote last week about embracing HOPE as my theme for 2009. One of the commentors on that post and one of my favorite bloggers, Michelle Morgan-Coole, at the blog, Free Falling, shared some very honest thoughts about what hope means to her.
She said ,” Sound strange, I know, but I have come to the conclusion that hope is bad for the soul. Just my own personal experience, born from living with the seizure monsters for the past 14 years, when everytime you dare begin to hope they might actually be gone (surely close to two years without or even six months must mean something?) they return with a vengance.”
For me, the opposite is true – hope is the only thing that keeps my soul alive. It would be so easy for me to resign myself to Ashley’s special medical needs. But had I done that when I first adopted her at age 2, her doctor’s predictions probably would have come true.
She wouldn’t be walking and running. She wouldn’t be communicating. She wouldn’t be eating. She would probably not be alive.
Hope was the force that propelled me through endless hours of therapy, doctor visits and hospital stays. Hope became my belief that Ashley was very capable of becoming more than anyone else ever believed she could become. Hope is what keeps me fighting school districts and insurance companies. Hope is the battle won for ESY (Extended School Year) services. Hope is the battle won for an accessible bathroom built at insurance expense.
Hope is what allows me to dream of her future, a future filled with love, marriage, a job, and maybe even children. Hope is the comfort in my heart that says she will be ok even after I am gone.
Continuing to nurture that hope is not easy. Like Michelle said, when the seizures keep coming, even after an extended seizure-free time – when the medical conditions don’t worsen but also don’t get better – when almost everyone we meet treats Ashley as less a being than she is – finding and holding on to hope is a struggle.
But like my cat who continues to run into the same closet day after day even though she keeps getting locked in accidentally, I have to keep believing and searching.
Hope is my cat in the closet…
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Special Exposure Wednesday
Wheelchair basketball has ended for this season, but that doesn't mean Ronnie is just going to lie around and do nothing! He has moved on to a sport that requires a helmet and lots of padding, a sport in which it is ok to hit other people with sticks! Lacrosse!!! Just what a mother needs....
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
A Single File Existence
**originally posted in 2009**
I guess I never paid attention to this before.
Back in 2006, I wrote about some adult group home residents that I saw at one of our local malls. I wrote about their walk through the mall – “I saw the two women in charge leading the slow-moving group, and the four clients trudging slowly behind, not seeming the least bit interested in their surroundings. They were in almost a single file line, and at the end of the line was Jack, working desperately to pull his underwear from his behind where it had apparently gotten ‘stuck’.”
Then yesterday, while shopping at Walmart, I saw an older gentleman with Down Syndrome, probably in his 40’s, shopping with someone who appeared to be his mother. I’ve seen the two of them before out and about in some of the same neighborhood places I frequent. This gentleman followed his mother in single file through the store, and has done the same thing every time I see him.
Also yesterday, I drove past an apartment complex near my home, apartments where our local community service board assists adults with intellectual disabilities live as independently as possible. I often see some of the residents making their way to the Walgreens or the McDonalds on the corner. Every time I see them, no matter how large their group, they are walking in single file.
Why single file? Why not walking side by side, chatting, laughing or even arguing? Instead, their faces are frozen with no expressions – they never talk to each other – they just walk, one behind the other, to their destination and then back home again.
How did they learn this behavior? Is this what we have taught them is the only acceptable way to be a part of their community?
All this saddened me, and I plan to make sure my children know they don’t have to walk in single file. They can run and skip, they can link arms or hold hands, they can talk and laugh and yell sometimes. I don’t want my children, or for that matter, any other person with a disability, to have a single file life.
I guess I never paid attention to this before.
Back in 2006, I wrote about some adult group home residents that I saw at one of our local malls. I wrote about their walk through the mall – “I saw the two women in charge leading the slow-moving group, and the four clients trudging slowly behind, not seeming the least bit interested in their surroundings. They were in almost a single file line, and at the end of the line was Jack, working desperately to pull his underwear from his behind where it had apparently gotten ‘stuck’.”
Then yesterday, while shopping at Walmart, I saw an older gentleman with Down Syndrome, probably in his 40’s, shopping with someone who appeared to be his mother. I’ve seen the two of them before out and about in some of the same neighborhood places I frequent. This gentleman followed his mother in single file through the store, and has done the same thing every time I see him.
Also yesterday, I drove past an apartment complex near my home, apartments where our local community service board assists adults with intellectual disabilities live as independently as possible. I often see some of the residents making their way to the Walgreens or the McDonalds on the corner. Every time I see them, no matter how large their group, they are walking in single file.
Why single file? Why not walking side by side, chatting, laughing or even arguing? Instead, their faces are frozen with no expressions – they never talk to each other – they just walk, one behind the other, to their destination and then back home again.
How did they learn this behavior? Is this what we have taught them is the only acceptable way to be a part of their community?
All this saddened me, and I plan to make sure my children know they don’t have to walk in single file. They can run and skip, they can link arms or hold hands, they can talk and laugh and yell sometimes. I don’t want my children, or for that matter, any other person with a disability, to have a single file life.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Tuberous
One of the tools Ashley uses during her speech therapy sessions is a Mr. Potato Head toy. With all his different, colorful body parts, the opportunities for both receptive and expressive language are many. However, Ashley had her own agenda in last week’s therapy session with Mr. Potato Head.
Instead of putting Mr. P. together in the traditional fashion – you know, eyes where eyes are supposed to go, arms coming out of the side of his ‘body’, feet on the bottom, mouth on the lower front, etc., all Ashley wanted to do was stick different sets of eyes in every hole on the brown spud. She wanted no parts of arms, legs, hats, mouths, ears or mustaches. It was eyes everywhere.
Sometimes trying to figure out how her creative mind works is difficult. By channeling Mr. Potato Head into a vegetable with many eyes, was she making a statement about her own vision impairments? (For new reader, Ashley is totally blind in her left eye, and her clinical vision measurement in her right eye is 20/2000. She can focus at about an inch in front of that eye.) Does she wish she could stick in some more eyes – eyes which would help her see better? Or was she just making a joke – you know about potatoes having “eyes”? Either scenario is quite possible with Ash.
All the talk about Mr. Potato Head did make me start to look around the Internet to see if I could purchase just eyes for him. While I didn’t find anyone who was selling just the eyes, I found lots and lots of different accessory kits for the dapper spud, and I learned a lot about Mr. P’s life.
Did you know Mr. Potato Head has his own website? Check it out and find out everything you ever wanted to know about his origins. Also, Mr. Potato Head was the first toy ever advertised on TV – I didn’t know that. Mr. Potato Head has also been a drug smuggler, a racist statue, a balloon in a parade and the subject of a comic strip, and is the star of many YouTube videos. Here is just one…. And finally, I found a really good joke about the tuber:
Why is Mr. Potato Head the perfect man?
He’s tan, he’s cute and if he looks at another woman, you can rearrange his face
And here I was thinking Mr. Potato Head was JUST a toy…
Sunday, April 22, 2012
A Short Break
I've decided I need a little break - time to refocus, time to relax, time to read and not write. Just a short break of a week or so. In the meantime, I will be recycling some of my old posts (can't believe I've been writing this blog for 6 years now!!!!) and perhaps sharing some new pictures. I sincerely hope you will stick around until I come back to my regular writing schedule!
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