what do you want for your child? part two
So today, instead of dealing with special education teachers, I worked with general education teachers vying to move their kids out of their classrooms and into special education classrooms. This is otherwise known as Student Success Team in some schools and Student Study Team in others. I've also seen an acronym of ARC in states other than mine and it appears to be the same process but I have no idea what that stands for.
New teacher Gladys. First year fully credentialed and officially hired at my school. Not a young new teacher. A teacher who has raised her own three successful children and then went back to get her credential. Has already somehow managed to alienate the rest of the teachers at her grade level. Spends a lot of time telling people about her experience as a leader for the Cub Scouts and how that relates to teaching. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying.
Four kids referred today. I knew they were coming. After first quarter conferences in November she gleefully sang out in my general direction that four of her students' parents are requesting special education. Imagine! Four of them! What are the odds that four separate sets of parents would request that in one sitting? I dunno, I'm thinking that probably the odds increase when the teacher suggests it? I'm not accusing, I'm merely alleging.
At any rate, when she told me that in November, I smiled back and said, "You know, I find that most of the time when parents ask something like that, what they're really asking for is help in general and they aren't really sure how to do that, or what the options are." She agreed, still smiling. Genuinely. Because I don't think she has a clue what she'd just told those parents.
That basically, she thinks that each of those children has a life long disabling condition that could never allow that child to function without the assistance of special services. At least in my opinion that's what she said. And I don't think that's something to say or determine lightly. There really are people out there with significant and severe learning disabilities and their experiences should not be watered down so glibly and without forethought. So anyway, she referred all four of them to the SST. And then she went on to tell our resource specialist that she had four kids who were "slam dunks" for testing.
Slam dunks.
I don't even really know what that means.
Slam dunk stupid? Slam dunk failing? Slam dunk disabled?
We didn't refer any of them for evaluation. Not that they aren't struggling. She's right about that.
Student A has significant family issues. I'm not privy to all of them apparently, but looks went around the room that I am smart enough to know meant "not good." And since I've already evaluated one of Student A's siblings and seen another sibling in last month's SST, I'm guessing those issues are big ones and that the family needs a something something other than special ed. And, he's in an intervention program already and improving! So that's great news. We'll be looking at him again later in the year to ensure he's still progressing.
Student B. Well, this is his fifth school and he's in fourth grade and his mom looked like she could kick my ass if she wanted to and she said a little something about kicking last year's anorexic (seriously, she said just this) teacher's ass if she ran into her on campus. Again, not sure this is so much a learning disability as it seems to be a restraining order kind of thing.
Student C. Parents didn't even come. I think one is in jail and the other didn't come and has made it clear she has no interest. Poor kid is already showing involvement in gangs and it's not looking good. I feel really badly for him.
Student D. Parents came. He has not turned in any homework since, oh, I think around October. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you don't attempt to do the work, it's a little bit hard to learn the material. And it didn't matter what we said, mom made it clear she's not going to be helping little D. And at the end, the parent wanted to know if she still has to take the child to the doctor like the teacher told her to. What the hell? Turns out she told the parents that doctors diagnose processing deficits (commonly referred to as learning disabilities) and that she should take the child there for...I'm not sure what for. A prescription maybe? LD Be Gone?
What I decided about new teacher Gladys is that she is very very good at identifying families in crisis. Not so much at the identifying which kids are suffering intolerably and unmistakably from learning disabilities, but she's definitely got the crisis thing going on. I'm glad she brought them. They need to be on my radar and our principal's radar. Their parents need to know they and their kids are on our radar. I know I'm on the principal's radar at the school my kid attends (but I'm pretty sure it's in an entirely different way). And I want these kids to do well. And succeed. And flourish. But I'm not going to make up some disabling condition and make things worse for them.
And you know, this always gets me hot in these meetings. It never fails that one of the moms comes in (not to blame it all on the moms, they just seem to be the ones to show up for things and I've also never really heard a dad say this next thing in my decade-plus of working in schools), and during the meeting while we're discussing her child, says, bold-faced right to me, "You know, I work!" Uh yeah. So do I. That's why I'm here right now. Talking to you. Not at home with my young child. Because I work.
I only get hot in my head about that. But I do usually give a polite retort along the lines of Yes, it's so difficult, isn't it? I think it is too. Today I think I got a little hot. It was the absolute refusal to help her kid out I think. Every suggestion we came up with, she shot down. She works from 7:00 a.m. and doesn't get home until almost 5:00. Yup, same here. My kids still do their homework. And we even start it on the weekends to get a little jump on the coming week. So I said, I work too! I have kids too. I'm here at seven in the morning and my children still do their homework! If you want your child's life to be better, easier--and we most of us want these things for our children--then you must help your child learn to read and do math!
oy. I'm glad today is over. I'm sure poor New Teacher Gladys is too.
