Surviving the System

No "work" today

2012-01-27T17:44:00.002-05:00

That's right - no jacket or shoes for a January hike

So today was a catch-up day for me:

Sleep in to 7:30 - not really a task, but I can't remember the last time I did this
Catch up on some work tasks, telecommuting at home
Pay bills
Call b-d who's been sick lately and verify plans for the next time he'll work with msk
Call summer camp manager and see if it's a good fit for msk to spend his first time away from home and family
Call Autism Waiver service coordinator to touch base & talk about high school placement plans
45min hike in the park for msk to blow off steam and me and my dog to burn calories (shoes were worn except for during tree climbing)
MVA for learner's permit test - first time since eldest did not want to learn to drive
Possible dinner out, if hubster's in the mood
Tickets to the BSO - taking advantage of older sibling babysitting

Another checkmark

2012-01-24T13:18:00.001-05:00

what's under that kilt?

So this weekend marked the final college tour for HSS. I know a better order would have been to do this before submitting all the applications, but Pittsburgh is the furthest location for HSS's school choices.

This was also the only visit that involved a significant amount of time away from parents and in the company of actual students. It certainly leads to a different perspective. "College students are crazy," was the opinion after spending a night as a "bagger" with them (the event was a "Sleeping Bag Weekend"). Nothing new there if I can remember back 30 years or so.

With this weekend every school has a first hand image in HSS's mind and additionally, they all know that the application is pretty serious. I'm not sure it's universal, but more than a few of the schools have mentioned that a visit and an interview help tip the balance in your favor when they're comparing applications. I guess that makes sense, but I didn't visit any of the schools I applied to. Times change.

So now we wait for the big :-) or not so big :-( envelopes to finish coming in. Sigh.

Who should choose?

2012-01-21T17:19:00.003-05:00

Leadership

This post follows and depends on Thursday's post, so you should probably read it first. I came across an online article in Time about allowing parents to choose teachers for their kids. While I'm all for school choice, I've got to say that this sounds like a bad idea to me. I will admit to wishing my kids didn't have some of the teachers that they did, but was I supposed to research all of their teachers ahead of time? In reality, I think class schedules are done days before the start of the school year, so there's no way that would work. Plus, isn't assigning teachers and making schedules a management task?

Let's look at it a different way - if I've chosen a school, doesn't that mean I've chosen the school's leadership? If a school is riddled with bad teachers, doesn't that say something about that leadership? If there are a few weak teachers, how will they improve without support and a chance to practice? My experience with first year teachers has been, so-so at best, but if no parent chose to let their kid attend a first year teacher's class... It seems like a disaster to me. If you're in a total disaster of a school, cherry-picking the few remaining great teachers in that school is not going to work for long. If you can figure out who those great teachers are, don't you think all the other parents can? And then what - a race to register first and get those teachers?

Beyond the incendiary headline, I guess what Mr. Rotherham is really advocating is for parents to be the squeaky wheel that demands a specific teacher and complains and whines enough to get their way. Obviously, this only works if a very small minority takes his advice. The rest are just bad parents in his book, I guess. My choice is pick a school with excellent leadership and let them do their job. I will support a school that I think needs my support, with energy spent on improving it, rather than whining to benefit of my kid and the detriment of everyone else's. If that makes me bad, so be it.

"The principal should be your pal."

2012-01-19T10:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, to my mind, was a starting point in figuring out msk's next school. We had a meeting with a professional who's helping us. In the midst of trying to plan for msk's educational future, I said how happy we were with the principal at his current school. I went on to say how crucial that's turned out to be in schools where msk has done well. She vigorously agreed and we moved on. It made me think about doing a post on the concept.

Having an excellent principal makes so much difference on the day to day educational experiences msk has, and to the contrary in schools that he's had problems... but let's keep on the positive side. A great principal energizes and motivates teachers. You can feel it every time you talk to them - how lucky they feel to be at this specific school. With a miserable principal, teachers can still be excellent and motivated towards their students, but they continually fight (either openly or more often covertly) to do what they know they need to do to have an excellent classroom experience for their students. And not every teacher is that excellent. For them, the quality of the principal makes all the difference. A poor principal has them focusing on the wrong things - things that have no positive impact on students. I've seen incredible cruelty and disinterest by teachers when they spend all their time and energy trying to figure out how to make points with a despotic principal. And you shouldn't undervalue the general school atmosphere - joy leads to learning, while misery leads to yelling, in my experience.

Joy just flows flow in some classrooms

I have no idea how you could objectively rate principals any more than how you could objectively rate teachers. I do know that it will be one of the big things we will be looking at as we try to find msk's next school.

Plant cell

2012-01-18T20:52:00.001-05:00

So, although we made the cookie last week, msk's cell project wasn't due until this week. Guess I need to do a better job reading assignments, but typically these things seem to come in at the last minute. We did the decorating tonight.

Key:

• Cell Wall (protects the cell) – Dark green cookie on edge

• Cell Membrane (regulates what enters and leaves the cell) – Green frosting

• Cytoplasm (fluid inside cell) – Light green cookie

• Endoplasmic Reticulum (Network of passageways) – Gummy worms

• Nucleus (Cell control center) – Red gel frosting

• Nucleolus (center of nucleus) – Red and green cookie

• Mitochondria (produces cell’s energy) – Pink twizzlers

• Chloroplasts (captures energy from sun for food) – Green twizzlers

• Golgi Bodies & Vesicles (Receives & sends materials) – Orange twizzlers & skittles

• Ribosomes (produces proteins) – Rainbow sprinkles

• Vacuole (stores food, water and other materials) – White frosting patch

Weighing options

2012-01-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Now that I've filled in the financial aid applications, I'm back to worrying about financing college. It seems to be an equation with way too many variables and decisions:

How should I balance debt for the student vs. debt for the parents?
Should I take all the loans they offer or refinance the house?
Or maybe cash out a pre-tax retirement account?
Should I hold back spending so I can have the same money available when child #2 enters college 2 year from now?
Should I keep all my finances so that I can set up some sort of trust for msk?
Will msk ever need his college savings, and if not, can I roll them into some sort of support trust?
Should I reach out to relatives who have the resources (and no kids) to help out?
What are these financial aid packages going to look like?
Is a more expensive college a better investment if it has more support and a co-op program, or is University of Maryland too good a deal (since it's 100% paid for with the pre-paid college saving account we've been paying in for 13 years) to walk away from?

Not much sense worrying at this point. Come March/April, once all the responses and packages are in hand, it'll be time to worry.

Ventage*

2012-01-15T18:03:00.000-05:00

grrrrrrr!!

One great thing about having a blog is that I can respond to a comment train here. That means I don't have to bite my tongue, but I don't have to worry about feeding the trolls.

If you want to see the comment that ticked me off feel free to go here. It was the snarky response to my rather straight forward comment that ticked me off.

I think it's fine that people feel that since it's "public" education they have a right to chime in, even if you have no first hand information. I'd go as far as guessing you've got no second hand information and haven't even read anything significant on City Schools - sorry, North Baltimore Patch ain't significant in terms of school reporting. Go ahead and express your idea of what's wrong with City Schools, even if you have no clue. My issue is you slamming me for expressing an actual first hand opinion. The proper response would be gratitude for sharing my experience rather than a snarky put down about my parenting decisions. I am getting close to being done with this school system and I have many, many issues with its weaknesses. Even so, I am sick to death of the clueless masses writing off City Schools based on some sort of racist/classist gut feeling.

* - ventage, what's produced when you vent

Some explanations

2012-01-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

Image borrowed from http://www.afatherspeaks.com/

Yesterday's post was a little terse, probably to do with it being a long day and me posting after midnight, so here are some details for anyone who's interested.

FAFSA? - that's the "Free Application for Federal Student Aid". Every college that you're going to ask for financial aid (and is there anyone who is so rich that they aren't going to at least ask?) is going to want you to fill this out. You fill in information about your family situation, college plans and any savings you have. Then copy some data from your Federal tax forms (1040 and W2). By some magical formula they tell you how much you can afford to spend to send your kid to school. It seemed like a crazy number to me, but I suppose there are loans as well as how much you can spare from your budget. It'll be interesting to see how this number translates to financial aid packets, but we've got some months to wait there.

CSS? - "College Scholarship Service". This is a longer and more complicated form than the FAFSA, but I think it serves a similar purpose. This application is administered by College Board, the same people who administer the SAT and AP tests. It also costs $9 to fill out and $16 per college that you send it to, while the FAFSA is free. For HSS, every school that she's applying to except the two University of Maryland system schools and Drexel required this form. There was a fair amount of detailed information that they're looking for about other kids in the family and other expenses, as well as investments and savings. I guess it should provide a better understanding of our full economic situation. On the other hand, it didn't spit out a single "you can afford this per year" number like the FAFSA did, so I really don't know if we fared better or worse.

The additional data that some school require is mainly copies of 1040s and W2s, either through some sort of secure document handling service that College Board provides (IDOC) or directly to the college. One college (Bucknell) seems to have their own application for financial aid as well as needing the FAFSA and the CSS. Honestly, I don't know how much more information I can provide, but since I'm the one asking for money, I guess they can ask whatever they want.

Another "off" Friday

2012-01-13T11:59:00.000-05:00

TurboTax Deluxe

Today I did my taxes, pretty much three times over. I filled out my taxes with Turbo Tax. Then I filled out and submitted our FAFSA form to all eight schools HSS is applying to. Then I filled out and submitted the CSS form to the five schools that needed that. I am not all that thrilled by bookkeeping, so this was a pretty intense amount of filling in, figuring out and double checking for me. But at least it's done.

Except for the four schools who still want more from me for financial information.

Yay me...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Model making

2012-01-11T00:29:00.000-05:00

A giant green tinted sugar cookie plant cell with some sort of disk shaped organelle

So, a long time ago, I was a new working mother with a toddler, and we were all about the artsy-crafty stuff. We made play dough and finger painted and did all sorts of projects. It continued as kid #2 grew to toddlerhood. I really enjoyed making stuff with them, getting a chance to paint and model again.

When msk hit preschool it was clear that things were different for him. Our preschool did lots of arts and craft activities, and they were oh-so-tough for msk. Sitting, following directions, answering questions - these were beyond him and frustrating as well. I tried a little at home thinking he'd join in with his sisters and have a blast. He didn't engage and wandered off, and I got bummed. Structured projects at home with msk were dropped.

This week msk has his first hands-on homework project for school - build an edible model of a cell. I decided to simplify versus the other two times we've done this project (a cookie this time instead of a cut-away 3D cake) and spread it across several nights to minimize frustration. Night one was making the dough - worst case, I was fine with doing most of it myself since it really doesn't relate to knowing the parts of cells and what they look like.

It turns out that msk as a 13 year old is willing to do projects and follow instructions - at least if it has to do with homework. The beaters were kind of loud and he talked nervously about not touching the blades, but he did it. Measuring, mixing and rolling - he stayed involved through to baking. I know that if it had been cooking for home he wouldn't have done it, but the magic of homework for an OCD kid meant he could, and even was kind of into it. What a shock and what a joy.

Change comes, like a lot of things, when you stop looking for it.

News of note

2011-12-20T15:35:00.002-05:00

Right now there is a very important court case going on in Baltimore. The parents of a Special Needs student are suing the school system for $1.3 million for gross negligence in connection with bullying at two different City Schools. I can't express how much this trial and the testimony breaks my heart. Bullying is a sign of a lack of control in a school. The fact that special needs students are far more likely to be bullied then other students is a sign of a lack of compassion among students as well as a reflection of how the school body as a whole feels towards a different and vulnerable population. I believe that a school with calm hallways and a atmosphere of respect for everyone in the building would not have these type of problems. You want to know why school choice is so important? So that parents in these desperate situations don't feel forced to keep there kids in this school. There has to be a way out.

Yes, I know I'm being emotional, but how the hell can you read this story or this story or this post or this post and not become emotional? I can't.

Two more essays to go... blah

2011-12-19T09:28:00.001-05:00

I think I've written on this before, but I would just like to say one more time for emphasis - college essays suck. How do they suck and why to they bother you so, you ask? Let me count the ways, or at least give you my top ten.

Believe it or not, not everybody is a writer or finds writing a great outlet to express themselves
Essay topics such as "what do you think is great about this school?" invite nauseatingly suck-up writing - painful to generate, painful to edit
College application time is emotionally fraught to begin with - putting yourself out there for acceptance or rejection - in this state hardcore editing to make a polished essay often leads to tears. I am tired of being the enforcer for other people's stupid rules and making my children cry. Tired, tired, tired.
Why do different colleges have similar essay topics with vastly different word count requirements - it's impossible to use anything over when the word count goes down to 25% of the original, or do you really want to go under the word count by 75% if you try to share the essay that way?
How the heck are they actually using these essays to make judgements anyway? If they're looking for that "stand out" essay, not everybody is a wild extrovert (see reason #1 for a similar concept)
No matter how much time you put into essays there's some sort of guideline someplace that says you should have put in more time. There's only so much pushing for get it done early so we can edit, edit,edit...yuck
Really, being able to hit submit and say done is worth a lot. How many revisions can you stand?
Did I mention that not everybody is passionate about writing? Let's have everybody submit an imaginative solution to a geometric brain teaser with explanatory illustrations. Seem a little unfair to the non-math types? Logical thinking and proof construction seems like a reasonable thing to ask to me and HSS would blow the competition out of the water.
Eight applications is not excessive with two safety, two reach and four that seem like a good shot. Close to fifteen finely crafted and well polished essays is excessive.
By not getting together and coming up with a reasonable number of common essays like the Common App these schools are playing some sort of ego-trip, how-much-do-you-love-me game because you have to spend more time on some essays than others. It's hard not to get pissed at the schools with the most off-the-wall essay requirements

Subsumed

2011-12-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

Reflecting, now become – image is pure

All lake-ness overwhelmed by bigger sky

As water’s color, spirit is obscured

Grey feelings show azure, cloud accents high

And joyful days when storms come rolling by -

Show bitter, fiercely grey to others, though

Deep water, massive, rests in many an eye

Lone swimmers diving through are all who’d know

But eyes tight shut, still unseen, soul’s subsumed

Faint rippling texture hints, spirits persist

Reflecting petty feelings now entombed

Defined by monoliths we dwell amidst

Though wishing I could steer what others see

How, hidden by illusion, I’m set free

Second Acceptance

2011-12-17T18:49:00.001-05:00

Good dog!

Got an acceptance letter from UMBC today. Not sure if this is the best fit for HSS since there's no electrical engineering or civil engineering, but they've got lots of student supports and I think the CWIT program sounds pretty awesome.

Getting close now

2011-12-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, that is a dog butt in the lower right corner

So on this 9-80 Friday I pretty much did nothing. I know I should be getting ready for Christmas, but I'm procrastinating. I've actually made a big dent in my list post from a few weeks ago:

~~Company Party - big on obligation, small on fun~~
~~BSO holiday concert with 2 kids~~
~~Visit (with interview) to Stevens Institute in Hoboken~~
~~Two hockey games in one day (one played, one viewed) in Hershey PA~~
Christmas shopping, and since they closed Daedalus at Belvedere I'm going to have to figure out something new - blah
~~Heading up the Adopt-a-family drive for House of Ruth at work~~

~~Counting/sorting gifts~~
~~Spending cash donations on un-claimed gifts~~
~~Taking gifts to House of Ruth~~

Financial Aid meeting at the High School - bailed on that one having done the online course
Hockey Holiday party
~~Some sort of birthday celebration for~~ ~~msk~~ - we did a family dinner at TGIFridays and he was OK with that
~~Christmas tree and house decorations~~ - see picture above
Shopping for the massive holiday buffet party at our house
Making a dish to share for work - thinking about bailing on this as well...
Mailing gifts to out-of-town relatives
More harping on college essays and submitting remaining applications - on going, but down to 3 now
~~Final report and submittal of 2011 Cookie sale~~

I thought about presents, but couldn't commit to shopping vs. Amazon. The hockey party is tomorrow. I really should get some packages mailed. It was lazy, but today I took a break. Breaks = boring posts. Sorry.

Another tough day

2011-12-15T17:02:00.000-05:00

Nobody's happy to watch a child suffer

Sometimes (maybe most times) it's one of my "neurotypical" kids that drives me up to the brink. That's where both my husband I were teetering last night. As a result, today I feel washed out and stretched thin. I think I need to read my own response (paraphrased below as it has seemed to disappear from Facebook) to a parent who was frustrated and vented last week. Her son was going through a rough patch and she was saying what a bad parent she was. I commented:

"You know, I think most of our kid's qualities are how they are wired rather than how we guide or lead them. They make their own choices and live with the consequences. Some times you need to just sit back and look at an old picture and remember how much you love them. That's really what we are there for - unconditional love. There are some jobs you just can't quit. Being a mom is one of them."

You know the thing about advice? It truly is much better to give then receive.

