one
November 22, 2014 § 2 Comments
We began our son’s high school experience with a clumsy, unapologetically honest introduction. As a student on the autism spectrum he is a contradiction of expectations and assumptions; his needs are misread as predictably as his ability to perform consistently. I walk a delicate balance, informing teachers and support staff of the invisible needs that shadow my son’s experiences and permitting him greater autonomy to speak for himself.
Somewhere in the language of advocating for my child as a student with special needs, emotion becomes muddled with words weighted in clinical knowledge that sometimes consumes my vocabulary. Years of navigating a second language of need has created a sterile dialogue that suffocates the lightness of my love with terms that cannot contain the colors of my child’s personality.
Each year I hope for someone who speaks the same language of care, but celebrates the complicated prism of my child’s spectrum of light.
Yesterday the person I had been looking for stepped more clearly into our path, speaking the language of our need with a smile. More importantly, he volunteered to partner with the spectrum of teachers whose worries are as diverse as their personalities to help inform my son’s assumptions with practical exercises in deconstructing the social language of his days as they create a new path toward greater independence.
Within this singular exchange I was able to reshape my words from an armor of advocacy to a partnership of possibility; infusing the language of need with a joyful celebration of my child’s spirit. One person has changed the entire landscape of our experience, bridging fear with hope.
On this, the eve of our Thanksgiving holiday, I am counting my many blessings and celebrating the power of one.
waiting on change
November 16, 2014 § 5 Comments
The language of my son’s academic/emotional needs are largely universal; to be accepted as an individual and included as an essential member of a greater whole. Most of my messages of advocacy for special needs are inclusive, suggestions of compromise that enhance the collective experience of individual classrooms. However, in order to make requests I first spend a burdensome energy validating need; filtering assumptions in a way that informs a clearer image of one child against a larger, more diverse, experience.
It is a seasonal cycle, educating educators and building a team. Some will come to identify my child as a cluster of initials. A rare soul will come to see the child behind the mask of need; these are our gentle warriors, the courageous few who blaze a trail of acceptance that creates change for a new population of students with special needs in a mainstream environment.
This month I welcomed anticipated challenges and began informing the error of assumptions. I was tired and tender, the burden of my responsibility chasing old doubts with new fears. This pressure curves against my thoughts until each breath is a private prayer for wisdom and strength as I endeavor to model compassion and inform confidence with measures of humility for the lessons I too must invite.
Each challenge is an opportunity to impact our community and to aspire to evolve further as individuals. Within this new group of educators, there is a future advocate who will one day soon recognize evidence of need and an administrator who will facilitate support. They will do this to include one child, but in doing so they will enhance an entire community of students.
On the days I grieve the change I cannot yet see, I realize that it is my job to create cause for hope. When it is too easy to count burdens, I remember our blessings in the names of the fearless individuals who have walked beside us each school year and remember that we have just begun to assemble a new team of warriors in a never-ending campaign for change.
seeing ghosts
October 29, 2014 § 2 Comments
Yesterday a note from my son’s aide raised concerns over an observed detachment from academics. The lines of worry were repetitive, missing content and wasting time. I’m not surprised, it is a well-rehearsed slight of hand. My son is disappearing from his classrooms; escaping into distraction.
Instinctively, I began to identify pieces of my son’s diagnoses that would inform the familiar complications that accompany each school year. I could identify the absence of sensory opportunities or itemize the need for particular modifications that might ease specific challenges unique to my son’s needs; offer incentives or suggest consequences. Instead my attention was drawn to the landscape of his support and wondering where he might connect; less concerned with the machinery of his accommodations, but unsettled by the absence of connectivity to the interpersonal experience of his days.
I realized with haunting clarity my son isn’t looking for a reason to try, he is looking for someone who cares.
You can follow his path to invisibility in the relationships he could not cultivate across years of broken school day experiences. Teachers, secure in his ability and knowledge, would allow my son to sit at his desk left to his own interests. There were endless notebooks filled with ideas and curiosities; sketches of inventions and notes on topics to research in place of assignments. Classroom aides, without essential training, misunderstood challenges and innocently, without malice, failed to develop successful resources. A chorus of recycled compliments would glean over complicated pieces of struggle with generic statements of intelligence suffocating expressions of need with a weighted assumption of ability. Add to this repetitious activities without the richness of purpose undermining the value of effort and unkindnesses of peers overlooked by adults who were failed guardians of compassion and you inform a method of survival by way of invisibility.
Of course, I wear my blame in the tender places of guilt; consistently second guessing unspoken unhappiness with misplaced confidence. It is a community that erases a child’s spirit and I am my son’s first witness to fading. Hindsight is an unkind mirror, exaggerating previously overlooked details now obvious in their importance. I leaned too much against reassurances and danced around uncomfortable conflict, leaving my son stranded in a place of vulnerability painfully exposed. I could have done better. Instead, I modeled a quieter place of invisibility and acquiescence.
