A Mind of My Own
Posted by Gail | Filed under Autism
Chapter Eight: Advocating At School (Part 1)
When Malcolm first went to school I insisted on meeting with his kindergarten teacher to explain who Malcolm was and what his unique needs were. (I’ve actually been pretty pushy most of my kids’ school lives, and have always insisted on meeting teachers before sending my kids into their care.)
I asked that the kindergarten teacher read a book I had that would help her understand Malcolm’s language issues. I already had a diagnosis in hand – this goes a long way to getting you what you want from the school system – and Lucille was an experienced teacher. She didn’t get to be such a good teacher by being anybody’s dummy, and so she familiarized herself with Malcolm’s disorder and started using some of the strategies that would help him cope with school, like putting him to sit close to her rocker so that he wouldn’t be able to drift of without her noticing. We made it through JK without incident.
When it came time for senior kindergarten, I had a new request. I had met a child and youth care worker (CYW) in Alexandra’s Grade Two class who was working with another Asperger’s child. I liked his approach. We talked about the challenges Malcolm was facing and he offered me the services of a co-worker who would come and help Malcolm learn some of the social skills I wasn’t that good at teaching him – too close to the subject, it seemed. I took him up on his offer and Dawn joined my team of experts. She worked with us that summer and then, as the school year approached, I decided he needed her at school too. First, I went to the principal and explained that I wanted Dawn to attend school with Malcolm on my ticket – I was paying for Dawn’s services privately. She agreed as long as the kindergarten teacher agreed. So that’s where I headed next.
Then I proposed the arrangement to the kindergarten teacher. She was willing, if a little hesitant, and agreed as long as the principal was on board. I announced quite proudly, I remember, that the principal was indeed on board and so off to school Malcolm went with his own CYW in tow two days a week.
Dawn worked wonders. She taught Malcolm how to put up his hand to answer questions. She repeated the question so that when he was chosen he remembered what he was answering. And she acted as a social coach pointing out when children had spoken to him and reminding him how to respond appropriately. Malcolm gained months of skills in just a few weeks. I saw it at home in the way he related to us. And Dawn reported the changes she was seeing, including the fact that Malcolm was ready to pull away and sail on his own.
When Malcolm moved to Grade 1, I had great hopes. The teacher was a specialist in special education and had been the one who identified Daniel’s need for special help. Things did not go as I’d hoped.
I had been learning all about Malcolm’s unique needs – I already knew my son very, very well – and I wanted to share that with his teacher. She didn’t want to hear word one from me. She was the teacher. She was the specialist. She hardly needed my input. So we butted heads. When the children were asked to count by ones, twos, fives and tens to 100, Malcolm was bored out of his mind. He already knew all his timetables to 12. When I suggested she asked him to count by sevens and nines, her response was that it wasn’t part of the curriculum. Malcolm wasn’t happy either. After Christmas break, he started making himself vomit in the mornings so he wouldn’t have to go to school. I worked around him for a couple of months and then I’d had enough. I decided to pull him out of school.
July 13, 2012 at 7:17 am
So sad that the teacher wouldn’t work with you in grade one.
I know what that’s like and it is very frustrating.
July 13, 2012 at 7:34 am
I can completely sympathize with Malcolm being bored out of his tree in grade one.
When my son was tested to enter kinder garden in the public school system he was already doing math at grade 3 level and reading at that level also. But the school system refused to allow him to move ahead. Their solution was he could spend more time playing in the block center. I told them he could be a handful when not challenged with something to keep his brain and interest involved. They then said behavior problems would need to be addressed by the parents not the school system. I tried to get help from the guidance councilor,school principle and the school district office before I tried the provincial education minister. They all stated that he couldn’t be put ahead of his age group regardless of his scholastic ability. Shortly after we were turned down from advancing another child who came from Japan was moved 3 grades ahead of her age group because of her “exceptional abilities” Our frustration levels were sky high. We adapted by putting him in private school until he finished grade 4 and then he was put into intensive french immersion in grade 5, the first year the new program was given. He has since led his classes until he has finished grade 8. Now we take on high school. Sigh.
July 13, 2012 at 7:36 am
Thak you
July 13, 2012 at 8:45 am
FYI – curriculum can be enriched or reduced- with the required documentation which Malcolm would have because of his diagnose.
July 13, 2012 at 8:54 am
Some teacher’s think they know everything
July 13, 2012 at 9:03 am
It’s unfortunate that the Grade 1 teacher was so short-sighted she couldn’t see past her own limitations, to help enrich Malcom’s learning and continue his progressive journey.
When I was in Grade 1, my teacher challenged me to read novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder while the other children learned to read the basics. I am thankful for her every day!