#AutismPride

2011-12-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, while moaning, I promised a more cheery post today - here goes.

Hard to miss the joy in this picture of an autistic kid, eh?

Among the autism tweeps I follow, #AutsimPride was trending, with 140 character snippets about how people with autism are not a tragedy, but are pretty inspiring. Here's my own tweet:

My son has the most independent mind & best smile. He is brilliant and honest. He's taught me so much about patience & empathy #autismpride

A little background. On December 6th, a court in Colorado found that a mom, who murdered her autistic infant son, would not stand trial for murder. You can read more here. Infanticide of autistic kids is not that uncommon of an event. The tragedy triggered one of the aut-rent bloggers that I follow to to post this and call for everyone who was also appalled to "Vanquish the forces of autism evil! Declare your #AutismPride" The basic concept is not to deny that autism can be a big challenge, but to be vocal about the up-sides as well. We need to be vocal to counter the popular perception of "the tragedy of autism". That popular perception kills people, as it did in Colorado.

I think it's hard not to get caught up in our personal problems. Heck, yesterday's post was one giant whine-fest. That does not mean my life, or my son, is a tragedy. He brings me joy and I am proud of him. Did I tell you he made the Honor Roll first quarter? But I'll go a step further - I am not proud of him in spite of his autism, I am proud of him as a whole, including his autism. If I list the things about him that bring me pride, you'll see how autism is integral to them:

He is genuine every minute of every day - he doesn't have the ability to put on a show that isn't honest
He can access almost anything he's seen or heard his entire life
He sees things as they really are, not how we're supposed to see them, and this helps me understand
He lives in the moment - he remembers the past but he doesn't regret or hold grudges.
He never gets frustrated when people misjudge or underestimate him - he truly doesn't care
He likes people, but he is content to be by himself - I never worry about keeping him entertained
He's very smart - he taught himself to read, caught up academically after a placement that had no academics, he really gets the abstraction that is math even though his language is very limited

Autism is not a tragedy. Ignorance is the tragedy.

Off the wagon

2011-12-13T12:26:00.001-05:00

If ever there was a post that deserved the TL;DR response, this would be it. Sorry - I just feel like venting a bit.

I had been doing so good at posting in this month after NaBloPoMo, but clearly after taking three days off I'm starting to slip. Let me tell you about the day that led me to take a blogging break.

Saturday was an all hockey all day occasion. It started with the usual Special Hockey practice from 9:45 to 10:45 with a 40 minute drive to get there and 15 minutes worth of gear application before starting. I know I've posted before how much I love Special Hockey - the tremendous amount of volunteer support, the true joy in even the most minor victories, the time I get to network with other parents dealing with similar challenges. This practice felt more frustrating for me. Msk skates so well, but he just doesn't get the concept of working in a team or even wanting to be in the middle of a crowd. These are such basic concepts that relate to so much in life. At the moment I'm seeing no progress, and it bums me out.

After practice there was a game in Hershey PA at 2:30, followed by tickets to a 7:00 game with the Hershey Bears. Given the drive time there was basically just time for lunch. We had lunch at a fast food joint with a play place. Sometimes I wonder if msk will ever come to grips with the idea that even if he likes climbing and sliding, he is labeled as too big to play in these places. He didn't melt down, but he obsessively repeated the conversation we had about him being too big. I know he wouldn't break anything or hurt any of the little kids, but he has a hard enough time with rules without me doing any flip-flopping. His sorrow was infectious.

After lunch, I drove with another special needs parent and his son. The company was a life-saver, because that much car time with msk all by myself (40min to practice, 3:40 round trip to Hershey, for a total of about 4.5 hours) can be a bit much. He can get stuck on an echolalic pattern and work himself into a frenzy and although the best thing to do is ignore him that's hard when I'm not allowed to turn the radio on. With company and interaction we both did a lot better.

On the other hand, the conversation turned to our growing kids and the challenge to get a decent education out of the school system for kids with very significant disabilities. Because I'm looking towards msk's next placement, horror stories about other City Schools increase my anxiety level. The story I heard was very horrific, but it's not my story, so I won't tell it here.

At the hockey game in Hershey msk was totally disengaged. I don't think he hit the puck once and he was never in the action. That coupled with a statement about him inappropriately touching a female team member (which I'm not 100% sure of and there's no way he'll defend himself if it is false), and I felt like crying through the whole game.

Between his game and the Bear's game we went to the park. Nothing horrible happened, but a simple spur of the moment jaunt to an amusement park is so much more complicated with two special need kids in tow. Usually, I get a charge from how much msk loves rides, but the cold, number of rides closed and the ratio of line time to ride time all came together to make me grumpy.

After the cold of the park, sitting in the warmth of the Hershey Bear's game was nice. Unfortunately, I could barely get msk to glance at the game. I don't think he saw any connection from what he did see to his own performance on a hockey team. He spent the majority of the time we watched the game playing on his new iPod or watching lights and numbers on the jumbotron hanging over the rink.

It was way past msk's bedtime and pretty close to my own bedtime when we got home. I think it was 10:30 or 10:45.

Tomorrow's post will be back on the positive side. Sorry.

Parent portal 1st impressions

2011-12-09T16:54:00.001-05:00

different school system, same portal

After a call to the help desk and several hours of waiting, my Parent Portal account is now working. I didn't do anything wrong. There's what strikes me as a pretty big bug in the system (but I was told it would be fixed very soon). You have to enter all your kids when you first log into the system. If one teacher, or school, is more swift on giving you the access numbers you need wait for the slower party. There is no way to enter an additional child once you have created your account without a call into the North Ave. IT help desk. This warning is probably too late, but there you have it. And if you don't work by a phone that you can sit on hold on... oh well.

So, now, nearly half way into the school year I can see all sort of grades on line.

Some pluses and minuses that strike me right off the bat:

+ This should mean no report card or status report comes as a surprise.

- It seems like I'm going to be micro-managing how swiftly teachers use this online tool. So far there seem to be very few posted assignments, so the idea of keeping up with homework before a bad grade shows up isn't going to happen. These updates every two weeks? I guess we'll see. If I see a teacher not using this tool can I give them the same level of grief they give students who don't follow rules? And who would I tell, or is it just going to be another source of friction at meetings? This is worse case, but theoretically, I can see problems.

+ It's nice to know all sorts of information, for example, didn't that absence excuse get turned in? I know I wrote it.

- The interface seems needlessly complex, but I can work through it. I'm not sure what percentage of parents can.

That's all I've got for now - I'll keep you posted as the year goes on.

1st acceptance

2011-12-08T18:38:00.001-05:00

So, first acceptance email was received today! I'm pretty sure Drexel is the only rolling admission university that HSS is applying to, so it will probably be months before any more decisions are heard. Still, knowing that there is one school, which seemed pretty good, that wants HSS to attend is very reassuring.

Why does the word help come before desk?

2011-12-07T10:19:00.001-05:00

Do you want to know my vision of hell? Pleading for help from people who either don't know how or can't help me, while being stuck on hold for indeterminate amounts of time, followed by answering tons of questions that are asked before I am transfered to someone else who (after another period of hold music) ask me the same questions all over again. Plus, everything is much more complicated than it needs to be. I work in rocket science, and this junk is not rocket science.

At work I believe we have the world's most complicated and annoying email program. It is an order of magnitude more annoying than iTunes, and that's saying a lot. The thing that kills me is that when I went on international travel I had to have a computer without this program installed. Ha! It would be a case of international sabotage if someone stole this program off my computer...but I digress.

Today, on my agenda is two separate help desk calls - one to work for the above mentioned email program, another to North Ave. for Parent Portal. Ugh! I actually have work that I'm supposed to be accomplishing, and neither of these calls will allow me to accomplish diddly-squat for who-know-how-long. And the hold music is Christmas carols.

Clearly, in a previous life I must have been a mass-murderer, to deserve this type of punishment.

Thirteen years

2011-12-06T17:13:00.001-05:00

Today is msk's thirteenth birthday. His present is an iPod touch with a bunch of apps and music and pictures that I'm hoping he'll enjoy. He's had access to most of these on my iPod touch for quite a while, but I'm hoping that something that is his might get more use.

I also got him a pair of bluetooth headphones, because the wires on headphones are no match for msk, and I'm tired of trying to re-splice stereo-mini jacks.

I'm especially interested in how he takes to Sosh and Conversation Builder.

I'll keep you posted.

I know Dr. Seuss apps might seem strange for a 13 year old, but he seems to love the familiarity of younger books, even though he's reading just at about grade level.

Another Sunday's hike

2011-12-04T18:25:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe it's the 4th of December. It was a beautiful day for a walk in the park. This poem was from a much colder day. Even on the coldest days msk is drawn to play in the stream. He's taught me to be quiet and patient and to be in the moment - not rushing him to finish playing or bugging him about how he might lose his shoes if he lets them float downstream. The joy of having a pair of shoes that double as boats in a current.

LateNovember Hike

Clear water - high, swiftflowing,

A splash like a knife, cruel and cutting

At this late fall, early winter juncture

The park’s soul is cold and spare – in hiding

Beyond hidden - transparent

Revealing skeletal trees, cold grey rocks

Visitors all too visible,

While residents have disappeared

No fish in the familiar eddy,

No sounds of birds or insects

Current's rush, wind through branches

Mask any subtle sounds

Final clinging leaves surrender –

Fluttering down to ride flows

Into rock jam clogs or

Captured in swirling vortexes.

Nature’s seclusion is lost

As exposed hikers wander naked paths

Barely audible, his soliloquy warms me

I hunker down with my dog and wait

Until chill water, raw wind push the boy home

Then rushing to keep up, the return path.

Comfortably sitting in a warm, cluttered home,

Longing for the bleak simplicity of the frigidstream

The pain, the pain

2011-12-03T20:22:00.001-05:00

One of the things about msk's speech is that it's almost like he's inventing a language built of the bits and pieces of things he's heard and strung together added with his own feels about words.

So, I thought I'd start a series of occasional posts on these phrases.

Your singing, it hurts my ears and my eyes

Ouch! I know my singing isn't great, but really, I was just a little off-key.

I can just feel him cringing and squinting in pain.

Is it 14 days already?

2011-12-02T23:55:00.000-05:00

...or what I did on my 9-80 Off Friday.

On my day off I drove for 3.5 hours up the enchanting I-95/NJ Turnpike route to New Jersey with HSS to tour and interview at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.

After getting lost for about 30 minutes (who knew Jersey City and Hoboken each had their own 9th St and there is no connection between the two), we made it to a beautiful campus.

With incredible views of the city.

Three hours later, with tour and interview completed, and with a sick child who was not up for any trouristing in the area, I got to drive another 3.5 hours back the now dark I-95 route.

When I started doing this every other Friday off thing I thought I'd be more rested and less rushed. Ha!

Naviance

2011-12-01T09:11:00.001-05:00

Given that it's December 1st And I posted every day for the last 30 days should I take a break today? Nah!

Today's post continues on the topic of all the crap I'm learning helping my eldest (HSS) navigate through the college application process. One of the things that surprised me was that, outside of the massive poundage of mailings from colleges, there has been no paper involved in any of the eight college applications that are done or in progress.

When I say no paperwork, I'm including the parts of the application that HSS fills out, the transcripts that the high school sends out and the letters of recommendation that teachers submit as well. I have no idea if this is the way it has been for years or if this is something new. I know that last year there was all sorts of brouhaha about one school not sending out transcripts and parents and students being shocked and dismayed, so I'm guessing this is kind of new.

The two big tools that we've interacted with that make this "all on line" approach navigable, and actually fairly easy to negotiate, are the Common Application and Naviance. The Common App is driven by the colleges and seems to depend on a level of cooperation between the schools to have at least the main core of information requested be common. It makes sense and seven of the eight colleges being applied to accepted the Common App. The only exception was University of Maryland at College Park and I suppose when you're as big as they are plus have as high rankings as they do, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Even so, their application was on line, so even though it meant duplicating a lot of entry work, all of the applications were completed on line.

The other tool, Naviance, is less obvious to me. What I've seen of it (actually HSS has the password and does all the Naviance navigation, so really I should say what I've heard of it) has all been about picking schools to apply to, requesting transcripts and recommendations, and checking status of transcripts and recommendations. For someone like me, who tends to worry a bit too much, the fact that HSS can check status of these things is wonderful.

When I called a college to check on a visit/interview appointment (I would have had HSS do it, but there's school during normal office hours and no email had come through yet), I asked about the status of HSS's application, and that "according to some sort of on-line thing the school uses everything should be OK.". The counselor said, "Oh, you mean Naviance? That's what everybody uses." It struck me that a little web investigation might be interesting.

So, I guess Naviance does much more than track college application status. There's all sorts of stuff about plans and data and engaging parents. News to me. Then I checked their "In the news" section and found the title "Baltimore City Public Schools Selects Naviance to Empower 23,000 Urban Maryland Students to Become College and Career Ready" with a story dated September 22, 2011. Sounds cool to me, but I wouldn't have minded hearing something about it and what exactly the vision is for usage.

I suppose the concept is that in high school this is more of an issue to be communicated with students than with parents. I would have been interested, and I actually still am. Is this tool in use in all high schools in the city? Is it being used to "unite students, families, teachers, counselors and administrators in a collaborative partnership to promote, measure and improve college and career readiness"? Beyond just tracking college applications?

Don't get me wrong, I am totally grateful to be able to track college applications, but it seems like Naviance is about a bunch more and I wonder if there's something I'm supposed to be doing with it that I'm not because I've gotten no information. Especially in terms of my kids that are not high school seniors yet.

NaBloPoMo done

2011-11-30T09:57:00.001-05:00

What does this picture have to do with this post? It's about reflections and I'm reflecting on lessons learned from NaBloPoMo, get it? Psych! Really, it's just a cool picture I drew and felt like sharing.

Lessons learned:

With 30 posts in 30 days I win at NaBloPoMo!
I can write under pressure
I feel that the quality of my writing improved over the course of a month
I got lots more traffic on my blog
I had very few extended discussions over the course of a month
Although one commenter seemed to be offended by a negative post, when I posted the positive flip side of the issue, twice actually, I got no responses at all

So going forward:

I know I can post every day, but I'm not sure I want to
I really wish I could get some dialog going, but I have no idea how to do that
I win at NaBloPoMo!

More teacher shout-outs

2011-11-29T11:38:00.001-05:00

39 years ago I was in a BCPSS school

The day before Thanksgiving, on this post, I listed some teachers I was thankful for. They were all teachers that my kids have had, so 20 years ago or less.

This is a list of my teachers that I am thankful for. These are teachers from about 30 - 40 years ago. I might not remember all their names at this point, but I remember the way they changed my life.

My 11th grade History of Political Thought teacher, who taught me that political discussions are passionate, personal and enjoyable, even if they are about the thoughts of people who have been dead for hundreds or thousands of years; and this type of discussion uses your whole mind like nothing else I know of
My High School Chemistry teacher (Chem I and Chem II), who taught me how great a real science class with real labs could be, which was a defining moment on my path to become an engineer and work in a lab
My Jr. High counselor, who thought I was smart enough to skip a grade which turned around my own concept of my academic abilities
My piano teacher (1st - 6th grade), who opened my ears to the beauty of dissonance and "modern music" (whatever that means)
My parents, who always had lots of books for me to look at or read, and who never discouraged me from buying a book (usually providing the money) even if was something they thought was junk
All four of my high school English teachers, who taught me to write by making me write about what I read, and always encouraged a well reasoned argument, even if it didn't match their analysis

A massive to-do list

2011-11-28T11:36:00.001-05:00

I could probably come up with some sort of clever joke or something to go with this incredibly hectic time of year, but I'm just going to throw down a bullet list and be done with it.

What I need to get done before December 25th, in no particular order:

Company Party - big on obligation, small on fun
BSO holiday concert with 2 kids
Visit (with interview) to Stevens Institute in Hoboken
Two hockey games in one day (one played, one viewed) in Hershey PA
Christmas shopping, and since they closed Daedalus at Belvedere I'm going to have to figure out something new - blah
Heading up the Adopt-a-family drive for House of Ruth at work

Counting/sorting gifts
Spending cash donations on un-claimed gifts
Taking gifts to House of Ruth

Financial Aid meeting at the High School
Hockey Holiday party
Some sort of birthday celebration for msk
Christmas tree and house decorations
Shopping for the massive holiday buffet party at our house
Making a dish to share for work
Mailing gifts to out-of-town relatives
More harping on college essays and submitting remaining applications
Final report and submittal of 2011 Cookie sale

How many more essays?

2011-11-27T08:45:00.000-05:00

image stolen from this blog. Clever, no?

A goal I had for this four day weekend was for HSS to finish up all the college essays still needed. In hindsight this was overly optimistic.

Sigh...taking a deep breath and getting back on task...

One tool that I think is worth the money is College Essay Organizer. I guess if you don't apply to too many schools, or if their essay requirements aren't to varied, a spreadsheet would work, but the nice thing about this website is that it pulls essay requirements together to let you submit the same essay, or at least a similar essay to multiple schools.

