"Plearn"

We are on the GO!  This morning has been a beautiful chance to begin to process all that I have learned. At the ISTE Conference, in Denver, this week I had the opportunity to be exposed to the most current technologies available in education.  I went to sessions, talked to educators from around the world, and soaked in so much.  One of my favorite presenters shared a new to me term: plearn- play, learn, plan.   That's a great summary of much of what I've learned in our first month of travels.  

Traveling with Liberty means I have to adapt- a lot.   Adapt how I think, do things, react, plan, and believe.   Adapt the surroundings, when possible.  Adapt the situation, when possible. Adapt expectations, which is generally the hardest. If I don't adapt I have a "stink face" that I end up wearing for awhile. 

 

We were able to go to a Colorado Rockies baseball game Tuesday evening.  We caught a city bus and then walked the rest of the way to the venue.  All is great- right?  I love to walk and we have Libby's KAM. We had Mariah and even Grandma Linda, Jasmin, and Xavier with us.  All is great!  

Well, it rained for over an hour. It hailed.  It poured.  

 

And then it poured some more...

 

The 6:40 start time was delayed until 9:20.  I didn't adapt.   I kind of panicked.   Everyone wanted to at least see some of the game.   I wanted to as well, but I also didn't know how we would get everyone back to the hotel-safely- if we stayed.  keep in mind I've got a Liberty in an adult stroller, downtown Denver, and it's night. 

I checked the bus schedule and it showed the busses stopped at 10:00. Eek!  Called three cab companies, none of which had wheel chair accessible vans or SUV's. Double Eek.  It was hard for me to think at all because there was no plan and it was only getting darker by the moment Communication with my people broke down.  Finally, I just gave up.   I felt beaten in some ways, but determined to keep my little group safe.  (Sorry for the stink face.)

Just when I think I have overcome my worries something new, like this evening, happens. 

In the end, I learned that I have to continually remind myself that I have to adapt.  I spend so much time planning to overcome the many obstacles to ensure that Libby gets what she needs, that I can't let myself forget to adapt.  

Plearn.   

We have left Denver and are going to enjoy a day, or two, of mini vacation in South Fork, Colorado.   We are trying out a cabin to see if we can keep Libby happy, safe, healthy, and comfortable.   If we can, then we will be planning some longer stays in the future.   

Liberty has the Baclofen Pump insertion surgery on July 6. More on that soon.

Perfectly abnormal normalcy

Two weeks ago Liberty started college. My baby, who was struck by a horrible illness years ago, was starting college. She was not going to be in the same campus and within very safe bounds. 

Now, now after the tons of hoops, tests, meetings, and paperwork- she is going. She is two weeks into her first semester of college. She is all over everywhere as she has twelve full hours plus some lab time.  She couldn't do this without Mariah and Libby's Aunt Jennifer.   So, very grateful. 

Jennifer and Libby chilling in the Art Museum. 

My baby is out there. She has pictures and stuff posted about her that I have no idea of.   She has a desire to skip her math class and nap.   She hates the extra long classes.  She wants a phone and a van to drive her in.  SHE wants to join Match.com. She wants to join clubs and stuff. She sees boys she likes and tells them.  She is surrounded by people who I don't know and who don't realize how important and precious she is to all of us!  

Here you see Mariah pushing Liberty away and toward both of their futures. Both sides of my heart going forward toward their dreams. It's a fuzzy picture, may have been crying. 

This morning it hit me while we worked on HER homework on a Saturday morning- this is normal. Liberty is in amazing hands, but she is my baby. My baby is off to college without my safe parameters. She isn't at Caprock where I can check in: physically, medically, and emotionally all day.  That's what happens when they become a legal adult and choose college.   My umbilical is double wound and stretched.

    We planned and prepared for everything: pill schedules, easily accessible potty places and times, hand braces, dealing with leg braces, feeding places and schedules, lab times, homework times, and even individual schedules for all of us around her.  I didn't plan for extra long classes and keeping Liberty's learning engagement that long. 

