The Teachable Moment

   Have you ever felt like you were in a bumper car, kept hitting the side wall, and couldn’t get moving forward?  You get out of the car run around and try again just to find yourself stuck in the same corner time and time again.  Did you ever stop to think maybe you need to go in a different direction?  When working with special needs kids, it is important to be willing to see when something isn’t working and be willing to go in a different direction.  I cannot count how many times I have had a wonderful lesson planned, but once we started, I realized this is just not working for them. I tossed it aside and found something else to do.  Sometimes, I would just find a fun review activity while I regrouped for the next day.  The important thing was I didn’t frustrate my students and myself by forcing a lesson that just was not working.

   There may be times that a lesson is working great for some of the class and just isn’t right for one or two other students.  It is important to be able to see that and figure out a way to make the time productive for everyone.  By taking a couple minutes out of your lesson to set up an alternate lesson, you are not only make the time more valuable for the one group, but also for the entire class by avoiding classroom management problems that would have arisen from a non-engaged and frustrated student or group of students.  Let’s imagine the class is looking up facts on a country for a geography class. Most of the class is doing fine with individual accommodations: list of what to look up, pictures etc. Two students do not understand what to do even if you bring them to the page and highlight the information for them.  The activity is too high for them.  You can quickly ask them to look up pictures of the country and paste them into a document.  Ask for 3 pictures of buildings, 3 of land and 3 of people.  They are engaged in the country, will visually learn about the country and will not disrupt the classroom learning.  In another example, you have planned to use protractors to measure angles.  Your students are having trouble physically manipulating the protractors you have and reading the small numbers.  Pull the assignment, do some measuring with rulers around the room and look for better protractors later.  You may have to make some yourself.  The time and frustration you save in having them use a tool that is inadequate will save you in the long run.  Flexibility in your planning will be your best friend.

  This flexibility goes two ways.  Always be on the lookout for that teachable moment.  When a student brings up and idea or concept that is important and there is interest, grab onto it.  Use their enthusiasm and run.  Your lesson will be there tomorrow, their desire and openness to the topic at hand may not be.  Engagement and full participation is difficult to get with our students, when they willingly give it, take it as a gift and use it.  Feed their desires for knowledge and they will reward you by being more open to you when you are instructing them.  Some of these unplanned teachable moments have been not only my best lessons, but my best teaching memories.  Enjoy the moment and be a true teacher!

For more information you might want to start here:

http://www.teaching-learning.utas.edu.au/orientation/flexible

Parent Teacher Communication Make it a Positive in the Educations Process

 The life of a special needs parent is a difficult road.  From the day you get the diagnosis you are told all the things your child will not be able to do that you thought they would be able to do. If You get the diagnosis when your child is a bit older and has been in school the likelihood that you have had phone call from the school, with less than positive news is great.  A parent can become warn down and almost dread the caller ID showing the school phone number.  The relationship between parent and school needs to be positive for the student to thrive.

      As a teacher it is important to make contact with the parent and share the positive achievements that occur along the way not just the negative.  Send emails to the parent when a student does something special.  Pick up the phone and share your excitement when a child initiates a conversation with a peer for the first time.  This lets the parent know how much you truly care about their child and lets them share in these moments of success. Be sure to let the student know that you contacted the parent as well.  It will let them feel that much more proud of their accomplishments.  When I call, I always start out by stating right off that nothing is wrong, this is a good call.  The reactions I get are varied, but usually have some sort of relief involved.  Always remember that parents of special needs students are entrusting us with their treasures and when they see that number on the caller ID, worry is the trained response.  We need to be sensitive to that at all times and honor that while building our relationships.

   When contacting a parent for a mishap that may occur in the classroom, I always remember my training from when I was a retail manager: give 3 positives for every negative.  Be sure to point out how you used the situation as a learning opportunity, so the child will not do it again.  It is also important to let the parent know how the student responded to the consequences, and how they were able to come back and function for the rest of the day. Emphasize this as a positive.  This is a very important skill for the future.  We need to communicate certain major occurrences in the class, but if they are minor and handled within the class think about if every  one needs to be addressed with the parent. Would you call a general education parent every time you had a small interaction with a student? You may want to set up ground rules with the parents for the times when you will contact them at the beginning of the year.  My general rule is if it does not interfere with the learning of other students and is corrected quickly with redirection or a simple in class consequence, it is not necessary to contact the parent. There are times things may not fit tightly into this formula, but it gives me a starting point. For frequent behaviors a communication log can also be established.   Do not forget to keep documentation of behaviors for your own records.   If you see a pattern arising and new strategies need to be implemented, then you contact the parents to discuss it as soon as you establish a possible pattern.  The teacher is able to handle discipline in the classroom and needs to maintain it in the eyes of the student. 