What HSS's road-map says is still needed:

Your intellectual interests and -

how college B's academic program will cultivate
how you decided on your planned major at college C
what interests you in your planned major
what beyond you planned major are you interested in

What unique aspect of college D attracted you to apply
A challenge that you faced a persevered through
Three things college E should know about you that you haven't covered

I'm hoping we might get through all four that are tied to intellectual interests, but that means a lot of drafts, proof-reading and polishing is on the agenda for today. HSS is not a lover of writing, so this process can be pretty unpleasant.

This brings me to the point I'd like to express in this post, if there is a point beyond just writing what's on the agenda for today that relates to the kind of topics I usually post on this blog. I understand that being able to express yourself and communicate ideas is essential to critical thinking, but is it fair that so much time and effort in college applications is tied up in essays? I think essays are going to take up 95% of the time spent on filling out college applications. I think essays will take even more time then it took to decide on what colleges to apply to and to visit more than half of them. Yes, I'm talking days and days of essay writing.

Shouldn't there be other skills that get individually highlighted? If math is your thing, shouldn't there be a way to emphasize that, beyond SAT scores and writing an essay about it? Don't get me wrong - obviously I enjoy writing or I wouldn't be doing one of these posts every day, but I think writing about non-writing interests still gets judged primarily on how good of a writer you are.

Is that meta enough for you?

Continuing the dialogue

2011-11-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

I read a thought provoking post about perceptions and City Schools. I posted a few comments, but it seemed that the discussion was becoming about a specific school (Margret Brent, picture to the left), as opposed to something more general about City Schools. I don't know enough about Margret Brent to keep that discussion going, so I stopped commenting there.

The discussion I'd like to hit on with this post is more general. How do you balance the fact that City Schools have some very real problems with an exaggerated perception by many that sending your kids to Baltimore's public schools is child abuse, at least if you can find any alternative? The schools have faltered and made progress, but that perception has remained. Look at this post from the City Paper from 2000 that sounds like it could be from today.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I personally try to spread the word about the educational experiences my kids have had and are having. I talk about my own education - 100% BCPSS K-12. I really do feel like there are some incredible stories to be told.

On the other hand, the things that I see in statewide competitions, that point out the financial disparity between Baltimore City and say Montgomery County, make me feel ill. It takes money to support a robotics team, or a science fair project, or even a chess team. You can make up for a certain lack of money with passion, but passion won't buy bus transportation or a set of tools.

I feel that there needs to be equity on school funding, but I don't want people to think my decision to send my kids to under-funded schools is deluded or some sort of sacrifice to a political goal. It's a choice we've made for the last 13 years, and I think it's the right one.

I'd love to spark a discussion in the comment section to this post. How can we demand better funding without looking pitiful?

Hosting holidays at home

2011-11-25T10:30:00.000-05:00

yum... cheese doodles

On yesterday's Thanksgiving post I mentioned that we always do Thanksgiving at our home. This isn't because I have Martha Stewart ambitions, although I do enjoy hanging with the relatively small group that comes over for Thanksgiving (9 this year, never more then 12). Msk's stress level is the main motivation for keeping Thanksgiving at our house, as well as Christmas, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day and whatever other party comes up.

Both my husband and I come from Baltimore and the majority of our siblings and parents remain in the area, so we always have a good size group come over. There are other houses close by, but we always volunteer, and after a few years, others stopped offering to host the parties. I'm not complaining; it's become part of our family's definition of home. I've come to love getting the house together the day before and being able to enjoy company without worrying about msk.

When msk was little, and we were still making the party circuit, it was incredibly hard to keep him out of areas he should stay out of. I'm not sure he was exploring as much as he was trying to get a little time on his own. I had all sorts of toys that I brought with us and didn't mind that it turned out that 75% of my time was spent focused on msk instead of socializing at the party. Even so, msk ended up being very grumpy and ready to go home much before the end of the event. Honestly, I was pretty grumpy by that point myself.

It's been a continuing evolution to come up with what is our formula for a successful and sociable party even though msk is anything but a party animal. Here's what we do:

The second floor is always open to msk (and our family) alone and gives him a place to escape to
Eating schedules are fluid with trays of snacks as well as meals with no rules about what to eat or when
The sit-down meal (if we have one, since Christmas is always a continuous buffet) is focused on adults, and no one from the younger generation has to stay at the table or listen to the politics and endless yacking. Too many words can really rub msk the wrong way.
We minimize mandatory social interactions - I ask msk to come down and say hi when people who really want to see him arrive, but after hello, how long he wants to chit-chat is up to him. Fielding two questions is about as much has he can handle.
If it works out, b-d tries to either come to the party or take msk out for a couple of hours before or during the party
Parties can go to the wee hours of the night, but msk's bedtime schedule remains about the same. This can mean that he's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed way before I'm up for much, but it makes him happy to know that he can count on at least that part of his routine

now there's a Christmas sweater!

So stuffed...

2011-11-24T17:19:00.001-05:00

I would write something thoughtful about Thanksgiving and gratitude, but I'm too stuffed.

How about some pictures instead?

The table set for 9 - Thanksgiving at our place, as always.

before

a pie with paintings

after

Flan & pomegranate

Tomorrow, when I have digested all these calories, I'll be capable of posting something more substantial.

Thankful for...

2011-11-23T08:44:00.001-05:00

Google says Happy Thanksgiving!

I mentioned in a comment to this post that "I’m continually amazed at the number of extraordinary teachers that we've had in very difficult situations."

So, on this day before Thanksgiving, I thought I'd post a bullet list of some of those extraordinary teachers and the things they've done that stand out in my mind.

In no particular order these are some teachers that I'm thankful for:

The preschool teacher who helped us get started towards a diagnosis so gently that we didn't flip out and who never considered asking us to find a different place for msk even though he required lots of extra support
The math teacher who immediately recognized genius in different thinking patterns and let a quirky and previously bullied kid immediately start to bloom with strategically placed praise
The AP teacher who taught an incredibly challenging course with such enthusiasm that even when getting a C in the class there was no discouragement and in the end there was a 5 on the test and a lesson about hard work paying off that will never be forgotten
The teacher who was skeptical about inclusion of severely disabled, but open minded enough to really try, and by the middle of the year, brave enough to admit a change of heart and start to proselytize about how all students in an inclusion class benefit
The teacher who emailed me as soon as a student's grades started showing the effects of disorganization vs what they were capable of and took the time to support the student and keep me posted. When I said how grateful I was the response was that it was nothing special, just what teachers do

I could go on, but I'm taking Personal Time Off (PTO) today to try to do massive house cleaning, along with attending a meeting at one school and drop-off/pick-up at another.

In the credit where credit is due department - this post was written in response to the question of Thankful on the SPSOC blog.

Finances

2011-11-22T06:02:00.001-05:00

A while back I said I'd post about what I found out from the online financial aid seminar that I attended. Being totally honest, the main thing I figured out was that, even though I know it's important, I find finances and all the terminology of college aid bewildering and incredibly boring. I suppose your mind needs to be cut out for one type of task or another. My mind is good with quantitative stuff, but you add in business mumbo-jumbo and I start to tune out.

Nonetheless, I know I bear the responsibility for this part of the college application process. HSS really has had no experience with money, so although we will be talking about financial aid awards when they come through, I'm in charge of filling in these forms, finding scholarship info, and presenting it all in a form that HSS can understand in order to be able to compare different schools.

a straight-forward flowchart

I like this figure. It all seems pretty understandable with some icons, terminology and steps laid out as a simple flow chart. So far, all I've done is an estimated FAFSA and applied for a PIN to allow me to enter the real data once I get 2011's W2 form.

But all the terminology... take a look at all the terms on the right that go with the flowchart.

Some take-aways that were news to me:

Loans programs are different if they are loans for the student vs. loans for the parent. I plan on supporting a lot (maybe most) of HSS's college expenses, but some part will be student loan and earnings from summer/co-op jobs.
The relative book costs between two colleges has little to do with what the final EFC (if I'm going to learn new vocabulary, I need to start using it - look at the list to the right again). More expensive colleges might have more money for aid; less selective schools might be more motivated to draw in high performing students.
The massive number of scholarships around take lots of research to find. Most are pretty small chunks of money, but taken as a whole they should help out a fair amount. This task might be something to start over winter break.
Government college loans programs for parents are going to look at your credit rating. The advantage of borrowing against your savings (401K or home equity etc), is mainly qualification and ease. The advantage of the government loans is better rates, since they are subsidized.

I see work in my future, but I'm putting it off for a while.

Here are some links that I think might be helpful:

And another thing...

2011-11-21T01:00:00.000-05:00

My fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo blogger, @BmoreSchools, posted the same video I'm showing below on this post on her blog. I wrote one comment, and was about to fire off another, when I thought that maybe I could get a post out of the comment, and at day 21 of NaBloPoMo, I'm looking for post topics to keep me going.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

This post is going to focus on a short part of this 8 minute video - from about the 7 minute mark to just shy of the 8 minute mark. John Stewart makes a joke about how it's wrong to pick on bad teachers when the working world is filled with crappy employees (he cites how incompetent fast food restaurant workers can be) and Diane Ravitch responds with an anecdote about how a principal stated that in her 15 years supervising 300 teachers, she only had one bad teacher, who she fired. Her point being that the number of bad teachers is so minuscule that it has nothing to do with education problems.

First, I understand that John Stewart was making a joke, and I do in fact have a sense of humor. I realize that a serious rebuttal to a joking statement can make you seem like an ass, but I'm going to try anyway. If I go to a fast food restaurant and have a totally incompetent server, I have lots of options, most of which I can do right away and have very little negative impact beyond the cost of the meal in question, and my blood pressure rise if I really get steamy about it. I can talk to the manager. I can avoid this specific server if I ever see them again. I can avoid a specific location of the chain. I can boycott the whole chain. I can write a letter to corporate management. Again, there are no big long-term problems with any of these approaches.

I'm going to say here in BIG LETTERS - this is a theoretical discussion based on years of different schools and talking to different parents. THIS IS NOT about a specific situation that I am going through in a school we are now attending.

Let's contrast the fast food problem with a horrible situation with one teacher. A parent probably won't figure this out for a while in the school year. At that point, there are most likely other teachers and classes that are going well. Pulling a kid out of a school for bullying might be able to be done quickly, but for a poor teacher? Not so much. You're lucky if it can happen in a year, and at that point the teacher is in your kid's past, so why bother? In a fast food restaurant, the management is often willing to come up with something to make the customer happy, not so much the administration in schools. If several parents come together and cite a problem, it seems to make administrators more defensive. I think the political ramifications of throwing a fit while leaving your kid in the same classroom is pretty obvious. These are worst case situations, but even scaled down you can see why, for parents, a bad teacher has bigger ramifications then a bad fast food server.

The idea of 1 in 300 sounds nice. It's not my experience. I'm not saying that training and support couldn't bring the numbers down to that level, but as a customer, that's not my concern or business. In my job we have performance reviews, counseling, moving people to positions where they can do less harm, pushing people to quit, out and out firing as options, and I've seen all happen. It's scary and unpleasant, but some people need to go, or at least be isolated so they don't screw everything up.

I'm not saying that poor teachers are the biggest problem in education. Compared with collapsing buildings, kids living in poverty, and underfunded school systems, it's probably a distant fourth. On the other hand, it's the one direct interaction with the system that happens every school day. With a job as important as teaching, that impacts kids so directly, we need to acknowledge that bad teachers do exist and cause real problems.

A rough start

2011-11-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

While I was playing with robots yesterday, msk had a long and very fun day with b-d. That was great, but long, exciting days, followed by late bedtimes seem to lead to rough mornings. Today was no exception.

Rough days are obsessive and tend towards explosions when I try to redirect. Today's grocery trip was tense with lots of echolalic speech. Then it was computer games that msk couldn't win, but couldn't walk away from. General grumpiness and fussing with his siblings...we were stuck.

Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and we were able to take the dog for a decent length walk in the park. The park just beyond our backyard is always a place for finding peace for msk, even though it smells of sewage and has trash on the banks of the stream from gutters and storm drains.

A sonnet from a different day's hike.

White racket, roiling water draws my mind

Transported neither here nor now, attend

Past images – choice, chance – that lie behind

See future paths achieve idyllic end

Though envied, simple lives are not our way

While focus on the now, fruition decrees

To worry, ruefulness, hold vigor at bay

Then sewage’s tang conveys, awakens, frees

Must watch my step ‘round trash on wobbling stone

He splashes, I observe, removed, on guard

Nudge sand, a glim’ring gem – drift glass is shown

Blue essence, stream has polished from a shard

By focus on detritus, treasures reveal’

Unseen when sight is drawn to dreams’ appeal

Saturday

2011-11-19T16:57:00.001-05:00

I'd like to say "Wordless Wednesday", but it's Saturday and I'm writing at least a few words. After waking up at 0-dark hundred hours and having a "hurry up and wait" type day, I am just too tired for much more than a picture/video posting today.

If you comment saying you like the cape below I'll blush. I made up the pattern and stitched it up myself : D

A question

2011-11-18T15:39:00.001-05:00

If I write about how much I enjoyed talking to most of the people on my kids' CST/IEP/504 teams, with one exception, does that mean I'm teacher bashing? It seems as if saying anything bad about any teacher, labels me as one of those legions of bad people who don't understand how hard it is to be a teacher. From my perspective, I think that saying some small number of teachers are just not currently doing a very good job, reinforces the idea that being a good teacher is hard work. Some people need more training, or more support, or maybe just aren't cut out for the job. I'm not talking about new teachers that are a little unsure. Maybe their first few years aren't their strongest, but you can see that they want to do better, and that they are trying. I'm OK with that. I'm talking about not listening, being inflexible, and thinking that the S in Child Support Team stands for something mysterious and has to do with someone else.

I try to focus on how helpful and understanding >95% of the people were. Even if they had issues or problems with a kid, they could listen and brainstorm about how we could change something to make things work better. I was willing to make a commitment for what I would do, where I could pitch in, and it felt like that was appreciated and reciprocated. And the student, too, was drawn in and contributing. With these folks, we really were forming a team. I truly am grateful for that, but I keep on getting drawn back to frustration with that <5%.

I am not a teacher hater or basher. I truly appreciate that that being a competent teacher is a hard job. I don't expect every teacher to be teacher of the year. I just don't accept the idea that every teacher is succeeding at their job.

Shoshin

2011-11-17T08:37:00.001-05:00

Open to the possibilities of a rainy day.

There seem to be times in my life when I get completely buried in the day to day. Then, as I as I shake free of the fog and look up, the same message appears everywhere. I'm not a spiritual person, I just think there are times when a part of you knows you need to learn something, and in case you try to ignore this need, you see the message wherever you look. I know I've posted on this synchronicity at least once.

The message of the moment is shoshin, of having a "beginner's mind", to feel a sense of openness, eagerness and lack of pre-conceptions.

I felt the first glimmer of needing to change when I was drawn to this ABC story about Gabriel Giffords' recovery from a trumatic brain injury. Even though I pretty much never watch these types of "News Specials", I was mesmerized by her efforts and triumphs, and most especially by how, though she acknowledged the pain of others' deaths, she had no bitterness about her own torturous journey.

Then, this morning, I was trying to think of a quick post, just to keep up with my daily post comitment. I was feeling tapped out. I opened twitter and followed the link to this post, and the idea of shoshin was dropped in my lap. I stared at the message of rejecting the concept of failure and instead of allowing yourself to be in a place where you are able to learn. Then I scanned my fellow Bmore bloggers and in Epiphany in Baltimore's post the Zen Koan, "when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear" hit me. I need to be ready. Finally, this post from the Special Olymics, about about how we can learn, from both Giffords and special olympians, to focus on the need to get better, sealed it. I see a path opening before me. The challenges that are coming up (foremost in my mind is college for HSS, a high school transition for msk, a changing job definition and the continuing frustration of dealing with a brilliant kid who has no connection to the reality of mundane obligations like homework...oops - still too frustrated to talk about that) require an open mind.

This school year has felt like trudging through slowly thickening mud. There was the brief flicker of excitement with picking up school supplies, but that feeling vanished almost before it started. I had thought how relaxing it would be to have not a single child transitioning to a new school; instead it just made me feel jaded. I've been counting down years until my elder two kids were done with City Schools. I've been thinking that if msk transitions to an autism specific school that would mean that in a lot of ways he would be done as well. I've been focusing on a feeling of having served my time. Reviewing this, I know I am ready for a change, like a breath of fresh air.

So, starting today, I work to free my mind of cynicism. I open my eyes to the fact that I need to learn in order to better serve those who count on me, whether at home, in schools, or at work. I wash away resentments and start with a clean slate.