Libby is taking math, reading, and two art classes. There are study sessions in the computer lab as well.   She is learning to complain about things that really do hurt, her leg braces, and do it so loudly so that she can get out of class. This is also a normal. She's enjoying herself.

The top row is the model form, the bottom row is Liberty's. 

This one is cone and ball with shading.  Shading is hard because with her new art brace she has to change the angle of her hand, but she's doing it!

Three hours on homework this morning, guess I'll have to consider adding that to our routine.   So normal. And beautiful and blessed. 

*DARS services can begin, testing and vocational training, at the age of 18.  Waiting until your child with a disability is 18 May be too late. 

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/rsa/wioa-reauthorization.html  these workforce programs can begin at 14. Visually impaired students can begin receiving services at 14 years old. 

*Section 504 recipients and those with physical and intellectual disabilities can receive accommodations in post secondary educable environments. 

*Modifications, changing the course material is not allowed in most campuses. Accommodating the material and environment to be more conducive for that students learning is. 

*It's important to start asking about your options before your child graduates.  

Be blessed.

Good news and more pushing

We met with advisors at Libby's college of choice today to get Libby's schedule, accommodations, and classes figured out.   She has her school ID!  She has a schedule!  She has a degree plan!  We have a plan that involves lots of hard work and her following her dream of studying and furthering her love of art. We decided on an Associates Degree which means that she will be pushed in math classes, as it is easier to back off into a certificate program than to step up into an Associates Degree. My worries have not been as much about in class, but more about if she would be safe in between classes.   Wow. Today changed so much. 

This process began last May with some accommodation requests for a test and has continued.    Libby requires a great deal of creative thinking, latitude, and accommodations. 

Some of you who are reading don't know the difference, as many don't, between accommodations and modifications.   Think of going to a hotel and asking for a room on a lower floor because it makes it easier to get your dog out to walk in the mornings.  That is an accommodation as nothing about the room or the hotel rules and regulations have been altered.  Asking for a doggy door to be added or taken away from your hotel room is a modification. 

In education, we can accommodate students who learn differently by giving them access to the books, lectures, and/or notes as a recording.  We can accommodate by allowing a scribe, Braille, an ASL interpreter, and a seat away from distractions.  In English classes I may assign three essays over a span of many weeks.  Each essay may consist of the culmination of mini and major lessons on thesis statements, supporting details, and embedding quotations. An accommodation would be to assign and work through one essay with a student who struggles, while making sure that each part of the essay was there.   A modification would mean that the entire focus would change and the student would only write using one of the three components that the other students were required to write.   

Accommodations make learning more accessible and modifications usually mean that a change is made in the curriculum.  

Every person learns differently.   If you think back to your education there are probably classes and subjects you just didn't get. Maybe with a little ingenuity you would have been more successful? 

This is what it means to me to differentiate instruction.    This is the No Excuses part of my belief.  It is up to the educator to reach the student and students generally rise above expectation. 

Apparently, Liberty and her needs may be outside of adult education.  Colleges are held to the same standard as every school when it comes to allowable accommodation and modifications.  Every school is different and private schools, those without any federal funding, do not have to accommodate. The content of the course cannot be fundamentally altered.   Altered is modified curriculum multipled.

 

In a meeting, in front of Libby, it was strongly implied that she would not be able to understand or do the work.  "This is not high school and we do not make courses easier.  She would be expected to learn and do the work".   

As a teacher, I would never say things like this in front of a child.  All of this was said in front of Libby as if she were deaf.  Libby remembers and hears more than anyone wants to know.  Rachael removed Libby from the room until our meeting was over.    

Libby already knows what she can't do. She has heard it from doctors and from us.  She can't move out and get married. She can't go on real dates- right now. She is beautiful and vulnerable and brilliant. And as I said  while they were  out of the room, she has done everything she was supposed to.  She did her work. She kept her attendance up, despite doctor appointments, treatments and surgeries. She has listened and read every book assigned, on our dime, and discussed it as much as her vocalization allowed.   She can tell you what she's learned, draw it for you, type it (slowly), and turn it in.   She does her math by being given an question and choosing formulas or solutions.  She will work it out in her head and choose an answer. 

