FINALLY FRIDAY!
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:22 amGOOD MORNING ALL YOU CAMPERS!!
Friday at last! It's been a long week.
I found out, inadvertently, yesterday that our room is about to get yet another student, making our population up to 15 kids now......15 kids with serious disabilites, mostly emotional ones. This kid, a boy who qualifies age-wise, is being sent up from the middle school as all the teachers over there have washed their hands of him and his father is begging the high school to take him over. He is legally blind, and has horrendous hostility and anger problems to begin with. What his intellectual abilities are hasn't even been discussed as yet. We were just beginning to get some of the worst hostility and anger problems in our room smoothed out a teensy bit, and now here comes real trouble for our kids to have to deal with. To top it all off, I wasn't going to be told about this change until he showed up! I overheard a conversation, and found out that way. This is just another occurrence that makes me feel like just a caretaker who doesn't need to be informed of any changes in advance, or included in any discussions or evaluations of our kids. And yet, I am the one who has more hands-on and brain time with many of them than either of the other two in the room, including the head teacher.
If I can't get some perceptural-motor training for one student who can't tell up from down and right from left and clockwise from counterclockwise, he will remain a non-reader for the rest of his life. Telling such a person to 'read carefully the following paragraph' is like asking a blind person to 'look carefully at those cows over there and tell me what they look like.' I was told by the teacher again yesterday that is part of being ADHD-----bullsh&^! Sometimes it might be, but only incidentally. Visual-perception impairment can occur across all gamuts of other disabilities or in totally otherwise 'normal' students. It is a disability all its own----to clump it together with other problems is almost to ignore that it exists so that it doesn't have to be dealt with. It became glaringly obvious to me when that student could NOT put twigs in formations of letters for our signs we made at Christmas time...he could not SEE the configuration of the letters, let alone construct them properly.
Enough of this stress so early in the morning, but I thought of it all night long, and I awoke in a hostile mood myself. I will go online and do some research in help for perceptually visually impaired students, as well as try to find diagnostic tests that will show the extent of the problem.
That horrendous storm south of us is living up to its predictions, so all of you in its way be wary and prepared. Please stay off the roads down there, and check in with us when you are able so we can know you are ok. Coffee is hot and tastes good----Hazlenut with vanilla creamer, if you so choose!
Have a good day, wherever you are, or at least a safe day. It's about 15 above zero here this morning, and comfortable. Happy Friday!
Friday at last! It's been a long week.
I found out, inadvertently, yesterday that our room is about to get yet another student, making our population up to 15 kids now......15 kids with serious disabilites, mostly emotional ones. This kid, a boy who qualifies age-wise, is being sent up from the middle school as all the teachers over there have washed their hands of him and his father is begging the high school to take him over. He is legally blind, and has horrendous hostility and anger problems to begin with. What his intellectual abilities are hasn't even been discussed as yet. We were just beginning to get some of the worst hostility and anger problems in our room smoothed out a teensy bit, and now here comes real trouble for our kids to have to deal with. To top it all off, I wasn't going to be told about this change until he showed up! I overheard a conversation, and found out that way. This is just another occurrence that makes me feel like just a caretaker who doesn't need to be informed of any changes in advance, or included in any discussions or evaluations of our kids. And yet, I am the one who has more hands-on and brain time with many of them than either of the other two in the room, including the head teacher.
If I can't get some perceptural-motor training for one student who can't tell up from down and right from left and clockwise from counterclockwise, he will remain a non-reader for the rest of his life. Telling such a person to 'read carefully the following paragraph' is like asking a blind person to 'look carefully at those cows over there and tell me what they look like.' I was told by the teacher again yesterday that is part of being ADHD-----bullsh&^! Sometimes it might be, but only incidentally. Visual-perception impairment can occur across all gamuts of other disabilities or in totally otherwise 'normal' students. It is a disability all its own----to clump it together with other problems is almost to ignore that it exists so that it doesn't have to be dealt with. It became glaringly obvious to me when that student could NOT put twigs in formations of letters for our signs we made at Christmas time...he could not SEE the configuration of the letters, let alone construct them properly.
Enough of this stress so early in the morning, but I thought of it all night long, and I awoke in a hostile mood myself. I will go online and do some research in help for perceptually visually impaired students, as well as try to find diagnostic tests that will show the extent of the problem.
That horrendous storm south of us is living up to its predictions, so all of you in its way be wary and prepared. Please stay off the roads down there, and check in with us when you are able so we can know you are ok. Coffee is hot and tastes good----Hazlenut with vanilla creamer, if you so choose!
Have a good day, wherever you are, or at least a safe day. It's about 15 above zero here this morning, and comfortable. Happy Friday!
I'm off to a couple of hours of tennis and then cleaning the MH-sure doesn't take as long as when I had that stick house. Enjoying that as long as it lasts. Having our vinyl floor put in on Monday, if all goes as plans. The carpet in the front will be gone as well as the memories of what each stain stands for (mostly gks). carold
Or else their in-laws or cousins taking turns staying with relatives? 