Hands

2011-11-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

This post was triggered by "Quiet Hands", an incredibly moving post on Just Stimming by Julia Bascom

Hand-over-hand "guidance"

I realize that almost all child-rearing is a balance between a kid's comfort zone and the pain of stretching and growing. I believe that finding the balance of growth and safety is always hard, but it is even harder when you're working with a kid like msk, one who doesn't have the words to push back when you force a stretch that is just too painful.

We've made choices about msk's activities (therapy in behavior analysis speak) that probably put us on the coddling side as compared to some "Autism Warrior Mothers" ala Jenny McCarthy. Even though I have big issues with her approach and statements, I've got to admit that sometimes I feel guilty about not pushing msk harder, not attacking some of his autistic tendencies that hold him back, even if doing so makes him seem frustrated and overwhelmed.

We never got on the ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) bandwagon, partly because we didn't have the insurance coverage at the time for the massively expensive endeavour, partially because we have two other kids and a job and responsibilities that make the kind of time/energy commitment seem too hard, and partially because ABA just felt too coercive, or at least manipulative. It's exactly the kind of control and "guidance" that makes msk flip out. Still, when I see how hard some things are for msk, when I worry about what level of independence he will be able to achieve, I wonder if we should have tried harder to get msk into some sort of ABA program. The guilt usually comes after reading a quote like this - "ABA is widely recognized as the single most effective treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder and the only treatment shown to lead to substantial, lasting improvements in the lives of individuals with autism."

msk won't tolerate hand-over-hand, but hand pictures are OK

By chance I came across this post by an autistic adult. She writes movingly about the pain of being forced to have "quiet hands", of the suffering involved in coercive ABA therapies. It made me feel more sure of our choices.

I'm sure it's different for different individuals, and in no way am I saying that a choice to pursue ABA is a bad choice. I'm just saying that self-determination, even if you're on the severe end of the autism spectrum, is important.

It's something I need to keep thinking about as msk becomes a teen.

Not good

2011-11-15T14:35:00.001-05:00

The last 24 hours or so have been very frustrating. In an effort to keep from saying something that I will regret, I'm going to keep this post very short.

I have a picture that I drew that sums it all up.

A quick Visio diagram gets to the heart of the pointlessness of my existence

I've been doing this all for way too long and I'm ready for something that is less frustrating. Tonight I will try a new approach with a positive attitude and a smile. Right now though, I'm just ready to admit defeat and quit trying.

And you may find yourself...

2011-11-14T08:20:00.001-05:00

cover from Ladies of the Canyon

Yesterday, initial plans for Child #2's summer came up. It's very early and all, I was just trying to figure out what has to come before what, with the idea being that she might be doing some lab stuff for a research project. I was talking to the woman that schedules a week long service project where she would be working on fixing housing for rural people in need. And this is her final summer at CTY before she ages out. It's all very exciting, actually.

Then I said something about, "We always go to the cabin for a week in August before school starts." Every summer, in the woods for a week or two with no TV and no Internet. This summer it was relaxed to the point that I didn't even post about it (but I did post last summer).

To which she responded, "Don't forget all that shopping for dorm stuff, and there will probably be some sort of orientation. And some colleges start really early."

Ooofff! It hit me like a sucker-punch to the gut. You'd think that working on applications with HSS would have made this seem obvious, but somehow I hadn't thought of it. This summer is not going to be what we always do. This summer is going to be all weird and scary and exciting.

Late last night

I heard the screen door slam

And a big yellow taxi

Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone...

lyrics from Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

New Grading Policy?

2011-11-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

There's a new policy about grades. It seemed pretty minor to me, but the way the information has been released (slowly and not via an email blast) tells me there is worry about people getting pissed off. I tried to find information on the City School website, but found nothing. This was decided over the summer, but nothing is getting released about it until the day that report cards are issued? Curiouser and curiouser...

Increasing class sizes, cutting budgets, getting rid of teachers happen without a blink. These things piss me off. Switching from an 85 to a 3.6 with whatever weighting for AP classes? Why would that piss me off? I can still tell the difference between a good grade and a bad one. Hopefully college admission people are even more expert with this type of stuff. What's the big deal?

I feel like I'm missing something.

One of my fellow Bmore Ed Bloggers has a post on grading here.

And on that note, please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

hhhmmm

2011-11-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in some sort of PoMo exploration of how strange life can be.

Last night at dinner, Msk said to no one in particular, "I have trouble with speech."

Everyone looks up and stares at msk.

He continues while staring down, "Speech is difficult for me, I need to use this program."

This starts sounding familiar.

"I am using this computer to help me talk."

Child #2 says, "No you aren't."

Msk looks up and grins. "Speech is difficult for me."

Child #2 says, "No it isn't."

Msk continues smiling, "I am using this computer to help me talk."

Child #2 says, "No you aren't."

Msk smiles wider, "Please be patient with me as I use this computer to help me."

This continues for several minutes with everyone smiling and laughing. At no time does msk deviate from the script.

A perseverative, echolalic reproduction of a speech aid that was designed for the non-verbal. Is that circular and warped enough?

And one more thing, this program hasn't been loaded on a computer for at least two years, it was probably two years before that when msk last used it, and he remembered every word and inflection. I remain confused and bemused.

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

STEM = hard

2011-11-11T00:30:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to find something relevant and interesting to blog about I read a New York Times article about why so many students that enter college with STEM majors end up not getting STEM degrees. You can read it here - no paywall or registration required. Given that I'm currently trying to help my HSS get into a college with an engineering major this was actually pretty darn relevant.

So here's my take-away from the story. Even with motivation to want to go into engineering and a strong background in STEM subjects and good SATs and AP scores, getting through college with an engineering or science degree is hard going. The president wants to graduate 10,000 more engineers each year, but that kind of progress isn't going to be reached with only focusing on K-12 education and helping fund a college education. There needs to be thought in supporting and motivating engineering students through their college careers.

Some of the specific problems detailed in the article were:

Non-stem classes have more engaging classes
Non-STEM classes have higher average scores, and low STEM scores can push a student out of STEM
Because of the amount of technical data needed, too little time is spent on applications which would engage students
Engineering professors spend more time on bringing in research grants than designing engaging, relevant courses and labs

Having gotten my own engineering degree in the 80's I can say that most of these problems seem familiar. I remember there were certain courses that everybody knew were supposed to weed out the weaker students. Even back then it seemed weird to me. Didn't they want a high graduation rate? I knew that learning these topics was hard, but couldn't they have provided more support? I know I took two courses pass/fail, and I passed them, but just barely. I remember one test where the average score was 23. This was a junior level course, so if we weren't prepared for it, there was no one else to blame than the school itself. And the teachers seemed to delight in saying things like "the rest of the proof should be intuitive to the most casual observer." He never got any questions after a statement like that.

One quote from the article that I found especially troubling was that "the attrition rate can be higher at the most selective schools, where ... the competition overwhelms even well-qualified students." I have a lot of faith in HSS, but some of the examples they gave, of students dropping out of engineering, they scare me.

On the other hand, I noticed that some of the colleges that we toured were following the directions that this article was pointing towards. There were some great engineering projects in the first three semesters at Drexel. There was a hands-on design and build team project at Lehigh. There was support for engineering students at UMBC. There were senior projects in developing countries or in alternative energy - topics that makes students see the importance of an engineering degree. I'll try to emphasize these things when HSS is trying to pick a college this coming spring.

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

Keeping parents out of schools

2011-11-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

A while back I wrote a post called "Getting parents to come to school". Feel free to go and read it if you like. It seemed a pretty non-controversial post to me, but it got one reader so pissed-off that they said they were never coming back. I suppose the issue was that in his/her mind, schools already do all they can, that they are in no way responsible for any lack of parent involvement. To which my response is, maybe at your school...

So, I thought I'd try a post looking at the problem from the other side. What happens at schools that keep parents from being more involved. I'm looking at administrators, PTA/PTO leadership, teachers, or North Ave depending on the problem. I'm also going to say what I think a solution is to this problem, because no one likes a whiner who complains, but doesn't suggest anything that would work better.

Have PTA meetings that go on and on, but really don't have any positive results that justify parents sacrificing their time to be there

PTAs need to have real agendas and time lines and actions and responsibilities for each and every meeting. I realize that this is a lot of work and a lot to ask from poor schmucks that make the mistake of running for office, but I believe this is the number 1 reason people don't come to PTA meetings. If the school administration really wants to have a PTA, maybe they need to help develop these agendas, at least until the leadership can figure out how to do it on their own.

Allow a single parent to monopolize all the time at a PTA meeting talking about something they care passionately about, but isn't on topic and/or doesn't follow the agenda.

A PTA leader should offer to talk more about this after the meeting ends at which point they need to come up with an action plan that will drive this issue to closure that the aggrieved parent agrees to. Most times a parent repeatedly yammers on about something like this, it is because they don't see any change or progress being made. If it's a dead issue (i.e. can't be done) the PTA leader needs to own up to this and say (in private) that we can't talk about this any more

Make going to report card conferences chaotic, rushed and hit or miss as far as talking to the teachers you would really need to talk to, often being blindsided by a problem at the meeting

One solution would be to have teachers reach out to parents with the current grades and how concerned they are about specific students. Then have actual appointments with enough time to talk about concerns. Knowing that there's something important to talk about, the parent could juggle between various teachers and come up with a possible schedule that lets them meet with the right teachers. On the other hand, if there are no issues, maybe a quick email is enough and they can take conference night off and leave it to parents with bigger issues
A second solution would be for the team of teachers to meet with parents, like an IEP. This would allow everyone to discuss issues and at a certain age would include the student.

Have lots of fundraising, with no real idea of what the money is for, or after the fundraising, how well the fundraiser went.

The solution here seems obvious - fund raise with a specific goal in mind, communicate that goal to parents, communicate successes and failures, thank everyone who pitched in. If that's too much to do, don't complain about poor participation.

Whenever a parent calls to ask about something negative that they think is happening at the school, get defensive quickly and go on the offense against their child and/or the parent

If you want involved parents, expect that their ideas of how things should be run might very well be different than yours. Understand that loving parents want to believe and support their students. Thank them for being involved and genuinely listen to complaints. This takes time and patience, but if you want to form a team with parents, you might have to engage in unilateral disarmament.

Try to solve all problems at the same time with equal priority, or alternately (since the end effect is about the same) maintain that there are no problems and spend all the time you interact with parents on defending the status quo

Brainstorm initially to identify problems, but focus and prioritize. Some issues that have real importance will be totally overlooked, but progress, momentum and a sense of accomplishment is worth a great deal, while a diluted message is confusing and discouraging.

Applying that final point to myself, I have clearly written too much and should expect that there's not a whole lot to take away from this post. On the plus side, it helps me meet my post a day objective.
For something a little more concise, check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

How boring is it?

2011-11-09T00:05:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been watching back to back episodes of Luther, first on Netflix for season 1 and then on iTunes for season 2. If you've never heard of it, you might want to check out the website. It stars Idris Elba, Stinger Bell from the wire.

The basic concept is hunting down psychopaths. Actually, it's a lot more complicated then that, but this is not a post about the series. I'm posting about Luther because of something from the last episode that I watched. The two bad guys had devised a way to communicate securely with each other across the Internet, while arousing no suspicions. I'm taking a course in cryptography and network security at the moment, so I was curious. They talked via the comment section of a blog. The world's most boring blog. There was no need to worry about drawing attention. No one would ever bother to look there.

My eldest commented, "Just like your blog. Schools, kids, PTA meetings - what could be more boring?"

The bottom line? Rest assured that your comments are secure.

Everyone in, no one left out

2011-11-08T00:05:00.001-05:00

Pilfered from
http://www.girlscoutsla.org/pages/product_sales/cookies_general.html

I've blogged a bunch about Girl Scout cookies lately. I'm not sure if people who buy cookies understand what it's all about. I can't speak for other troops, but I can tell you what it means for our troop.

We are a very economically diverse troop, which pretty well reflects our neighborhood. We are not one of the troops that meets at a school and is made up of students from only that specific school. We are open to anyone who can get to our weekly, hour long meetings. We have decided to not ask parents for money, beyond the Girl Scout registration, which can be waived for financial needs. Every year we get a few requests to waive the ~$15 fee. Times are tight.

This means that no parent or child feels left out of an activity because they can't afford it. This is really important to me. There's a Girl Scout motto about supporting every girl.

How does this relate to cookies? The cookie sale is our one and only fundraiser. Our troop will be making 75cents per box we sell. In addition, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland will be using some of the proceeds to keep campgrounds operating. They also fully fund troops in economically destitute places like the Maryland Penitentiary, where incarcerated moms get to bond with there daughters through a troop.

Cookies allow our girls to budget, plan and chose activities. The girls lead and the adults support. The girls reach consensus on activities and prioritize them. Then we keep tabs on how the sale is going and reflect on what that means, what we will be able to add or will have to cut back on.

But even beyond money, I think cookie sales help our girls. Booth sales let girls learn about speaking out and interacting with strangers in a professional manner. Their personal sales teach them about organization and following up on commitments.

I should probably put some sort of fine print disclaimer here:
I am not a spokesperson for Girl Scouts or Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. The opinions and views I've expressed in this post (and every post on this blog for that matter) are my own. I haven't been compensated by anyone for anything I have or haven't said here.

So there!

Self advocacy

2011-11-07T00:23:00.001-05:00

Image from Self Advocacy for Young Adults

I read a post on The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism a few days ago. You really should read it yourself if you wonder about disability rights for severely disabled people. Here's a link - it'll just take a few minutes to read (although the comments will take longer).

This, and some other posts from Autistics Speaking Day have got me wondering about when we should get msk involved in his own IEP meetings. He's getting older, and at some point he will need to make decisions about his life. On the other hand, lots of talking, especially about him, makes him uncomfortable. Trying to involve him in these types of conversations, by asking questions or prompting him to speak, is therapy, and pretty hard therapy at that.

One thing I love about his middle school is that they have team report card conferences for every kid in the school. These remind me of IEP team meetings, with much less paperwork and formalities. Even at that, msk attends, but is only pulled into the discussion occasionally. We look at his work and talk to his teachers. He moves between observing us from across the room (and listening, I'm sure, with his incredible hearing), and being pulled in to answer a question or display some work. I think he's at least a little uncomfortable. I know I am. But we plug through, and I believe it's good for him to see that we all care about what he's doing in his classes.

IEP meetings, though... I'm just not sure. There are a lot of people in a small place. The most useful parts of the meeting (at least in my eyes) are when we brainstorm about issues or problems or possible paths forward. We discuss, with smiles, about some of his special skills. I wonder if this kind of talk, even if we didn't ask for his contribution, would make him uncomfortable to the point of him acting out. And during the meetings, I really work hard on listening, taking notes, contributing, and thanking team members. I'm not sure I could focus that well if I was keeping an eye on msk and honestly, feeling a little uncomfortable about his interaction, or lack thereof.

It's got to happen at some point. We're talking about a kid who is at least as sharp as your average 12 year old. And we're talking about big decisions as we come towards a high school transition. We just need to figure out a way to implement something that pulls him in in a positive way.

I'd love to hear some suggestions. What experiences do any readers have with significantly disabled students attending their own IEP meetings?

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

Seems wrong somehow

2011-11-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Today I went to the bank with $1311, mainly in one's and twenty's.

Last week it was $3313 and the week before $2989.

Sort, count, recount, total and recount again.

It makes me feel like I'm involved in selling drugs, but I swear, it's just cookie money.

9-80 Day

2011-11-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

My work has gone to a new schedule - I work 9 hours Monday thru Thursday, 8 hours on the first Friday and the second Friday is off. Nine days to work 80 hours. When my kids were younger I didn't do it. I really wanted to rush home for homework before dinner. Little kids don't do well with late evening homework in my experience. My kids aren't so young anymore. I don't help with high school homework beyond asking if it's done and maybe some help in scheduling longer term projects. Msk is often out with b-d until 6:30 and even if he's home he prefers to do homework with child #2 rather than me. My evening is freed up, and I now work 9-80.

I usually worked beyond an 8 hour day in the past, but it was at my discretion. Now I have to stay that hour or take personal time. I've also got a very long commute (at least to me) these days. All of that is to say that my days feel very long to earn my every-other-Friday-off day. But earn them I do.

Today was one of my "off" Fridays.
Here's what I actually did (hubs was indisposed, luckily on an off Friday):

Take HS students to school (40min round trip) with msk in tow
Take msk to school
Drive to my mother's apartment to help her with some stuff - my mom is 88 years old
Drive to Ellicott City to pick up 26 cases of Girl Scout cookies
Organize count and pack said cookies into my car to allow me to have 2 passenger seats open for kid pickup
Catch up on on-line book-keeping related to Girl Scout cookies - this took a few hours
Pick up msk from school
Clean up the kitchen at least a little and load & run the dishwasher
Pick up HS students from an after school activity at 5pm
Stop by a neighborhood store to confirm they are OK with a booth sale tonight
Drop off cookies and table and forms and junk to the mom who's running the booth sale tonight
Watch the drama of hit and run accident and a subsequent fight complete with cops and an ambo
Collect money from a mom after dinner
Have a drink to celebrate the fact that I didn't have work today

Chaotic? Yes, but I actually felt pretty good at the end of the day.