July 13, 2012 at 9:42 am
I think that every parent has had challenges with teachers at some point. We’ve all dealt with wonderful caring educators as well. When our children face difficulties because of medical or other issues the situation becomes more aggravating to us as parents. I have always used this motto: “ As a parent I am my child`s advocate and will not abdicate that role to another.“ This worked for me.
July 13, 2012 at 10:25 am
Thank you again Gail. Please keep on sharing.
July 13, 2012 at 12:44 pm
This story reminds me of my brother in his initial school years. He was bored with the lessons and struggled to adapt. It set the tone for his entire academic career to the point where he dropped out of highschool and is now at age 29 trying to get his GED to break out of the cycle of low-level low-skill jobs.
My parents did fight tooth and nail to get help for all of my siblings but there were inconsistencies from one year to the next depending on funding and other issues.
I look forward to hearing more of Malcolm’s story.
July 13, 2012 at 12:58 pm
I look forward to reading your Friday posts every week. I especially love hearing your son’s perspective. My little guy is headed to JK this fall and I’m nervous after a miserable Montessori experience. Some teachers just do not speak Asperger’s! We’re optimistic about the small country school Freddie will be attending. (But I have NO problem yanking him out if the faculty there refuse to listen to me) Educators need to understand that each child with Asperger’s is unique and the parent of that child can be the best resource the teacher has for keeping order in the classroom!
July 13, 2012 at 1:45 pm
I’m a frequent poster here and I think most of you know me to be reasonable person but there is another side to the story here. First in life you sometimes just have to play by someone else’s rules. Second the teachers probably have 20 kids in their class, and a cirriculum to follow- its not fair to the other children in the class if a minority dictate changes. Lastly I do wonder at what point you have to stop being superwoman solving all his problems (don’t get me wrong, I know he’s only 7 so I get it) but there will come plenty of days when you have to go out and just deal with stuff beyond yourcontrol and muddle thru. Again, not trying to flame anyone (man I’m old) but offering a different position on the topic
July 13, 2012 at 2:51 pm
The fit is very important for all involved. My son had a severe speech problem when he entered school, he only had 4 letters at that point, and made all his words from those. He was fairly unintelligible. Some of the small classroom schools I interviewed told me flat out they couldn’t have him in the class because they didn’t have the resources. I found a school where the teacher interviewed him and said “We’ll be just fine.” He was, no one ever picked on him there and pretty early into kindergarten they said to me “Did you know he can read?” I did but didn’t know it was unusual or anything. All that speech work from 2 years old, I guess. We were so lucky the teacher followed the class up for a few years, and I was always very involved with what was happening in the school. After a surgery and more therapy he mastered normal speech, by 9 or so. And the school did okay, too, he never caused them a speck of trouble and was a great student.
July 13, 2012 at 4:00 pm
I love the Friday posts. I taught various grades before becoming a stay at home mum. Most of my teaching experience was abroad. Some mentalities insist on conformity as the path to success. All I can say is that in my opinion and my experience this has its uses but as an across the board approach it is truly suffocating and very damaging to a child’s self esteem. We need parents to be present in their children’s education, at home and at school. If the system – which is sorely underfunded or funds are misused – is not willing to accept parent involvement and take it seriously and appreciate it then I despair for the future in education and by extension our future adults. Humility on both sides is necessary but sadly undervalued in our society.
July 13, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I feel for your situation, as a special need student who struggled through all the inadequacies of our education system and who is now a teacher in that system. The narrow focus of the teacher is driven by the all mighty “Program of Studies” (curriculum) which is supposed to direct 30 students in a small rectangular room all in the same direction. Yes, the teacher and school have some flexibility, but the narrow scope of our education system is truly at fault. When a child is vomiting and tears are flowing we are doing something wrong regardless of the circumstance, we need to be student centered when educating.
July 13, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Our situation is different because neither of my children have Asperger’s but similar because we have experienced teachers such as Malcolm’s from grade 1.
We moved frequently due to job transfers and always made an effort to meet with the school principal and my children’s teachers when we moved to a new community. Luckily we met many teachers who took the time to listen to our questions and read the reports from previous teachers who taught our children.
Frustratingly, we ran into teachers who, due to arrogance or ignorance, would not meet with us to explain what part of the curriculum they had covered and answer our questions. We wanted to make an effort, at home, to cover the curriculum missed if our move occurred during a school year.
I even had a teacher say to my face that she would not read a previous report card or a letter from the teacher at my child’s previous school. She said that she didn’t want to form an impression of my child based on someone else’s assessment of them. I asked her how she would know what skills or knowledge my child had already covered that year and what was missing if she wasn’t willing to read the information presented. She said that she didn’t care, she had her lessons for the year planned and that was what she was going to teach regardless of my child’s previous experience.