New teacher Gladys. First year fully credentialed and officially hired at my school. Not a young new teacher. A teacher who has raised her own three successful children and then went back to get her credential. Has already somehow managed to alienate the rest of the teachers at her grade level. Spends a lot of time telling people about her experience as a leader for the Cub Scouts and how that relates to teaching. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying.
Four kids referred today. I knew they were coming. After first quarter conferences in November she gleefully sang out in my general direction that four of her students' parents are requesting special education. Imagine! Four of them! What are the odds that four separate sets of parents would request that in one sitting? I dunno, I'm thinking that probably the odds increase when the teacher suggests it? I'm not accusing, I'm merely alleging.
At any rate, when she told me that in November, I smiled back and said, "You know, I find that most of the time when parents ask something like that, what they're really asking for is help in general and they aren't really sure how to do that, or what the options are." She agreed, still smiling. Genuinely. Because I don't think she has a clue what she'd just told those parents.
That basically, she thinks that each of those children has a life long disabling condition that could never allow that child to function without the assistance of special services. At least in my opinion that's what she said. And I don't think that's something to say or determine lightly. There really are people out there with significant and severe learning disabilities and their experiences should not be watered down so glibly and without forethought. So anyway, she referred all four of them to the SST. And then she went on to tell our resource specialist that she had four kids who were "slam dunks" for testing.
Slam dunks.
I don't even really know what that means.
Slam dunk stupid? Slam dunk failing? Slam dunk disabled?
We didn't refer any of them for evaluation. Not that they aren't struggling. She's right about that.
Student A has significant family issues. I'm not privy to all of them apparently, but looks went around the room that I am smart enough to know meant "not good." And since I've already evaluated one of Student A's siblings and seen another sibling in last month's SST, I'm guessing those issues are big ones and that the family needs a something something other than special ed. And, he's in an intervention program already and improving! So that's great news. We'll be looking at him again later in the year to ensure he's still progressing.
Student B. Well, this is his fifth school and he's in fourth grade and his mom looked like she could kick my ass if she wanted to and she said a little something about kicking last year's anorexic (seriously, she said just this) teacher's ass if she ran into her on campus. Again, not sure this is so much a learning disability as it seems to be a restraining order kind of thing.
Student C. Parents didn't even come. I think one is in jail and the other didn't come and has made it clear she has no interest. Poor kid is already showing involvement in gangs and it's not looking good. I feel really badly for him.
Student D. Parents came. He has not turned in any homework since, oh, I think around October. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you don't attempt to do the work, it's a little bit hard to learn the material. And it didn't matter what we said, mom made it clear she's not going to be helping little D. And at the end, the parent wanted to know if she still has to take the child to the doctor like the teacher told her to. What the hell? Turns out she told the parents that doctors diagnose processing deficits (commonly referred to as learning disabilities) and that she should take the child there for...I'm not sure what for. A prescription maybe? LD Be Gone?
What I decided about new teacher Gladys is that she is very very good at identifying families in crisis. Not so much at the identifying which kids are suffering intolerably and unmistakably from learning disabilities, but she's definitely got the crisis thing going on. I'm glad she brought them. They need to be on my radar and our principal's radar. Their parents need to know they and their kids are on our radar. I know I'm on the principal's radar at the school my kid attends (but I'm pretty sure it's in an entirely different way). And I want these kids to do well. And succeed. And flourish. But I'm not going to make up some disabling condition and make things worse for them.
And you know, this always gets me hot in these meetings. It never fails that one of the moms comes in (not to blame it all on the moms, they just seem to be the ones to show up for things and I've also never really heard a dad say this next thing in my decade-plus of working in schools), and during the meeting while we're discussing her child, says, bold-faced right to me, "You know, I work!" Uh yeah. So do I. That's why I'm here right now. Talking to you. Not at home with my young child. Because I work.
I only get hot in my head about that. But I do usually give a polite retort along the lines of Yes, it's so difficult, isn't it? I think it is too. Today I think I got a little hot. It was the absolute refusal to help her kid out I think. Every suggestion we came up with, she shot down. She works from 7:00 a.m. and doesn't get home until almost 5:00. Yup, same here. My kids still do their homework. And we even start it on the weekends to get a little jump on the coming week. So I said, I work too! I have kids too. I'm here at seven in the morning and my children still do their homework! If you want your child's life to be better, easier--and we most of us want these things for our children--then you must help your child learn to read and do math!
oy. I'm glad today is over. I'm sure poor New Teacher Gladys is too.
posted by LB @ 9:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home