In the credit where credit's due department - this post was inspired by this post from Maryland Math Madness

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

Seems clear to me

2011-11-04T00:04:00.000-04:00

I'm a fairly shy person when it comes to personal topics, but I promised myself that every time I heard a person say or write "retard" or "retarded" I would call them out. I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea, but I figured I could stand a little discomfort if maybe, even occasionally, I could help someone understand the problem with using the R-word as an insult, or even as a clinical description.

This led to one very good conversation on Epiphany in Baltimore (on a post that I can't seem to locate to link to, 11/14/11 - found it here). That felt pretty good, I talked a little about people first language, ideas were exchanged. Win-win.

Then there was a Facebook post. I really don't think the poster got what I was saying, but he apologized and so that wasn't too bad.

At work though, it's a different story. It's the same people, over and over again, who absolutely don't get what I'm saying. So here's my pitch, you can tell me if it's obscure to you.

This word is too loaded to be used any more. When it is used as an insult against people who are not intellectually disabled, you are implying that people with intellectual disabilities are valueless, the ever accessible butt of any put-down. If you use it as a clinical term, it has way too much baggage from usage as an insult. It's a general label that's sweeping and hurtful, and really, in the end, doesn't help you understand an individual any better. Use a sentence and actually describe the challenges a person is dealing with. Try to be compassionate, while you're at it. Finally the biggest reason to stop using the word is that the people that you are labeling don't want you to call them by the R-word any more.

Here are the comments I've gotten which let me know my ideas aren't coming across:
"Oh, so you're saying I'm insulting retarded people when I call X a retard. Ha, ha, ha!"
"It's the term that I learned to use for lower IQ's and I mean it clinically, not as an insult. Why should I change?"
"Oh, that's right, your kid's autistic...sorry"

I won't stop calling people out when I hear the term, but honestly, I don't think I'm doing much more than making them think I don't have a sense of humor.

Please check out my fellow Bmore Ed NaBloPoMo Crew:
Epiphany in Baltimore
BmoreSchools
Maryland Math Madness
and The Smallest Twine

And the next step is...

2011-11-03T00:01:00.000-04:00

Money, it's a drag...

So, I enrolled my High School Senior (HSS) in an online course about college applications. It's through JHU's Center for Talented Youth and is given by Options for College. You can find more info and a course description here. Given the cost of a college education and how clueless I was about the process, $750 seemed like a good investment. Maybe I worry too much (yes, that is an intentionally sarcastic understatement).

Anyway, HSS has been "attending" these classes, getting feedback on her college choices and essays and generally both of us are a little less worried about these applications that are going in now.

Tonight is the last class, titled "Need-Based Financial Aid" and this one is for students and parents. I got a large binder in the mail already, but honestly, I haven't really looked at it too much. Money, financial bargaining and budgets make me uncomfortable and vaguely nauseous. I'm proud to say that I don't have MS Project on my PC.

Anyway, I purposely told HSS that I wanted her to pick colleges for application without regard of cost because I had no idea what sort of aid package we would get. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," I said. I guess we're just about there.

I'll keep you posted with my take from tonight's class. If nothing else, I should get a blog post out of my hour and a half on line tonight.

Autistics Speaking Day

2011-11-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday (11/01) was "Autistics Speaking Day". You can read more here and here. The basic theme, to my mind, is to reinforce the idea that the autistic community, especially autistic adults, should be the first party to talk when the topic is autism support and autism research.

I respect that idea and I value this expression. On the other hand, msk is just not at a point where he can speak up for himself. I don't think I'm underestimating him, it's just that questions and speech and listening to people talk, especially about him are not his strong points. In fact, I'd say they irk him to the point of pain.

On the other hand, I have a video from a few years ago of a composition that he made up and let me video. It's all about numbers and chord progressions.

I'll see if some time this month I can get msk to type an entry and let me load it onto this blog. Or at least a newer video where you can hear that his voice has changed.

A different halloween

2011-11-01T09:28:00.000-04:00

I thought that this was maybe the year to end trick-or-treating. I mentioned nothing about Halloween and did no last minute shopping for costume stuff. I bought candy for the house and msk and b-d had bought a pumpkin as part of his doing things out and about therapy. Minimal Halloween effort.

During my usual "I'm about to head home, anything I need to pick up" end of day call I asked child #2 if there were any plans for the night. They all decided they wanted to go trick or treating. I told them they had to get it together all on their own and I would get home as quick as I could, but that was the extent of my effort in the project.

We traipsed through the neighborhood from 6:15 to 7:30. I let my elder kids help msk at the doors and resolutely stayed on the sidewalk waiting. I occasionally called for msk to keep moving when it looked like he was getting stuck, but that's all I did.

I'm sure we made a strange crew for anyone who paid attention. A group made up of (almost) 13, 15 and 17 year old kids generally doesn't have a parent in tow. Almost teen boys may be rude, but they generally get the whole social clue thing of Halloween better. He and his sisters dealt with all sorts of tricky situations including:

do you take candy or wait for it to be dropped in your bag? - different at every house
when you recognize someone from school do you greet them with a hi or a hug?
when people who don't know you ask complicated questions that you can't answer what should you do?
when doors are opened, but no one comes out, should you go in?

As recently as last year I was making a point of going to doors with msk and prompting him for appropriate speech. Lots of "What do you need to say?" and "Don't forget to say thank..." My point was more to inform people who were coming to the door that there was a reason that he was acting differently than some vague hope that a once a year practice of these bizarre skills was going to make him become the typical trick or treater.

This year he seemed big and functional enough that that kind of talking from his mom would be insulting. His sisters could do whatever they wanted to to explain atypical behavior. People could shake their heads and think he was a rude boy. There are plenty of rude teen boys, so really, who cares?

I believe this was the least stressful Halloween for me since msk's preliminary autism suspicions, nine years ago.

I have spent eight years trying to mould his behavior, framing the night as therapy. "He needs to learn to talk to strangers." "He needs to learn that social rules can be changed on special days." "I need to make autism more visible and understood." For one year at least, I have given up on all those goals and just walked around the neighborhood with my three kids. Next year there will only be two of them, so this year is probably the last time.

For the record, the world didn't come to an end and there is now, as is always the case the day after Halloween, way too much candy in my house.

Sometimes you just need to let go and relax.

This is my first post of NaBloPoMo. Please check out my fellow Baltimore Ed NaBloPoMo partners at their blogs:

Doin' the happy dance!

2011-10-30T17:26:00.002-04:00

OK, submit was pressed and $65 paid. That means the first application is done. Yay!

Only seven (or there abouts) more to go...yay?

Deadline #1 looms

2011-10-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

I should probably hold back on daily post until the start of November, but I'm feeling engaged and this post will be stale by November.

The first college application deadline is November 1st. This isn't an optional application deadline, like early action or early decision. This one is mandatory and pretty prime for HSS (High School Senior).

For the last 12-13 years I've been socking away money every month into the Maryland Pre-Paid College Fund. I'll talk a bit about that in a future post, but for this post the important thing to keep in mind is that financially, a University of Maryland School System college choice is very attractive. For HSS two schools from this system have made her list - University of Maryland at College Park (the system's biggest university) and University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). These both rank pretty high for undergraduate engineering programs in the US News list (#24 & #95), so they are pretty attractive that way as well.

November 1st is their "priority deadline". That makes it sound like a deadline for over-achievers. It is, in fact the only deadline if you want to be considered for scholarships or special programs. Doesn't everyone want to be considered for scholarships and special programs? I know everyone won't receive them, but don't you at least want to ask? Honestly, why do they have any other deadline than November 1st?

I felt like we were moving along OK, but then I got an email titled "A Message to TERParents". Ack! Four days before the deadline and they're pinging me about the application? Maybe this is helpful for some people, but for me it's just another source of stress and a list of things that I probably should have done a month ago if I was a more organized or generally, just a better parent.

So here we are - essays to polish, and I guess I should proof-read everything that she's typed in to these online applications (College Park has their "roll your own" system, while UMBC uses the Common App). I've made sure they’ve gotten SAT and AP scores and HSS has told me the recommendations and transcripts have been submitted via the high school's on-line system. I guess I should double check that too. And stress a little more. And worry that I've forgotten something… or she has… or her school has...

I am now officially losing my mind; and this is just the first deadline of this whole stinking process.

NaBloPoMo?

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

trying to blog

So the month of November is looking to be especially busy - college applications, Girl Scout cookies, Thanksgiving, House of Ruth Adopt a Family drive at work... I'd have to be crazy to to add anything to that mix... so why not commit to posting once a day, every day?

National Blog Posting Month is a Blogher thing, as far as I can tell. You can look here for info and here for FAQs. Spur of the moment, hopefully along with four fellow Baltimore Education Bloggers (1, 2, 3 and 4), I'm going to post every day.

I'm also making a commitment to check out my NaBloPoMo buddies and comment and link to their posts.

I'm not promising long posts, but I will post. In reality, the chaos of the month should make it easier to post...how college essays are adding stress to my marriage, 504 meetings, cleaning up the house for Thanksgiving with the extended family, beginning of the Special Hockey season. I could probably come up with 30 topics right now.

OK, I'm feeling psyched and confident - NaBloPoMo, here I come.

When sick is fine

2011-10-17T09:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday msk came down with some sort of minor bug. Nothing too much, just some sniffles and a desire to lay down. Also, not eating as much, which is pretty noticeable when a certain almost 13 year old typically eats constantly on weekends.

Not too long ago, being a little sick would have meant anger and frustration and me really not getting what was going on until a touch told me he had a fever and it would all snap in place. Yesterday was different though. Our weekly grocery trip went fine with no temper at the long line. When we got home the hub said "I think he's coming down with something." Msk was lying on the couch and not devouring the croissants that we bought at the Safeway. When I asked him how he felt he responded thoughtfully (as opposed to a rote "fine") "I feel sick."

I'm sure this sounds like nothing to most people, but the idea that msk could express how he feels, without suggestions or guesses, made me want to weep with joy. Watching your kids get sick is hard to take, but the fact that msk could never tell us how he felt, never say if the medicine was working... it broke my heart. I really wondered if he would ever be able take care of himself if he couldn't access abstract physical sensations and verbalize them to others. Rightly or wrongly, it seemed like a life-threatening deficit to me.

And then - in a single incident - *poof*, deficit gone. Through the day we talked about "laying down since you feel sick", "taking a pill (ibuprofen) to help you feel better", "maybe missing school if you still feel sick tomorrow." I know that all of this is pretty standard, but it felt like a miracle to me. No mystery or melt-downs.

There were still some issues. I'm not to sure if there was any origin of feeling sick, like a sore throat or stomach-ache. There was no putting off homework since school the next day was in question. Msk remains firmly attached to routine and there's no way he was going to bed without finishing his homework. As an aside, those homework passes because you’re doing well in a class? For a kid who is stuck on routine and loves the fact that he does well in math? They're never going to get used. A sticker or a high-5 would feel more like positive reinforcement.

Anyway... Bed time came a little early after a day of reduced eating (but not fasting) and mainly laying around. This morning he was sure he was OK to go to school and his appetite seemed to confirm that. Both of us are doing pretty well today.

Another change on the horizon

2011-10-11T13:58:00.001-04:00

Going away to college is huge, but there’s another transition coming up in our household. It’s hard to guess how big it will be. Msk is going to be finishing middle school in a year and a half. After that comes high school. With a kid with significant challenges, high school is a big deal. College seems hard to imagine, so high school might be the end of the school phase of his life. Or not… who knows?

Questions need to be asked, and they are hard as hell for me to write down, much less answer:

What goals are we shooting for – academically and in terms of life-skills?
How long do we want school to last and what comes next?
What kind of supports will come when high school is finished and what types will end?
What school will best build on his strengths and help him cope with his weaknesses?
After working hard to find an inclusive setting are we going to need to find a separate autism specific program?

A year and a half seems like a long time, but I know it isn't. There's lots of work to be done - assesments, school visits, team meetings, internet research...

It's intimidating to think about this process, how to start and what path to follow. Nothing to be done, but get down to it, I suppose. As the King from Alice in Wonderland says, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

The short list

2011-10-09T09:34:00.001-04:00

I find myself obsessed with this college search for this kid who is suddenly 17 years old. I started the savings plan about 14 years ago, so maybe it's natural to be a little eager to see this plan realized.

So, with engineering as the planned major and within a half-day's drive as a location we come down to this list:

University of Maryland College Park
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Johns Hopkins
Drexel
Carnegie Mellon
Lehigh
Bucknell
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rensselaer
Swarthmore
Stevens Institute of Technology

The balance between being excited and overwhelmed is tough to reach - both for me and my daughter.

LEET-DEET

2011-09-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

For years msk has said leet-deet. Actually he says "leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet, leet-deet." It's often one of those stand in phrases that mean something in msk-code. I've interpreted it as frustration, if I pay attention at all. If he's not saying it loud, it might just be a noise he likes to make.

I never really thought a whole lot more about decoding it because when msk is in the midst of being frustrated, asking a lot of verbal questions is a bad idea. Generally, verbal communication is frustrating for msk, and questions are more like interrogations (under the bright light in the police station) in his mind.

So, leet-deet, was just one of those echolalic phrases that sometimes indicated distress and dealing with msk's distress is usally about taking a deep breath, radiating a sense of calm and if at all possible removing the object of frustration with little or no talking.

Sometimes though, I just have a hard time reaching that place of calm. Lately, college applications and financial worries related to college choices, have shortened my patience. On Saturday I was driving with msk and he was verbally repeating some sort of you tube clip or computer game. I said something meaningless to him out loud (something on the order of "how's it going?"). Small talk is never msk's forte and when he's in the middle of a recitation, this type of distraction forces him to stop recreating what's playing back in his mind, make the obligatory, but pointless, "I'M DOING OK, MOM." Then there's my obligatory "It's OK for people to talk to you, so don't yell at me please." I think he said he had to start over and I said something about his self-talking was getting on my nerves. Probably not the high-point of my parenting empathy and understanding.

Anyway, there was a level of frustration in the car and silence as I drove. Then I heard a frustrated "LEET-DEET, LEET-DEET, LEET-DEET" at the same time I noticed that my turn signal was stuck on after I had switched lanes. It finally clicked. The noise of the turn signal was driving him crazy."Leet-Deet." means stop that annoying noise. The rhythm, the tone, and the emphasis were all exactly the same tone as my car.

Mystery solved.

College Apps

2011-09-21T17:07:00.003-04:00

I’m not sure how to make this into an interesting post, but I thought I should capture some of the things I have learned at this stage of trying to find the right college for my eldest to attend next year since it seems to be taking up a lot of my time and energy at the moment.

There’s a difference between early action and early decision for college applications – action is on the college’s part, as in they’ll tell you if you get in; decision is on the applicant’s part, as in you only get one and you promise to go there
Applying to 10 colleges is not an outrageous number, it seems to be about average for the people I’ve talked to
Application deadlines are all over the place – this means there’s not a single super-stressful date, but it also means that there are nearly continuous deadlines through senior year
Colleges seem to have all sorts of money for some spectacularly designed mailings, although I’m not really sure how many hours of reading/attention time they get per dollar spent
Some schools (UMCP for example) pretty much make you apply by the early deadline because that’s the deadline for honors programs and scholarships and what college applicant isn’t at least hoping for a scholarship? This means that you really need to figure out your list of colleges early so that you can check if any of them have early application deadlines for things you are interested in
People who love graphs and databases and number crunching should find the $20 fee for full access to US News & World Report’s college database worth the money. I started trying to build something similar in excel before I found it. I thought all they did was college rankings (which I’m a little skeptical about), but they have all sorts of information, like tuition, student to teacher ratios etc
No matter how much time, effort and money you pour into working with your kid on this stuff there will be parents who have done more, much more.
Your child will love and/or hate schools for reasons that seem really stupid. I’m trying to use these 17 years of experience with this child to remember patience and diplomacy when I try to nudge for or against a specific college as well as remembering that this is not my college education we are talking about, although I will be sinking a lot of money into it…

Vengeance

2011-09-18T18:47:00.001-04:00

Remember that light-hearted post I was promising?

I don't often talk about my husband here, but he is, of course, the love of my life. He's go a penchant for god-awful Hawaiian shirts. It started as a joke, but I think that now he actually feels fondness for their hideousness.

I have been known to hold a grudge. In 9th grade we read The Scarlet Letter. I hated it mainly because I hated the characters. At that age I had very little tolerance for the idea that different times had different values. At 14 I was sure that I understood sexual freedom and hated prudes... based on theory and reading of course.

I realize the silliness in retrospect, but still, I just can't seem to find an sympathy for Puritans.