July 13, 2012 at 5:50 pm
It saddens me that a teacher wouldn’t want input from a child’s parent as to what will help that child, no matter the situation. How uncaring and unfriendly of a person. How hard is it to even throw in a couple of harder items and ask Malcolm if he knew the answer to show his fellow students how hard he had worked and how much knowlege he had so they might ask him for help?
Some teachers really shouldn’t teach.
Gail your writing is lovely as always.
July 13, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Sometimes a teacher’s response to you can be based on having dealt with inappropriately pushy parents in the past. (I’m not talking about parents who advocate for their kids. I’m talking about parents who think their child is the next Mozart/Einstein/whatever and deserves exclusive attention no matter the cost to other students. A significant difference!)
Having said that, it’s no excuse. Speaking just about myself now (yes, I’m a teacher) I know I’ve dropped the ball in the past, and then deeply regretted it later. Unfortunately, it’s the child that suffers.
On the other hand, I’ve deeply appreciated it when parents do give me a heads’ up on their child. Telling me that your child has Asperger’s and will flip if I forget to change the date on the board to match the actual date (for an example) is a welcome bit of information. Yelling at me 3 months into school because I didn’t guess that their child and issues with numbers and correct dates and that was the cause of their being unable to work all day…well, that’s a different story!
Hopefully that grade 1 teacher learned through hindsight. Gail, thanks for sharing your story. You always give me food for thought with these posts.
July 15, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Hi,
I am a teacher too and it is very sad that the Grade one teacher wasn’t willing to cooperate as you’d hoped.
One of the greatest advices I got in Teacher’s College was that:
Always remember that you teach the kids, not the curriculum!
Paula
July 15, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Hello,
I am a mother of a 3 year old going into JK this September 2012. This story is very unnerving. I have a child diagnosed with ASD and honestly I am finding Taeachers just not understanding. I have met with my sons future JK teacher and so not impressed. It is going to be an up hill battle but I know for sure I will continue to press for the best for my son. I don’t want to speak negatively but I think all teachers should have at least a course in understanding special needs children and how to meet their needs while attending to the other kids in the classroom. With summers off I don’t think that is too much to ask. I pray for all the parents who are fighting for the best education for their kids. Keep fighting!
July 15, 2012 at 10:37 pm
As a teacher, and a teacher qualified in Spec Ed (I’m just one step shy of specialist) I am a bit shocked at the grade 1 teachers comments. Unless you are an M.D. or have a PhD in Psych focusing on children, we are by no means experts! We are also supposed to get Parent input toward’s a child’s program/IEP, especially when it comes to ASD’s.
@Geoff – In Malcolm’s case, he would have had an IEP written which would most likely have changes to the curriculum written within it and it is a legal document. Teachers *should* be used to modifying their curriculum depending on the needs of the children in the class. It happens all the time.
July 19, 2012 at 8:02 am
Until you have actually BEEN a teacher, please do not be so quick to judge. We have 29 individuals in our classes (some provinces have 40). We have the alphabet soup of issues in our classroom…ADD, ADHD, OCD, ODD, those “sentenced” to school, anxiety disorders, aspergers, autism (some quite violent), etc. I my grade 12 class I had 2 children that were PRE k level! We do have the demands of curriculum because there are provincial tests for our students to write….each of these students has, more today than ever, 2 very “involved” parents, many wanting weekly email “updates” on their child’s progress (at high school!). I often have to make 4-5 versions of an assessment to accommodate the various learning abilities in my class- and I do this all WILLINGLY so that a student can experience some success. Buttes hers have I credible pressures on them today….everyone is a critic because everyone has been to school….when there is only o e of you in a classroom, it is very difficult to be running 2-6 different programs at the same time, ESP in the elementary grades (there is a special place in heaven for those teachers!) where a group of students cannot work independently while you work with another group. We (for the most part I believe)are doing the best we can with what we are given….Most of us love what we do but the constant criticism can be hard to take…no one goes into teaching to do a bad job!
July 19, 2012 at 8:04 am
Sorry for spelling errors…iPhone auto correct!
July 19, 2012 at 11:40 pm
@nikki
At 650 dollars a class plus textbooks, it isn’t always feesable to be using those summer’s off for courses. Also, as a teacher I work from 7 am to 430pm everyday and am only paid for 830 to 330. I spend about a thousand a year on class supplies from my salary to make up for lack of government funding, and I usually spend 3-5 hours a week doing clubs and activities to enrich your child’s experiences. Beyond that, most teachers do supply work for three, four, even five or more years, then another ten of full time teaching to get good pay. It isn’t always as easy as ‘taking a course’.