Motherhood has made me humble, more honest in my fallibility. On the best days it also makes me brave.
Worries and guilt are poor motivators, but hope is a contagion for possibility. Last night I conjured the little boy who used to shadow my days, creating a safe place to talk about his days without the markers of success that sometimes eclipse the emotions of our experiences; setting aside academics for an opportunity to bear witness to my son’s joy. Filling in the shape of his days.
With a luxury of time I took him to the place we used to walk before our footsteps were rushed by outside commitments. I let him choose our dinner and we lingered over the table in conversation rather than bundling our food more hurriedly into take out containers. We perused book shelves for an anticipated title and curled up in companionable silence to enjoy our new books. More importantly, I apologized for looking the other way while pushing him into expectations that weighted his enthusiasm for learning against others’ assumptions.
It was a small offering, an imperfect beginning, but it drew a smile that gave form to something we can both believe in.
the learning place
March 4, 2014 § 2 Comments
The space of learning is a constant source of my distraction. My thoughts on my children’s identity and accomplishment, confidence and curiosity are entangled in the environment of their education. My husband and I map the physical space of our children’s academics with the same attention we note the emotional and psychological space of their days as independent learners navigating unique needs in a traditional environment.
Most days I am as tempted to reject the boundaries of familiar classroom settings as I am to embrace its potential. Between rows of identical chairs there is a community of diversity that gifts difficult lessons in sharing space with children and adults whose expectations and values compliment and challenge our assumptions. Simultaneously there is a homogenization that too often undermines the individuality of the child who does not move so easily within the current of curriculum.
Over the past couple years I have watched my children slowly assimilate into a blind acceptance of the unspoken rules of classroom performance. With less curiosity for their world and a greater awareness of each error, I have begun to worry that the current they once resisted has worn away the sharp edges of their perseverance making them more passive students.
In my greatest moments of doubt I am reminded of one certainty: Uncertainties are the elixir to complacency. Resignation fosters stagnancy that decays the spirit of learning. With this in mind I am more consciously questioning my children’s days, looking for indications of acquiescence. I am mapping my worries with question marks, reminding my children (and myself) that learning begins within the intangible space of unanswered questions in search of information that challenges our comfort and sparks awareness for our environment; extending the classroom to every corner of our day and transforming our measurement of success to one of independent accountability in the pursuit of knowledge without fear of failure.
chance & choice
August 25, 2013 § 8 Comments
This week I was reminded of a valuable lesson: chance presents opportunities, choice empowers us to create change. One small act of faith accompanied by a series of intentional decisions have created an opportunity for our family to embrace uncertainty and for me to see myself more clearly.
I hesitated to share my last post, to speak of a new academic worry openly and to label an educator closed-minded. When I did, I wrote: I admire uncomfortable honesty. I write often of challenges to mark my children’s experiences and to center myself in greater self-awareness. In honoring our story I share difficult truths, this time I uncovered reflections of self of which I am not proud; my own uncomfortable truth.
My initial instinct in response to a brief, hurtful encounter with an educator was to shuffle my son’s schedule to avoid heartache and headaches. I wanted to shield him from unkindness or shortsightedness to create an atmosphere where discrimination wouldn’t clutter potential. Sometimes chance highlights choices to help us better see ourselves.
I was also hiding from the struggles I knew would shadow our school year. I labeled another but didn’t name my own shortsightedness. As the mother of a special needs child, when faced with the responsibility of advocating for my son and similarly challenged peers I chose an easier path. Chance humbled me with a difficult choice. I could leave my son in a classroom with a teacher that did not yet understand his needs or I could place him in the company of an unkind peer who had systematically bullied him for over a year.
Measuring experiences against uncertainty, flushing out potential from fears, weighing worries for the lesser of two harms I realized I could not so easily avoid the discomfort of an uncertain classroom. In both instances there is a threat of harm, an absence of control. The greater truth is we cannot so easily orchestrate our lives to avoid our fears.
If one choice hadn’t created new conflict I would have hidden from an opportunity, overlooking my son’s strengths and our abilities as a family to navigate a difficult experience. In focusing on protecting my child from harm, I almost overlooked his ability to inspire and inform. I expect this year will be riddled with challenges, more so for the uphill struggle, but the possibility that we can make a difference is encouraging. I am taking a chance and making a choice. I cannot shield my son from every unkindness, but I can have faith in his ability and my own to navigate difficult experiences with integrity.
introductions & expectations
August 23, 2013 § 8 Comments
For the past two years I have been fortunate enough to sit with my son among teachers and support staff in the quiet halls of his middle school just before the beginning of a new year. Prior to introductions my son is a name attached to a series of diagnoses and lengthy reports; in person he becomes the sum of his smile and I am the voice of his needs. I do this so that each member of my son’s team knows I am a committed partner in my son’s education and will advocate for classroom resources that enable greater success.