The connection? Puritan brand Hawaiian shirts and Hester, Dimsdale, Chillingsworth and all the rest, turning in their graves.

It makes me smile every time I do laundry.

Perspective

2011-09-12T20:39:00.001-04:00

So here's the post that has been knocking around in my head ever since I read a comment with this link on a blog that I had resolved never to read again.

What do you know about school choice in Baltimore? How can you say with such certainty that children that are assigned to a school that is failing, in so many senses of the word, are not better off at an alternative school? Because of some sort of vague national surveys? Because you've never set foot in Baltimore? Because you've never talked to anyone with actual first hand experience in a charter school in Baltimore?

I hate to use the term, but it seems to me that you are an outside agitator. Your goals have nothing to do with improving educational outcomes in Baltimore and everything to do with political correctness. If you can make your point by storing up anger and tearing apart unity, that's fine.

The pundits on the national education scene have no interest in msk's challenges in finding a school that valued him and his special needs. School choice means privatization to them, regardless of the fact that a charter school may have been started by teachers looking for freedom in developing an educational philosophy. No, it's all about corporations taking over our excellent public school system and trying to make a buck. But Baltimore's schools didn't strike me as excellent and big changes, even though I know they are painful, have made very positive changes in msk's education.

I realize we all have different perspectives - teachers, students, administrators and parents. We have to actually listen to those first hand experiences and value them, as opposed to dismissing things that don't fit into your grand theory.

Venting is over. Sorry. Next post will be light-hearted, I promise.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Time to make some changes

2011-08-01T08:33:00.003-04:00

I’ve been finding the time that I spend writing on the web a lot more frustrating than it is satisfying lately. At the same time what I’ve written, and the reactions to it, seems to be taking up more and more of my energy. I’m not talking about what I post on this blog – clearly I haven’t been spending much time here. I’m talking about Ed forums where I’ve been commenting on other people’s posts, primarily Inside Ed.

This feeling reminded me of a friend’s conversation with his dad when he reached the age where mind altering substances were becoming a significant part of his life. His dad explained that drinking and the like were a normal phase of life, but that you need to remember that you’re doing these things because you want to and you enjoy the sensation (if not the next day’s hangover). The important thing, he said, was that if you no longer enjoyed the experience, if you felt compelled to partake, that you stand back and change your ways.

Obsessively reading, checking and mulling over Ed issues no longer brings me joy. I’m resolved to make a change. I will not be commenting any more. I’m going to try to limit checking on blogs to a reasonable level. I haven’t posted too much about general Ed issues on this blog, but I’m going to switch the tone to be more personal and less political.

This is a more than little hard for me. I feel like the 13 or so years I’ve been a parent in City Schools, and the wide varieties of things I’ve seen at different schools and as the parent of a special needs child, have given me a pretty strong base to talk about schools and the changes that are going on. That might be true in some settings, but on the boards, judging from the reactions of other commenters, I don’t think that my opinion has swayed a single reader. I’m not complaining, I’m just stating what seems like a plain fact to me.

I’m not saying I won’t be posting here anymore; in fact I plan to post more often. This is going to be a year of transition in our household as my eldest starts applying to colleges and making that big choice. I think I should be spending my on-line times searching out information to help her make the best choices possible. I plan on sharing what I find here, which I think that should be the source of some pretty good blog topics.

In addition, msk is getting close to high school and I think, realistically, that there will be some big issues about placements and life planning going on as that gets closer. It's a hard topic - planning for a transistion to adulthood and independant (or as independant as possible) living. That should be some pretty gripping posts - it's hard just to through down these few preview sentances.

So there you have it - changing and growing... fun times indeed!

End of an era

2011-07-12T17:21:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've ever written about popular culture before, but this is different. Harry Potter started at a scholastic school book sale for us about ten years ago, so it starts with a school tie-in.

I plunked down the cash for the first two books of the series (all there were at the time) and brought them home. I knew my 7/8 year old could read the books, but they were too much for the 6 year old. Besides, it had been a while since I had read books aloud to them. At this point they were enjoying reading series of smaller books voraciously and on their own.

So, that night, I started by reading a chapter (or two) to them. Then it became something we had to do, every night. I didn't realize the committment I was making at that point. It turned out to be seven books. And each one got longer and darker. But the tradition was set.

As time went on they were more than capable of reading the books themselves, and they did read them on their own, but the first read was always me, out loud.

Not much later we started another tradition. We watch all the movies at the Senator. This Friday at 9:45 we have tickets for the last movie.

Across the years the little girls have turned to teens almost ready for college. My hair has turned grey and I now wear bi-focals to read.

It's hard not to get a little choked up at the end of such long term commitments. I did when I finished reading the last book. I probably will at the end of the last movie.

Maybe not all bad...

2011-07-06T20:24:00.005-04:00

It doesn't take a lot of surfing around the web to find hatred of "high stakes testing" - look at some of the comments here or poke around here or here. I admit to being fairly ambivalent over the time period when my "neuro-typical" kids were taking MSAs (or whatever they were called over the years). It seemed like a big chunk of time pulled away from standard learning and I really hated the simple minded writing strategies they were learning. On the other hand my kids love a test and it was kind of nice to have evidence of "advanced" standing when a not-too-talented teacher tried to say poor performance was based on a kid's intelligence as opposed to the constant bullying that was going on.... but that's another story for a different post. It was also nice to have an objective data point when looking at schools and I enjoyed working the graphs and analysis tools they had on the state website.

The other day I got msk's first MSA (of the alt variety) report. It puts all this discussion in a totally different light. When you have a significantly disabled kid, education is always a source of contention. I've read more than a few articles decrying the "waste" of money that is required to educate "those" kids. Before IDEA you were pretty well screwed. Now, there are legal obligations, but if you don't fight, fight, fight for your kid... well, bad things have been known to happen.

But we fight, and negotiate, and politic, and work real hard, and pick the right school... and good things happen. We live in a society were verbal skills are seen to equal intelligence. Msk doesn't do well in that light, having very limited verbal abilities. Now though, I can point to his MSA math score as being on the border between "proficient" and "advanced". Admittedly his reading was in the basic level, but I'd argue that might be related to test-taking motivation/anxiety and having a not too thrilling year in English.

This from a kid that spent two years in a school that was all about behavior and totally not about academics. From a kid that spent two years after that doing mod-MSAs because of the level of his disability. He's worked so hard for these results and he makes me very proud.

Retour d'un voyage en toute sécurité *

2011-07-03T14:27:00.007-04:00

So, day before yesterday, we returned home. I'm a worrier, but I think all my worries were unfounded:

msk might have stressed a little, but he made it through the week unscathed
even though my husband and I have had little time together as a couple we do have things to talk about and share a common sense of what is enjoyable to do on an adult vacation
French engineers (at least the ones I met) are more interested in getting things to work than making me prove my "Subject Matter Expert" standing
I can enjoy myself thoroughly without worrying about what's happening at home with just a few skype contacts

I'm sure there more posts I can make from this experience, but right now I'll just post this to let you know we're all OK.

* My French is horrendous, but babblefish tells me this is how you say "return from a safe journey"

Really???

2011-06-22T08:38:00.003-04:00

So have you ever read something on the web that just riles you up so you slam out a rebuttal comment (or two). But even after you say whatever, this is bs and I'm not thinking about it anymore, you just keep on fuming and posting and fuming?

That's what happened to me yesterday over here. After posting 4 times and really not getting my point across as far as I can tell, I'm resolved not to say anything more. But I'm still fuming, so I think I'll post on my own blog.

Here's the quote that was posted, in case you didn't follow the link above. It's from Diane Ravitch's Book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education":

“Do we need neighborhood public schools? I believe we do. The neighborhood school is a place where parents meet to share concerns about their children and the place where they learn the practice of democracy. They create a sense of community among strangers. As we lose neighborhood schools, we lose the one local institution where people congregate and mobilize to solve local problems, where individuals learn to speak up and debate and engage in democratic give-and-take with their neighbors. For more than a century, they have been an essential element of our democratic institutions. We abandon them at our peril.

Business leaders like the idea of turning the schools into a marketplace where the consumer is king. But the problem with the marketplace is that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.”

Look, I'm all for stronger neighborhoods and better schools. I think a sense of community with everyone is totally critical to raising kids. And by everyone I mean the kids that are "at risk" with sucky parents as well as the super-smart nerds with overly driven parents. That's one of the issues I have with homeschooling. We might not be in our neighborhood school, but economic and social diversity is real in every City School my kids have gone to. Way more than if we had moved to Timonium to solve our school problems with our zoned school.

But really, what planet is this woman from? She's supposed to be an expert in urban schools and she's thinking about democracy in broken neighborhoods, to say nothing of broken schools? There's no democracy in a place where people are afraid to talk to the police even after they see a kid abused by their parents or shot by a rival gang.

There are some neighborhoods in Baltimore where her prattle rings true (I'm thinking Roland Park and Mt. Washington), but those schools are in fine shape so choice and zoning aren't the issue there. Really, the vast majority of kids in Baltimore need an escape from the same-old-same-old of the established social order of their streets, which just carries on in failing neighborhood schools. Democracy? This stratifying social order is more like bondage as far as I can tell.

But really, there's just one sentence from this quote that I want to scream at, and yell at ,and banish from existence - "Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child." Really? Parents shouldn't be burdened by the responsibility their kids force on them? Really? That's the whole big deal about being a parent. All of the sudden you need to become responsible. Do some parents fail? Yes; almost all to some degree and it's tragic, but you are responsible. The state can support you, the schools can help you, your community can pitch in, but kids are a burden (and a joy) that you have to handle. Look into schools, figure out who their friends are, make rules that they hate, go to PTA and teacher conferences. It's what makes you a parent.

I'm shaking my head in disgust. This is the expert that fights to save our schools. Really? Baltimore is making progress and these platitudes make people who have no experience in the reality of City Schools think they know the real answer. Really? Please.

Special Hockey International Tournament

2011-06-20T19:12:00.007-04:00

So I promised a post about this Spring's hockey tournament when we got back. Clearly, I'm running a little late, but at least this post came before summer.

Msk and I went to Boston for the Special Hockey tournament. Two years ago we went to Buffalo for a tournament, but this year was very different.

Two years ago I was tying to will msk to not skate into the net. I was hoping he could pull his attention away from the count-down timer. He skated fine, but comprehension of the point of the game was very low. Not that I'm complaining - I was thrilled, if a little nervous, that he was participating.

This year, along with a growth spurt, msk seems to finally want to get praise. This might seem like a strange concept to some, but compliments in the past have never been a motivator for him. You wouldn't believe how hard this makes it to encourage (or discourage) behaviors. Up to now it's all been about what msk wanted to do by himself, for himself. But this year he scored two goals and after getting praised he repeated to himself "I'm a good hockey player." It's the kind of moment that chokes me up even months later.

Then, add in the freeing feeling of being with people who were happy to cut msk some slack if he melted down or couldn't stand still waiting in line. No angry glares when he threw his hockey bag down the stairs. You get used to the stares to the point that you forget what it feels like to just relax. And everybody cheers for everybody, because even the simplest task is someone's major milestone. So many smiles.

He grows more mature and I grow more accepting. It was really a quite wonderful five days.

Far, far away

2011-06-15T23:36:00.001-04:00

So, it's been 17 years since hubby and I have spent a night together without one or more of our kids under the same roof. Yes, that's the age of the oldest. In a week we'll be breaking that streak. I've got a business trip abroad and instead of turning them down we're working on a plan to leave the kids in Bmore and use the passports for 8 days.

Can I say I am nervous beyond belief? Msk has never spent a night away from at least one parent. The autism waiver is making this possible. We have respite hours and the behavioralist that works with msk is going to help us out. But still... I worry.

But opportunities like this come around... well really, hardly ever. And I want my job to think of me as a "team player" - single income families need to stay employed. And hubby needs a total break.

So I try to get these boxes to cooperate and hubby looks into sights, restaurants and music venues, and both of us work on saying merci.

And I try not to worry.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T21:42:00.001-04:00

So what is it to be a mother this year? Is it dealing with a boy who has feet the same size as mine and who's suddenly changing voice sounds like a stranger?

Is it having a kid who is within spitting distance of college, but still seems like that toddler that was constantly getting into stuff?

Is it having a mother who is 88 years old, who can still make me feel like a teen when I'm almost 50 years old?

Is it the chaos of a night out at the BSO and scouts and D&D and hockey and laundry and groceries and family and an SAT and house cleaning and crazy neighbors and so much you can't keep track?

Guess so... at least that's what it is for me :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Goal!!!

2011-05-04T21:59:00.001-04:00

I need to take the time to write a post about the Special Hockey International Tournament that msk and I went to, but for now I just want to share a picture.

When is Spring Break not a break?

2011-04-24T20:02:00.002-04:00

Somehow, this spring break has been totally not a break this year. On the agenda:

Projects for both high school students

Frantic AP cramming, at least for the Junior

Visiting colleges with the Junior, both local and one about 3 hours away, that with traffic took 8 hours back and forth and then 5 hours touring...very long day

Too much work and not enough vacation time for me to take more than a day or two off

So, tomorrow I go back to work and along with not going any place (besides the previously mentioned college) I haven't done any spring cleaning and I haven't figured out the summer plans for either my special needs kid or my soon to be high school senior.

Blah!

The pain of "high functioning" terminology

2011-03-09T09:34:00.003-05:00

Every time I read something about "high functioning" I cringe. Autism really is a spectrum and I don't think it makes sense to come up with some arbitrary dividing line. What exactly does high functioning mean? If we're talking about verbal and non-verbal and limited words let’s say that. If we’re talking about kids that are in inclusive education (with or without an aide) or separate classrooms or in a separate school, let’s say that. If we're talking academic achievement or whatever, let's just say it directly.

My son has very limited verbal abilities. He reads and does math very well. He goes to a mainstream school in a regular classroom with a one-on-one aide. He gets some academics in a special education classroom. He receives a lot of support through Maryland's Autism Waiver because he (easily) meets the definition of institutional level of disability (more definition here). I refuse to label him as "low functioning" but I will say he is significantly affected by autism.

I don't want to sound cranky, I just feel like every mention of "high functioning" is exclusionary and pushes the autism community apart.

This post is pretty much a copy of a comment I made on this post on "Life Is A Spectrum". The image above show's msk's hands. If you ask me what autism looks like, one answer is the way you hold your hands. I love the way msk holds his hands, by the way.

Spread the Word

2011-03-02T15:13:00.005-05:00

So today's the day. The day to take the pledge to stop using the R-word. I try not to act like I know how msk feels if he doesn't tell me (verbally or non-verbally) how he feels. Because of that I'm not going to tell you he feels belittled or demeaned when a classmate refers to him as a "retard" or the special ed class as the "retard class". I can tell you that this happens too often and it makes me question the success of inclusion.

Then I remember the way kids in msk's class last year stood up for him when other kids were picking on him. I remember how deeply they came to know him and respect him. It may be hard, but minds and hearts are being changed and the r-word turns to respect... little by little.

I took the pledge. I hope you will too.

Complexities

2011-02-28T08:32:00.004-05:00

It seems like people are very happy to generalize about “good parents” and “bad parents”, but in my experience it’s quite a bit murkier. So here’s a replay of the past weekend’s situation and if anyone wants to comment, they can tell me if my actions qualify me for the good or bad tag. Honestly, beyond saying that I tried, I’ve got no idea.

So yesterday marked the first kid birthday of the year as HSS@14 became HSS@15. This is the year where I will be living with three teenagers, although I’m not there yet. I had asked the birthday child a week and a half ago if she wanted to do something for her birthday. I know some friends from years past, but as I’m never really sure about the complexities of teenage friendships, I didn’t make any suggestions. I got a mumbled “I don’t know” for an answer. I decided that since I didn’t really want the complexity of figuring it out, I wouldn’t push the issue. I’m guessing this is a point in the bad parent column.

Thursday evening HSS@14 asked if she could go to a sleep over at a friend’s house. I knew this would add complexity to our already complicated weekend, but it seemed like the least I could do to acknowledge her birthday. I went over what would be happening that weekend with her – sleep over, an all afternoon Girl Scout event, Sunday’s church (I may be an atheist, but if she wants to go to church I support her), birthday dinner with the family… there wasn’t too much time to get her homework done, but she assured me she didn’t have too much to do.

I didn't see her after I left for work Friday morning until I picked her up around noon on Saturday. After a very hectic Saturday afternoon of Scout activities, she was playing some sort of Sims game on the Wii Saturday evening. I gently said something about homework, but I didn’t want to push the issue. I had hoped that she got started Saturday evening, but I think that after playing on the Wii she spent too many hours on-line writing/reading fan fiction. Honestly, I needed an evening break on Saturday and after falling asleep in front of the TV I went to bed early without tromping up to the attic to see what was going on. Another mark in the bad parent column.