When she creates art it happens in a beautiful variety of ways.  Art means to create meaning using a variety of methods. Her methods may be different, but they are hers.  Her art represents her, and it seems, that she may be kept from her art because she does not fit in a definable box that is easily recognized by others. 

Her hands, arms, legs, and mouth may not work but her brain does.  She has scholarships that were awarded based on her accomplishments, not on who she is.     Does each kid deserve a chance? 

After this head against a brick wall meeting we headed over to drop off other paperwork and give her the campus tour she didn't get to take.   She didn't even want to pick out a t-shirt. She didn't want to discuss college this evening.  Not even before our prayers.   She refused a picture with her first college shirt.

It would be easier to get her SSDI and let her sit at home all day. She has dreams and possibilities.  I can't let this one hurdle of inviting a group of people to join our learning curve stop us.  

Nothing comes easy. We don't have the support of so many relatives that giving up on her means everything- just as those whose support means everything else.   

At the end of this journey we have to be able to say that we did what was right and did it with all our might.  

When we as educators give up hope is the moment our students completely stop trying. 

Rachael's note: perhaps I may be a bit too blunt, but I cannot sit by and allow anyone to speak as if Liberty were not present in the room. As an educator, I also believe that we should never, never point out what a person can't do. We already fight our own images of self worth without anyone else adding to it. Never, for one moment doubt that I don't know the battle that we fight every day, but don't look at my child and judge what you think you might know. Don't tell me that "we just don't know because we have never faced something like this before." You cannot be the head of disability services and not be willing to try and think outside of the box. I know first hand that education is based on the factory model of education where we are just trying to produce the mass model worker, but when we do that, we forget the individuals that sit in our classrooms--the individuals that we meet every day. And Ileana tells me to say that we continue to believe that people act with the best of intentions until they know how to better. We do and will always assume best of intent because that is how we live our lives. 

Our battle is against our own fears of her abilities/non-abilities and against society just as much as the enigmatic progressive degenerative disease that continues to attack her.

We have a college course schedule and an Id.     We have another leg of the marathon completed. 

Mothering in the line of fire

School is an emotional warzone.  The end of every school year is always a whirlwind of excitement, joy, and exhaustion.  This year has felt more like an endless boot camp.  As if I have been preparing my kids for an continual battle and my classroom is the frontline.  Every scantron is a weapon wielding levels of instruction and destruction. 

My classes full of juniors have tested their brains out and are still testing.  We have taken the PSAT, EOC 1 and 2 retest, semester test, benchmark every six weeks, SAT, EOC 1 and 2 retests again, TSI and now we are facing the second semester test.  These kids are my heroes.  They have given their all and more.  Some have shut down because they have not passed many of these tests.  Some have dropped out.  How do I/we keep putting these kids in front of the line of fire?  We try to prepare them, teach them, bolster their confidence, model hope and pray, yet it may not be enough. 

I am amazed by how tough these kids are and how willing so many of them have been to keep going into battle. I am grateful to have been placed in the class and grade level that I needed to be in.  I didn't know last summer that I would still be in the classroom, but I am glad that I have had this opportunity.  This group of kids had some lessons to teach me. I have learned tenacity and diligence.  I have also learned to keep looking out for what is coming and plan accordingly.   

 

Having Liberty in class has taught me a higher level of patience and a greater amount of planning than just about any student so far.  Although it has been trying, I know it will be an experience I'll always treasure.   

With lots of help and guidance, we have managed to have her take the SAT with accommodations and next will be the T.S.I..  She may not have to have these tests for her future, but I feel like it is important for both of us to have the experience.  Plus we get to see how Libby does under pressure get an idea of where she is cognitively.  I was so proud when several kids were called out of class for testing and Libby said, "do best".  It came out very clearly and it touched me to hear her cheering her peers on. 

The Class of 2015 has my heart and pray I that all their time in the war zone has not harmed them. 

  

We think that EOC scores will be in within the next few days. 

 

Then we plan our newest attack strategies and return to the frontlines.

 

Note: No administrators, counselors, teachers or others who have control are being  blamed here.  Simply sharing my observations as a mom and a teacher.