Beneath the informal introductions is a subtext: this average looking child has exceptional abilities and frustrating challenges, but he is capable academically. He will struggle to make eye contact during your lecture, but will retain your lesson almost word for word. He will fail to perform written exercises in traditional form, but verbalize coherent, complete answers as naturally as he breathes. He will act socially immature at times, because it is a foreign language he is largely fluent only in textbook application. No one is more aware of his differences than my son who lives in a body with a mind that is often overlooked because his needs are largely invisible, until they become inconvenient. His abilities often humbling us when we uncover his strengths.
This year, for the first time, an educator gave me pause. I could feel their displeasure as clearly as if it were a physical being absorbing the air from the room. Heavy walls stretched between us and while I measured the distance separating our perspectives for a path that might create shared expectations, I could not find common ground. For the first time I identified undertones of prejudice. Despite the tightness in my chest and lump in my throat, there was much to learn from listening. I set aside defensiveness and sadness to educate.
My son lives everyday with needs that make simple tasks overwhelming for the social undertones. I could easily place him in a modified academic setting, but I would be compromising his education and undermining him and his peers’ ability to navigate shared space. The behaviors that some might see as inconvenient to their day are not intentional acts of misbehavior, but invisible handicaps typical to his diagnoses. If my son’s legs were broken we would give him tools to aide his movement. If he could not speak or see, we would give him tools to perform alongside able-bodied peers. Patience is our greatest accommodation. I have never compromised my expectations, rather my son strives to meet a standard that is often higher for the effort it takes to balance his needs to perform among peers as an equal. My son faces unkindness and frustrations with determination. It is because of his abilities that I advocate for him, not his inabilities.
In truth, I admire uncomfortable honesty as a promise of possibility. We learn from one another in lessons that extend far beyond thoughtfully prepared classrooms. Each year I am wiser for the team of educators I partner with and I hope their lives are richer for the experiences we lend them. We begin with introductions and expectations to mark a new path.
to my son
November 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
Sometimes we hide our potential behind excuses, creating a safe haven from failure. Unfortunately this also shields us from success. Recently there have been concerns between home and school that you are hiding your potential behind excuses, distorting your success and failure with avoidance.
Last night I included you in parent-teacher conferences wanting to permit you the experience of owning your performance as a student. Moving from teacher to teacher I uncovered unique pieces of your day at school. For every occasion I have questioned your place in mainstream, public education this experience shaped a new gratitude for the gifts of diversity. Each teacher greeted you in a way that spoke volumes about their teaching style and your relationship; our time together a window into their classrooms.
Your Science teacher engages you and redirects you with humor and questions. She does this effortlessly, moving seamlessly between guiding and challenging. In turn you met questions with answers, matched humor for humor in a dance that tells me you are natural partners. You don’t know that your teacher is leading, in fact I would bet you feel quite in control as you move backwards and sideways in reaction to quiet instruction.
Your Math teacher is direct, you are evading her with arguments and requests that are impossible to avoid – working twice as hard to avoid tasks as you would have to work to succeed. I am certain you will soon be tired of dodging directions and nestle begrudgingly into routine expectations. I am a struggling math student, but well read in the mannerisms of your very experienced teacher.
Social Studies is a source of joy. I do not need to see your class work to know this. Your teacher exudes calm, quiet confidence in you as a student, enthusiasm for her subject, and joy for the act of teaching. You are learning as easily as you breath, unaware that despite your distractions you are drawn to your teacher’s peaceful approach. She is mothering you towards independence within her classroom, creating lessons that reach far outside your time together.
Your English teacher wears her heart on her sleeve. You are greedily gathering her compassion like a hungry child stuffing cookies in their pocket. This class is your greatest nemesis for the act of writing, but if you would only set aside this battle with yourself this outlet for creativity would easily be a place of growth. Your teacher is fascinated, your gift of language exists despite your denial, it is time to embrace this strength you do not claim.
World Cultures is a place of friendship. This is the teacher you approach as an equal. Perhaps this is because your teacher is a man and you share a friend in your former aide, but the casual greeting and easy handshake tells me he has earned your respect. It is time to honor that respect with effort, excuses contradict respect.
I am not sure you will read this until much later, but each of these individuals have gifted us a year of unique strengths. I have never been more excited for the challenges waiting for you in the classroom or for the lessons these experiences will lend you in your lifetime.