Sunday morning was not the best with sleep deprivation leading to tears when some computer/technology issues were brought up (falling asleep on the netbook without plugging it in to charge is a battery killer). It was a birthday so I worked to smooth over the issue and get homework started on Sunday around 1 or so. Good parent points, maybe?

I checked that homework was in progress fairly often without hovering over her shoulder Sunday afternoon. After her family birthday dinner & cake, I was assured there wasn’t too much homework left to finish up. I was attempting to get laundry done before the start of the week, so I left it at that. I re-iterated that I needed to go over the homework assignments before bed. I knew she was running late, but it felt heartless to get into one of those discussions on her birthday. By the time I was ready for bed all lights were off in the attic and it seemed wrong to wake a sleep deprived birthday girl to check on homework status.

I decided that I would wake her early on Monday, which I did. Even with an extra 15minutes she was late coming down with her backpack. She couldn’t find her homework assignment sheet. She assured me she had all her homework done. I couldn’t check it versus her assignments, so I don’t really know. I made sure her new assignment sheet for the day was in her folder along with her homework. I spoke fairly sternly about how we keep repeating the same homework disaster. I stopped before she started to cry – doesn’t take much for HSS@15 to cry, I’m telling you.

Good parent, bad parent, what should I do differently, when should I let personal responsibility for a 15 year old kick in? I’m at a loss, so maybe you can tell me.

Saturday Night's Alright...

2011-02-20T20:48:00.003-05:00

So I knew I had booked Saturday kind of full, but really, what choice do you have? Msk is a man of routines, so Saturday morning means practice with his Special Hockey team - the Baltimore Saints. This Saturday was the last Saturday in the build season of First Robotics season, so the high school students, me, and probably hubbie needed to spend some time in the robotics lab in said high school. Roller skating is an every Saturday routine for msk and behavior-dude. I had gotten tickets for a hockey fundraising game in the evening. Msk would play a single period, then he and I and msk's behavioralist (b-d) and b-d's significant other and her autistic client would watch a Hockey 4 Hope game between Caps alumni and police/firemen.

It was a packed day. I had not slept too well in anticipation, but reality was different.

I dropped the HSS (high school students) off at 9:00 and waited for the coach to open the door. Then it was off to hockey practice. The goal for the day was to avoid skating into the net during practice. Msk is totally drawn into enclosed spaces. A hockey goal and dog's crates seem to suck him in. We had worked out a plan where he could go in before and after practice, but not during practice. This seemed to work pretty well, with him shooting lots of goals and avoiding skating into the net - much to the goalies' relief. Unfortunately, after a correction (msk has a hard time with corrections) he skated into the goal two times. Still, he did a lot better than last week.

Next stop was picking up b-d and dropping him and msk off at the roller skating rink. Because of the evening's hockey game they were going to have to cut an hour off of roller skating. Unfortunately, this meant missing the birthday song routine (there are always lots of birthday parties on Saturday afternoon at this rink). Msk started getting upset, but I knew that b-d would handle it better than I could so I headed back to the robotics lab.

The stress was turning up at robotics, and I tried to figure out what I could do to help out after I had checked in with my HSS. Not long after I got a call from the Baltimore County police. My pulse started racing. "Can you describe your son?" I started to flip out with worry. Eventually I found out that someone had decided to call the police because msk was upset.

One of the joys of having a significantly autistic kid is that everybody seems to notice his behaviors and come up with a story that matches their judgement. With me, it's usually a matter of "why don't you discipline that child?" With b-d, who is a 6'3" African American male, the question turns into "Why are you kidnapping that cute little white boy?" My husband has put up with the sexism that says men shouldn't be around children - he's a stay at home dad. Add to that the whole racism of our society...

Anyway, b-d was pretty upset and my heart was still racing from images of msk getting hurt. Luckily, msk had calmed down by the time the cops got there and he didn't flip out. I felt pretty bad, but figured the day would get better.

The robot had other ideas. A shaft connection cracked and motors were overheating. It started to seem a lot like the stress of work with hard deadlines looming. It was getting towards the time I needed to leave so I called my husband. I explained that I was leaving our daughters and that he should plan on coming to help out as well as pick them up.

I quickly drove from the high school to the roller rink. Msk was fine (he had listened to the you tube of the birthday song). B-d was pretty bummed. A mixture of anger over racism and defensiveness towards msk's right to be upset if he is upset. We drove home to meet-up with b-d's significant other and her client to drive to the evening's hockey game. A little venting and listening to a Gil Scott Heron CD and everybody seemed to be ok.

We started driving to Laurel. The wind was fierce and I noticed some strange clouds after we drove through the Harbor Tunnel. After a while the traffic got weird and turned into stop and go. We were early so I didn't think much of it. Even when they forced us off I-95 I figured even if we were a little late everyone else would be too.

A car with two autistic young men could be a disaster, but with two behaviorists, an iPad and an iPod touch, we did fine. We eventually got to the road that the ice rink was on (phones with GPS are great!) only to be told the rink was closed.

We found a nearby Outback and had a uniquely autistic dinner. Not long after getting home husband arrived with the HSS. The robot was still being difficult, but better.

A long, strange day was over. I'm not sure if there's any point to this post. Sorry, guess I'm just rambling.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Getting parents to come to school

2011-02-14T15:24:00.006-05:00

In the course of sending three kids to 7 different schools, I’ve seen a lot of different results as far as parental involvement goes. If you have a high income school, where a lot of parents have the kind of job where leaving early is an option (i.e. professionals or stay-at-home parents), you will see a lot of highly involved parents, successful fundraising and annoyingly tedious meetings because everybody wants to share their highly informed opinions. If, on the other hand, you have a more diverse parent body and you are looking for ways to draw in parents, there are many things that work.

Things to do to get parents involved in your school that I have actually seem to work in practice:

Have meetings that are very focused on one issue and only expect the parents who are working on that issue to come
Let parents make appointments for conferences and let them actually talk to someone to figure out a solution for logistical problems
Provide child care that the kids involved actually see as fun
Give sincere thanks to parents who come and explain why their participation is so valuable
Let parents keep track of the time that they are volunteering at a school and at the end of the year give prizes for the top families
Have agendas and time tables that are followed and meet with parents after the meeting if they have things they want to talk about that won’t allow following of the agenda
Understand that different parents have different commitments and acknowledge their time contributions in terms of effort, not absolute hours or meeting attended
Get kids involved in why this meeting or this fundraiser or this progress report is important and let them lobby their parents to attend. A report card conference where a kid is eager to show-off a folder of work is very hard for a loving parent to refuse
Come to terms with the fact that you will not be able to get some parents involved, for whatever reason. Put a little extra effort into supporting these kids so they know that someone is valuing their work and is concerned about how they are doing

Things you can do to drive away parents:

Get defensive whenever a parent asks why an administrative decision was made
Never have decision makers (i.e. upper administrators) come to meetings where parents are voicing their opinions or asking questions
Always hold meetings at the same time and on the same day
Administer harsh and out-of-the-blue punishments on kids that have no basis in published rules or what has been done in the past
Start assemblies with yelling at the audience for not being quiet while they have waited for a performance to start for many long minutes
Have teachers talk to parents exactly the same way that they talk to their students, i.e. threatening and lecturing as opposed to seeing them as partners

(Let it !snow)Please

2011-02-04T13:31:00.005-05:00

I know snow days are supposed to bring shouts of joy from kids. I remember that feeling of a burden lifted and a totally free day when I was in school. Maybe sledding, maybe a book, maybe TV. It was blissful.

These days when I hear about storms approaching I am filled with dread. Msk begs, pleads, cries for a little structure and order to his life... and what do I have to tell him? There might not be school tomorrow. It breaks my heart.

Last week was especially hard. It started with two days off for teacher training after an early release Friday. We had no plans - I had to go to work - so for msk this meant some computer and backyard time. As much as he likes the the computer time this change in routine worried him. Anxiety led to a level of grumpiness and tension.

We knew that there was a chance of a snow day on Wednesday so we prepped on Tuesday night at bedtime. "There might not be snow tomorrow." "If mom doesn't wake you up it's because there's no school." "You can look out your window in the morning - if it's too snowy there won't be school."

No school Wednesday and we repeated the discussion Wednesday night and Thursday night. There was no, zero, none, zilch school days last week. Lots of stress and outburst, but no school. Even the usual joyful weekend activities - hockey, roller-skating with the beloved Behavior Dude, Sunday's grocery shopping trip - none of these really brought joy. There was a manic tinge to msk's attitude through it all. B-D said, "He seems like another kid."

Sunday night we knew there would be school on Monday. The rest of the week was questionable, but we knew msk would go to school the next day.

I explained that to him and said, "I know there will be school tomorrow and I will wake you up and give you your uniform to get dressed." It was a way for me to say, you've made it through this stress and everything will be back to normal tomorrow. That made him start crying uncontrollably. Clearly he was too worried and too uncertain to trust anything that I said. My reassurance only reminded him that the world has no order and no reason. Never let down your guard because you can't trust anything or anyone.

His tears broke my heart that night.

Reprieve

2011-01-28T10:59:00.003-05:00

Thirty-six hours of house time is enough. I enlist the boy and the dog to accompany me for a walk in the park. With various amounts of bundling we make it through the front door to find... It's snowing? Again? No one minds and we continue. The boy running full-out on the trail left by a toboggan, the dog skittering on top of the snow or hunting for foot prints to follow, and me looking for the secure footing of untouched snow. I'd be mortified if I fell or twisted my ankle.

The snow is heavily plastered on the sides of all the trees. Wednesday night was quite a pounding for Baltimore. As we snake down to the path through the park I see imprints from ski poles and the narrow skid marks of cross-country skis. I'm impressed by these people's energy. Over-weight, and recovering from a nasty head cold, I find myself out of breath as I break through the heavy snow, step after step.

Throughly enjoying himself, the boy uses my knee as a boost to get up to the top of the pump house and immediately lays down in the deep untouched snow on its roof. I'm guessing that the firm pressure of laying in this heavy snow fills a "sensory need". Was it my own "sensory need" that drove me to lead the three of us on this walk?

Thirty minutes later we're back in the house for just a second. Then it's a trip to the back yard as he continues playing and I type.

Blahhhh!!!!!

2011-01-20T18:37:00.005-05:00

So, does anyone think it's a coincidence that just about the time when their acne peaks, just about all the other cute is stripped from your child, I mean young adult? I have a working theory that it's part of nature's plan to make it easier to kick them out of the family cave. Sadly, as a parent in the modern era, you've still got a lot more years of living with them when they hit 14.

I wrote a post earlier this school year about the frustrations of dealing with high school student # 2 at 14. There has been massive amounts of energy sunk into meetings and plans and procedures. We've had some ups and downs and I will admit to having some frustration with teachers and the school as well, but for this post I'm focusing on HSS#2@14. Her disorganization is epic. Couple that with a kid who got got a 660 on her math SAT in 8th grade and maybe you can get a taste of my frustration. Way too smart and way too clueless at the same time. So as this teetering edifice of support starts to fall apart, what does she do? Bold-faced lies about status and forged initials on daily sheets. I really can't see how this "plan" played out in her mind. The only successful conclusion I could think of involved magically making events change and I'm pretty sure HSS#2@14 doesn't believe in magic.

Rationally, I know that planning and consequences aren't strengths of the teenage brain, but this mess was not that big of a puzzle. Repeated, in various forms, multiple time. Much screaming and crying and gnashing of teeth ensued. I'm still frustrated, and honestly I don't think anything that I can do will cause a change. Whatever.

Often, when people learn about the level of disability that msk has, they think that I must be frustrated with him and what he can't do. At this moment, msk is not my frustration. He is the definition of sweet and honest. I don't think he has the ability to come up with a complicated lie because of the way he's wired. He can get frustrated and lash out with a kick, and he does push at boundaries. He is a 12 year old. When I worry about HSS#2@14's future, I wonder about colleges and careers. With msk I wonder about independent living and support systems. The common thing is that I worry about all my kids.

Msk's presence makes me happy and spending time with him is a joy. Right about now, I would trade HSS#2@14 for a decent cup of coffee.

Demarcation line

2011-01-14T13:44:00.001-05:00

So, prompted by a comment a few days ago, I'm going to try to get back on the horse. Posts have been few and far between, and I really haven't felt like I have a blog anymore.

I've got one main excuse - changes to my work life. I don't usually post about work, and I'm not going to start, but I don't think an explanation of these changes are out of line. My job, company and position have stayed the same, but my commute has gone from a relaxed 15-20 min each way, to a stressful 45 min, adding about an hour to my work day. In combination, my 8.5+ hr work time has gone to 9.5+ hrs. This means my work time budget has gone up more than 20% and my work/non-work time ratio is down nearly 20%.

Add to that the stress of change. As my marital situation, kids, home address, schools, IEP knowledge... have all radically changed, my job has not. I have spent more than 25 years driving to the same place and generally doing the same thing. Busting out of that rut has been very hard.

Despite the time/energy issue, I do like blogging. I certainly have a lot I'd like to write about. What I need to do is find a way to make these posts a little easier to get done. Here's my plan: I'm going to try to have shorter posts and I think I'll branch out a little from strictly school related issues. I'm going to post a minimum of once a week.

It's a plan!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Two visions, one kid

2010-12-12T21:41:00.007-05:00

Sometimes being a special needs parent can make you shake your head.

Last week was our first IEP meeting at msk's new school. This is not a post about a bad IEP meeting. It went very well. There seems to be a plan in place to get to the mod MSA (we were doing an Alt MSA for the last 2 years), classes are generally going well and I now understand how special education services are working. Lots of positive stories were shared and I'm feeling pretty good about our middle school choice.

After the meeting, one of the team members asked to have a little private discussion with my husband and I. There was a lot of hemming and hawing. Eventually she explained that she was concerned that msk was only doing well with lots of support and accommodations. What was going to happen when he aged out of school and all that support? Maybe msk should be in the life skills class. Not because of an intellectual disability - everyone agrees he's very intelligent. The problem is, will he ever be able to live on his own? She was worried that he would spend his adult life trapped in our house or worse yet, in an institution. I explained how the autism waiver was providing services outside of school to work on going out in the community and general survival skills. I explained that we really want to be on the diploma track. I didn't get defensive or anything, but clearly her vision of msk's long term potential was pretty low, and she's trained in the field.

The very next day msk's behavioralist, b-d, pulled me aside. He wanted to tell me how happy he was with the progress msk has made in the six months since he started working with him. Slow, incremental improvements, but on track for meeting his goals. He said what a sweet kid msk was and how much he enjoyed working with him. Then he explained that he was a little sad about this progress, because it indicated that msk wouldn't be on the autism waiver eventually. In other words, he wouldn't be disabled enough anymore. In the long term msk is going to be living independently. I didn't argue, but honestly I have a hard time seeing it. This is a kid who can't tell you what happened today at school; who can't consistently answer any questions, much less hold a conversation. He's going to be able to get a job, pay bills and live on his own? That's hard to visualize for me.

Two experts with totally different visions. I've got no idea how to plan for his future, or my own for that matter.

Therapy

2010-11-22T00:44:00.003-05:00

Therapy is in order after way too much stress with kids and work of late. I've decided knitting (and patting my dog) is the best therapy. To the left a wrist warmer using my newly acquired cable knitting skill. I like the symmetry of patterns and the fact that I have to concentrate or it gets screwed up.

I hope to be back to posting again soon. Eventually I might be able to post about the kid based stress. Maybe a little more knitting first...

October kills me

2010-10-22T11:59:00.005-04:00

After reading this post over on Epiphany in Baltimore I thought I'd chime in with my own story of being overwhelmed.

Here without comment and no edits is my Google calendar for the next two days:

Today (Fri, Oct 22)
5:15pm
D&D club pickup
4:35pm
Kk's sleepover drop off
7:00pm
Monk dinner/sleep over drop off
Tomorrow (Sat, Oct 23)
2:00pm
Kk's sleepover pickup
9:00am
Monk dinner/sleep over pickup
8:30am
U’s field trip to DC (start)
8:45am
Hockey practice - R (start)
1:00pm
Cookie Depot (start)
5:00pm
Pick up cookie orders (start)
7:00pm
U’s field trip to DC (end)

Well...maybe one small comment. There's a "can't miss" deadline at work looming ominously. I won't go into what that means beyond hours are longer and stress is way turned up

image of stress fracture

Cautious optimism

2010-10-01T16:41:00.003-04:00

So, I think - I hope - msk has found a place to spend his middle school years. I haven't wanted to jump to any conclusions. And I know that there's going to be some tough times over those three years. But, I'm starting to relax, at least a little bit.

It's hard to not be apprehensive, because this is such a big transition. Middle schools are huge - they've only got three grades, but this school is twice as big as the elementary school he was in last year. Twice as big with only half as many grades, so that means four times as many kids per grade. And this age - adolescence and puberty - it's pretty super charged. I've noticed it with msk. There are no more breaks for the slightly odd-seeming child. He's a youth now. There are a lot more disapproving glances. And his new classmates? They're just not all that cuddly; they can even be a little scary if you don't look too close.