   The communication between parent and teacher is vital to a healthy school relationship.  Both the positive and negative events need to be shared.  The parents need to share the great things they see as well with the school. With both sides openly communicating the child will only do better.

For more information you may want to start here:

http://www.adi.org/journal/ss05/Graham-Clay.pdf

http://www.ldonline.org/article/28021/ 

Laughter is for Everyone

  Laughter is the best medicine.  Everyone likes laughing and joking with friends is part of our social dialogue.  Children begin learning about humor from the time they are toddlers.  They start by noticing that using items for things they are not meant to be used for will elicit a laugh.  They learn that the element of surprise will also cause people to laugh as they enter their toddler years.  A Child will repeat these actions over and over learning about humor along the way. Children with learning disabilities mimic these behaviors as well. Children on the autism spectrum are not as in tune to the reactions to these behaviors, but they will pick up on these reactions in time as well, it is usually later.  They do have a sense of humor just a bit different than others. 

    As children grow and develop language, their ability to understand and use humor grows.  They will hear a joke and want to repeat it over and over again or try to rearrange it, not quite understanding the nuances of how the humor works.  This is where children with learning disabilities can have difficulty.  If a child has difficulty with word relationships, analogies, comparisons or opposites, many early simple jokes can go over the child’s head. They know it is a joke, but do not quite understand why it is funny.  Encourage their exploration of the humor in a safe environment, by role playing how to tell jokes in social setting. Take time to explain the jokes to them.  Often special needs children will repeat the same joke over and over to the same friends to the extent that it will become annoying to them.  Help the special needs child develop the boundaries for the social setting and develop enough jokes to entertain their friends. 

    While our children are mastering the skill of humor, their peers most likely will have already mastered this in the past.  Be sure to monitor the situation so that the child does not become the entertainment, rather than his jokes.  It is a fine line the kids walk between being attentive to our kids and being on lookers to the special kid. We want our kids included, not put on display.  To insure this, it is imperative that we as care takers, role play with the children how to interact and how to set the boundaries.

  Watching a young person explore their developing sense of humor can be fun and exciting.  It is an important part of fitting in with peers.  Having joke books available, sharing jokes and riddles with kids is a fun way to become close with your kids.  It is part of growing up for all kids.

For more information you may want to start here:

http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/911/0

http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/health/805-understanding-the-language-of-friendship.gs?page=2 

Disinformation, Snake oil, and False Cures for Autism and Learning Disabilities Beware.

When I was in school 30 or so years ago, I remember being sent across the school to work with younger kids on my writing.  Dyslexia was a new and misunderstood phenomenon, and they didn’t have a program to help me.  My brother was taught how to read lips and was diagnosed with auditory dyslexia, something that does not even exist.  We have come a long way in 30 years.  This is a great thing, but we still have to be aware of the information and disinformation that is out there.

   Once you have become involved in the world of learning disabilities, you will begin to explore and try to educate yourself. As you discover new programs and methodologies, make sure you look into each for their research and reputation.  Any program can say they have research to back them up.  Check to see what kind of research and who did it.  Was it a reputable independent researcher?  It is interesting to see some companies do the research on themselves and on a very select few clients.  Let me be clear:  disorders such as autism, turrets, ADHD, etc. to date do not have cures.  There are wonderful programs that can help children control behaviors and improve their ability to attend to tasks which enable them to learn more easily, but there is no magic cure.  Unfortunately, there are people out there who are willing to prey on the desire of parents and educators who want to fix rather than assist our special needs students.

   When parents first learn their child has a disability, there is a mourning process they go through.  They see the loss of the child they thought they were going to have as they come to embrace the child they were given.  As with any mourning process, it takes different people different amounts of time to go through the stages.  Some parents stay in the denial stage for much longer than others.  Others stay angry and will take it out on the teachers and care givers. Others come to acceptance very quickly and look at the child as who they are and can plot a new course easily.  Whichever path a family is journeying on, the more information they have the better.  There are groups on the web, school district support groups, social services, and religious organizations today that did not exist 10-20 years ago. Use these tools and support both as educators and parents, but use them wisely not blindly.  If something seems too good to be true, look into it and be sure it is credible and reliable.  There are some amazing programs out there, but unfortunately there are some you need to be wary of as well.  Be sure to share what you learn both good and bad with others who might need your guidance.  This journey is a journey of a community and with special needs kids they saying it takes a village is never truer. 

You can follow me on my Facebook page:  Special Kids, Special Teachers, Special Hearts

For more information you may want to start here:

Autism False Prophets

http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/03/02/fox-amp-friends-unethically-pushes-dubious-

auti/177095 

http://www.texasobserver.org/autism-inc-the-discredited-science-shady-treatments-and-rising-profits-behind-alternative-autism-treatments/