Love, Mom
can & cannot
October 25, 2012 § 4 Comments
This week my daughter asked her peers for help spelling a word; aware she often twists her letters out of order and wanting to feel more certain she asked those she trusted for help. Instead of supplying the answer to her question, they judged her for not knowing; laughing and measuring her abilities loudly and unkindly as a group. With honesty and vulnerability my daughter shared this moment from her school day; a lone tear and prideful posture tugged at my heart, but rather than allow my daughter to nestle in a place of Cannot I guided her towards a faith in Can. I acknowledged her feelings then quickly discussed our alternatives for handling moments of harm. As some of her peers move more quickly towards new abilities my daughter must be prepared to practice self-compassion for her weaknesses in the same measure I would ask her to exercise humility for her strengths. Rather than ask others to be more sensitive to what she cannot do I asked my daughter to begin always with what she can do; approaching each moment from a place of strength. Admit openly what you cannot control and insist on kindness. Allow yourself your emotions, but do not let them undermine your ability to move forward. Never, ever measure your worth against others’ abilities or judgment. Then I spelled the word that had created the opportunity for our discussion: G-I-R-L.
giving voice
October 20, 2012 § Leave a comment
I am a nervous speaker, an impossible blush and a wavering voice betray false confidence while racing heartbeats chase my words into self-doubt. Conscious of this personal Achilles’ heel I shy away from commitments that push me into the forefront of a conversation among strangers. This year I joined a committee lead by an administrator and composed of parents across our school district eager to learn more about a change stretching from elementary to middle school classrooms. I imagined gathering notes, pencil to paper, only to find myself raising a hand to lend questions and comments to a new discussion; stretching my comfort zone in an effort to give voice to my hopes, uncertainties, and experiences as a parent in our district.
Our first meeting I created a place of quiet comfort, intrigued by differing perspectives I spent most of that first hour gathering information. It was only at the last moment when another’s comment prompted me to lend a voice of experience which contradicted expectations that I spoke up, my words fragmented among my nerves held together by conviction. We were discussing the application of Standards Based Grading in theory, but my son was a student during a testing phase and our experience was riddled with errors in application that bred doubt in a system I would otherwise embrace. Here, with the weight of experience, I tip toed closer to the discussion hoping my voice would lend awareness to potential challenges. In a system designed to make certain students are meeting academic standards, the standards for measuring student knowledge must be consistent among teachers.
This past week, as we reconvened in a circle of strangers each vested in the education of our children, our company expanded to include familiar faces. Grateful for the reassurance of friends I borrowed strength from their kindness and waded further into the conversation. As we contrasted the traditional letter grades against a system expected to lend a more honest snapshot of individual student performance I was struck by a greater personal concern: how we nurture learning.
The statistics that were intended to demonstrate the inflated measure of traditional grades by highlighting the failure of A students in college raised greater concerns for me as a parent: how students face challenges, learn independently, and take accountability for their education as young learners in preparation for future experiences.
I am still learning how this new grading system will enhance my children’s experiences as learners, balancing our school’s decisions with my values as a parent. I will continue to raise my children with an expectation that they greet each experience with a willingness to learn that embraces failure as an opportunity to grow and education as something that extends beyond structured lessons to encompass individual curiosity. I want my children to be accountable for knowledge above grades and effort beyond measurement. Still I am immeasurably grateful for my place in this new conversation as I challenge my own limits to give voice to a subject close to my heart.
back to school
August 26, 2012 § 2 Comments
The rain has washed away my family’s plans for the day allowing me a moment to curl up in the company of my children and reflect on the past week.
Monday our daughter visited her new classroom, introducing herself to her teacher and visiting with the familiar faces of her support staff. We shared summer stories and named our hopes for the coming year. Last year we identified learning disabilities undermining our daughter’s education, breeding toxic feelings of inadequacy and inability. This year we are embracing resources that will nurture confidence and create classroom experiences that will facilitate her independent efforts.
We share a similar journey with our son. As a child with special needs his education is individualized to build on strengths while challenging him to grow in areas of weakness. To foster communication with his teachers we met briefly on Tuesday to exchange introductions and outline expectations, creating a dialogue of partnership.
Wednesday morning we set aside apprehension and uncertainty for hope. After a fleeting breakfast together our son left early for the bus stop eager to visit with friends. On Thursday our daughter navigated the short walk to school independently, her footsteps weaving between old memories and falling alongside neighborhood friends. I found myself standing on the threshold of new milestones grateful for our children’s demonstrations of confidence.
In the midst of new school experiences my husband and I revisited old expectations, encouraging both children to claim ownership of their knowledge alongside their questions; reinforcing the experience of learning as a natural expression of a curious mind. We are measuring success by effort, demonstrations of intention against abilities and needs. We are working alongside teachers to inspire and celebrate a new year of discovery.
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