More than a few people with special needs kids have moved them out of an inclusion setting at middle school. There were stories of teasing and unhappiness and separate classes that had no meaningful interactions with "mainstream" classes. I’ve heard of fights and lawyers and non-public placements or homeschooling. Those are directions that really aren't too good for msk. Scary stuff.

But after meeting with msk's teachers I know the feeling of this new school is welcoming. Msk is included into the shifting grouping of about 125 sixth graders. He gets some special education pull-out services to help him achieve some academic goals, but mainly he's included. The teachers are very positive. They're open to trying to do things a little differently. They already see a positive impact on his classmates - they're learning about being open-minded. His classmates are always saying hi and including him, even though eye contact and responses from him are pretty limited. They've reached out and given him a chance and they seem to genuinely like him.

It feels great to just take a short break from the worrying.

Of course there's always room to worry about the 14 and 16 year old girls that live in my house... no need looking for trouble, I guess.

Butterflies in my stomach

2010-09-29T20:03:00.004-04:00

I'm girding my loins tonight with mojitos - tomorrow is our first IEP meeting at msk's new school. I realize that's an incongruous metaphor, but it's the phrase that comes to mind. I must make myself strong, not for war, but to successfully advocate. I know that msk deserves the best education that we can carve out for him, but it takes a little coaxing to bring out the best a school and a group of teachers have to offer. I need them to see things from our perspective as we try to channel msk's needs. I know, I hope, I feel, that everyone wants to support him, but it's my job to share what I know about him and what has and hasn't worked in the past.

The task will stretch me, but that's good - I want to grow. But the night before, it scares me. I worry over small details. Should I bring lunch for everybody, or a snack? Will I go back to work after the meeting? Really, though, I'm just waiting. It's such an important task - to speak up for a kid who needs so much, but is worth every effort. It's painful, but I want to hear about all of the problems he's having in school, and jump in with supports and hints.

I'm chewing my nails as I have another drink.

10/30 Update - YAY!!! Doing the happy dance now!

Don't hold back; tell me how you really feel.

2010-09-26T14:03:00.002-04:00

So, I blasted off a response to a comment blaming all education problems on ineffective teachers. That comment was in response to this article from the Baltimore Sun:

I won't disagree that ineffective teachers are a problem, but in my experience over 8 schools and 11 years with my three kids (yes we've had to switch schools several times for various reasons), the bigger problem is incompetent principals. Maybe they aren't so much incompetent, as driven by other factors than providing an excellent education for every student at their school. They reward teachers, not for doing a good job of teaching, but because they don't speak badly about the principal. They shun involved parents because they want to be 100% in charge and never have to justify a decision to anyone. Teachers who make demands or raise hard questions or ask for administrative support are pushed out. Those are usually excellent teachers.

Bad teachers do hurt a classroom of kids for one year. In my experience the biggest issue is inexperience and in the course of a year they get markedly better. Bad principals, on the other hand, affect every classroom for multiple years. Only a very good and strong teacher can be effective with a bad administration. Bad principals hurt vastly more students than bad teachers.

Oh, and in the city there is a union that represents administrators. Plus, with all the political connection they make, they are nearly impossible to fire. How many years have people been fussing about City's principal before he left?

So far, so good.

2010-09-24T12:39:00.005-04:00

So it's the end of the fourth week of school and I think I can talk about my impressions of msk's new school without worrying about jumping to conclusions. Last spring I wrote about my terror of being forced into a new school and pleaded for the extension to 6th grade of msk's elementary school. Alas, it was not to be, and I have tried very hard to judge his new school, his middle school, on its own. No baggage or regrets about what was left behind.

Msk usually does better at the very beginning of the school year (assuming he has his supports in place) because everything is new and challenging and it demands his attention. We followed that pattern with a week or so of very positive reports. We also hit a low point where the reality of "this is where you're going to be for the next nine months" sank in. Boredom, anxiety, lack of focus and some attention seeking behaviors poked through. I'm happy to report that the reactions to these behaviors must have been what he needed, because after 3 or 4 days the bad reports started to be more moderate, and now we're back up to mainly OK days.

I was terrified by the thought of homework after six years homework-free. The first two nights were hellish. I really try to stay positive, but msk was just not into me getting him to do school work after he had made it through the day. Happily our incredible behavior-dude or b-d (provided as Intensive Individual Support by the Autism Waiver) started doing homework with msk. At first, just the relief that I didn't have to work on homework was what I focused on. Then, when there was a school night when msk didn't see b-d, I found out that msk really wanted to do his homework. Talk about a shocking turn of events. My neurotypical kids have never been so motivated to independently do homework.

The level of work that msk is doing, also surprises me. I think putting him in a new school let people reassess his academic capabilities and they found he could do a lot more than we knew. Maybe a transition can be a good thing, even if it's incredibly scary.

So, the start of the year is behind us. Coming up next is a team meeting. I'm nervous, but I look forward to hearing everybody else's assessment of how he's doing. Then it'll be IEP adjustment time. Exciting times!

image - msk & a leap of faith

Changing gears

2010-09-13T19:50:00.004-04:00

For me, the end of summer isn't so much of a demarcation line, as a series of bittersweet occurrences. It leads inexorably from the free, open, comfort of a late summer evening spent in the back yard, to huddled, housebound days of a snow storm or a string of days with highs below freezing.

In chronological order this is how summer grinds to a halt:

The cabin vacation ends and we bring the linens home to be washed
Summer reading is completed and school supplies are purchased
The alarm gets turned on again after a long break and we all rise on schedule
The incessant ritual of daily lunch packing and weekly laundry becomes the norm
Scouts and Girl Scout Cookies sales, along with mandatory training, start
Fans stop being turned on and slowly get put away
The monarch chrysalises appear in the front yard
After weeks of not being used, the pool gets winterized

It's all a natural cycle, and I like trading the whir of fans for the chirp of crickets. Still, it's hard not to feel a little sad at the change of pace.

Another late night

2010-09-13T09:50:00.004-04:00

So this morning, when I got into work, I looked at my feet and saw purple Crocs...These are my ugly/stupid shoes that I wear to walk the dog or take out the trash as the truck is coming or some other non-public event. What the heck am I doing wearing them into an office? The short answer is not enough sleep.

When people think about the trials of parenting and staying up half the night, they picture crying babies. When my kids were babies, they slept. I kept them close at hand, and nursed as required, so no getting out of bed, warming bottles or pacing and singing. I know I was lucky then. Now? Not so lucky.

My sleep stealing demon is homework. And instead of being measured in months of sleep issues, homework issues are years. Really, I see more than 1.5 decades of torture between 3 kids. And the worst are these stinking projects. I think there's a concept that long term projects help kids learn planning and organization. HA! I'm fairly sure the only thing that's being learned is that there are multiple ways to screw up a big project, although all of them are variations on the theme of procrastination.

So here's my attempt at being a "good" "supportive" parent of a kid who has a project:
1. Ask every day how school is going and if there are projects in the works for any classes
2. Once a project is mentioned ask how big it is and how long you've got to accomplish it
3. On the weekend before a project is due ask how much more has to be done over the weekend
4. Throughout the weekend periodically ask for status updates, i.e. "How's that project going?"
5. Help when asked if possible, especially when it comes to printing/scanning/formatting/proof-reading.

So why, with such a reasonable plan, did I end up not getting to sleep until 2:00am with a 6:15 alarm bell? Middle child decided that open, honest communication cramped her style and kept her from having fun. And the more often I asked, the harder it was to admit that she had not started on said project. After repeatedly being told on Sunday evening that, "I'll be done in just a few minutes" (how can you be minutes from being done for more than an hour?), I went and saw that a multi-page project was barely started at 8pm.

That is where an evening of unpleasantness started:
1. "Clearly you can't be trusted to work in your room - come downstairs so I can watch you work."
2. "Did you think I would never figure out you were lying to me?"
3. "Do you think this project, rushed through while you’re crying and sleepy, will be a good reflection of the work that you are capable of?"
4. "Put on headphones, because if I'm going to have to stay up half the night while you do this, I am watching some Netflix that is not kid-appropriate" - Dexter, in case you're curious.
5. "You know there's no way that I am helping you in any aspect of this project, right?"
6. Variations on the above statements with an emphaisis on "What is your plan now?", "What were you thinking?", "How are we going to keep this from happening again?"

So, the project (that I barely looked at, besides to say "Don't you need a date and class number on the cover?") got completed at around 1:00am. I was so spun up from lecturing that I couldn't fall asleep until 2:00am and am now pretty much of a basket case. Plus I kept on asking myself how I had been such a failure of a parent to get into a situation like this. What should I have done differently either short term, or long term?

At this point a crying infant and pacing/singing through the night seems more rewarding.

The perfect comic

2010-09-03T15:40:00.002-04:00

Kind of sums it all up, doesn't it?

Thanks to Baltimore Diary for helping me find a new favorite webcomic.

An honest question

2010-08-27T15:30:00.003-04:00

I'm hoping some of you readers might be able to answer a question for me. Has anyone heard of having an AP class made up of 9th graders? I'm not talking about a few gifted 9th graders taking a class with juniors or seniors. I mean a class of 9th graders taking an AP class.

We didn't have AP classes when I was in high school, so this is pretty new to me. Yes, I know this makes me terribly old, but it is true. Back in those days you got into college based on grades and SAT scores, and high schools were judged on the basis of...I don't know how we judged high schools. I only know "good" colleges recruited at Western and a reasonable number of kids were accepted and graduated from these schools. We had some advanced and high level courses, but the subject matter and curriculum was not based on a test that we would take. My impression (as a student) was that they were based on what teachers felt passionate about. I took "Russian Literature and Existentialism", "The History of Political Thought" and "Analytical Chemistry" in my senior year, if memory serves me. Somehow I survived.

I'm only asking because my understanding of AP classes is that you are doing college level work. I know my kid is smart and all, but I've got my doubts that she, and a whole class of her peers, are really going to do college level work at this point. 9th graders just don't have the practice to quickly spit out thoughtful essays. I'm worried enough about the middle school to high school transition. I know it's got her a bit nervous as well. She said to me, "I'm having second thoughts about this AP class." I responded that as no one had asked her if she wanted to take an AP history class in the first place, (and history is not her favorite or strongest subject) she can have as many thoughts as she wants, but they seem irrelevant.

It's hard not to be suspicious that this class is being driven by the fact that Newsweek says you can judge a high school by the number of AP classes it offers.

On returning home

2010-08-25T00:33:00.000-04:00

I'm no Thoreau - three kids, a dog & cat, plus a husband in tow - but a week plus of solitude away from the net and the phone and the tv seems very enriching. I admit there's a grocery store, so we're not living off the land. And with a ride or hike out of the valley the cell phone will work, but it's not a regular thing. So what fills in the empty places left by the absence of the grid? Well...
1. I can now identify a beech tree and a sycamore tree
2. I've moved paw-paw's from a song lyric to a fruit I can find and eat
3. A really big mushroom book can be overwhelming, but finding and looking at mushrooms, which appear so quickly, is like searching through coral reefs when you dive
4. A long, daily walk, on the same path, reveals a nearly infinite number of different things to look at
5. Even though a stream always moves if you can be still in the movement it is very peaceful

So there you have it - ten days in the woods of Harford County. A liberal in the land of Erlich signs, but I loved it. Peace, what I need five days before the start of a new school year.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Truancy

2010-08-02T10:50:00.003-04:00

So, it looks like the flavor of the month (or more likely the school year) for City Schools is truancy. All problems can be traced to kids not being in school and the root cause there is obviously Bad Parents. Such a simple answer to the incredibly complicated problem of a failing education system.

I've got more than a few issues with this, but let's start with the first that is driving this post. Msk did not miss 175 days of school last year. I don't have a calendar where I wrote them down, but I'm guessing he missed 2 or 3 days. I realize he's changed schools every 2 years for the last 6 years, so he might be a little hard to keep track of, but get your attendance system together before you send me threatening letters - $100 fine per day, the importance of education...blah, blah, blah.

In calling around, it turns out that many of these threatening letters were sent out in error. Makes me distrust the whole accounting process of figuring out truancy and attendance. Perhaps the data driving Dr. A's email "Learning from Our Results" was equally flawed. Hard to feel a lot of confidence in these type of hard data pronconcements.

Beyond my general smoldering anger about being told that I need to start caring about schools, I've got another problem with truancy as the cause of all of the school system's problems. I know there are legitimately chronically truant students, although my son isn't one of them. It's pretty easy to dismiss them all as thugs with parents who don't care. If that were the case there would be a single problem to attack, and it would have very little to do with improving the schools. I can quickly think of three other reasons a kid might not be in school that do have to do with what is happening in our schools:

They are being bullied so mercilessly that they feel cutting school is necessary for survival
The atmosphere in the classroom is negative towards students from the teacher and/or administrator that they can't see any point in attending - they've bought into the pronouncement that they are a lost cause
The school situation is so poor/unsafe/unproductive that a parent keeps them home while working on getting them transfered to another school (I could talk about ESY again...)

Look, I'm not saying that isn't a real issue, but from experience I know what happens when "the problem" gets called out. The kids will have daily announcements on the intercom about not missing school and at least one of my kids will be sure (to the point of tears and depression) she is going to get kicked out of her school/program when she gets sick and misses a day. The principals will flow this top priority down to teachers who will make it even harder to make up work from missed days. I'm guessing attendance will factor stronger into grades and assessments. Wonderful. The reality is that my kids missing a few days for illness or a delayed flight from visiting Grandpa are not the ones bringing down the school system's MSA scores.

Whatever...grrrrr...

Autism Waiver?

2010-07-06T21:18:00.005-04:00

So, one of the things that makes life with msk a bunch easier is Maryland's autism waiver. I feel so lucky that we have this support that I feel I should explain what the program is about.

The basic concept is that it is cheaper (not to mention more humane) for the state to support caregivers of young people (under 21 years old) with autism than it is to pay for institutionalization. So basically the requirement is a diagnosis of autism and a level of disability that meets someone's definition of severe enough. The whole institutionalization strikes me as theoretical given that institutions are closing while the number of people with autism diagnoses is going up. Another requirement is that the waiver recipient be in public schools or have a non-public placement through the public schools.

So what makes the waiver so great is the support that it provides. Your child gets medicare coverage regardless of your income (the income requirement is what is waived for the waiver). Medicare has great coverage of therapies and medical equipment - strangely much better than the coverage of my work's expensive medical insurance. You also get support beyond the school day and the doctor's office. Therapeutic Integration provides a safe and structured after school program for kids that can't attend a typical after school program. Then there's intensive individual support where a behavioralist works one on one with your child. There's adaptation support to make your house autism-proof; locks alarms and the like. Finally there's respite care to give a break and maintain sanity.

What does the autism waiver mean to our family? This summer it has saved our sanity. Msk needs structure and a lot of attention. Last summer ESY provided this. This summer ESY didn't work out - it just wasn't an appropriate or acceptable placement. If it weren't for the waiver it might have been our best option. With the waiver msk is doing worksheets, playing soccer, getting out in the community, and much more. He's missing out on socializing with neurotypical kids, but that'll come with the school year.

Downsides? The biggest is the limited number of seats and the multi-year waiting list. I could also do without the yearly interview to prove that msk is disabled enough to deserve support. Something about sharing all his challenges and limitations seems like a betrayal, not to mention dwelling in the negative is depressing.

All in all, though, it's a lifesaver.

How is this appropriate?

2010-06-22T16:02:00.007-04:00

So after a little investigation I think this is the process for making ESY assignments:

Make a list of all the kids who have ESY as part of their IEP

Figure out a random but relatively close school that's offering ESY

Split the kids randomly into classroom sized groups

Tell the parents at the last possible moment with the least amount of information possible to keep from having to justify or change decisions made by following steps 1,2 and 3 above

Last year I gave up on trying to reason with brick walls. Every question got the same response

How can it be that during the school year inclusion is the proper setting, but during ESY special needs exclusively is appropriate? Talking to three levels of bureaucracy and always "We don't do it that way"

Would be possible for msk to go to a mainstream summer enrichment program with an aide? "We don't do it that way."

By excluding special needs children from summer enrichment programs, aren't you discriminating against them? "We don't do it that way."

When you make an ESY placement, couldn't you consult with the IEP team or at least the ITA? "We don't do it that way."

I had no expectations that ESY would work out. Somehow, it did. I thought everything would fall in place this year. When I asked the same questions there were new answers. Oh, it seems like the mainstream enrichment program would be perfect for him. Last year they wouldn't have provided an aide for him. This year? He would have gotten an aide, but now it's too late

Here's the question I'd like to ask, but given that I already know the answer I won't bother: Why don't you come up with an ESY process that provides differentiated and appropriate education to special needs kids while involving parents and listening to both their concerns and suggestions?

And the answer is... "We don't do it that way"
D'oh!