We interupt this very noncommital break...

Today I went to an all day workshop at my church for the Sunday school teachers. I'm gearing up to go back to church for the new year after taking most of the summer off.

I have decided that my issues with the church need to be handled more as a marathon rather than a sprint. I've done next to nothing to pursue any of the issues regarding disability in the church and I don't plan to for a while. I think that there are good people in the church and the church as a whole tries to do its best to meet its mission to include all people. But, like probably any church...it is not perfect and it can be clique-ish and doesn't like to be told it might need to think a few things through. I think that I can't go around bitching about it before I have any clout or they even hardly know me or have any investment in my family to care all that much about my issues. So, I'm just trying to do all the right things and keep trying and be nice to everyone and maybe later, when things naturally come up, I will try to express some of my opinions on the matters that trouble me.

Which means that I will sit on my hands and duct tape my mouth and not do anything about the thing that irked me today. But of course, I will blog about it so I don't explode. I've got my limits, right?

Most of the day was great. Nice people. Positive attitudes. Everyone means well and wants to do the best for the kids in the education program. It was just at the end of the day when a special ed teacher did a presentation on special needs. Afterwards, I walked out of the church thinking, that kind of stuff was exactly why I left special ed.

First of all, I think the woman that did the presentation is a very nice person who had the best of intentions and is very knowledgeable about the topics in which she spoke. I do have a lot of respect for her as a professional teacher and as a mother and a person. I want to stress that I don't think what she did was awful or intentionally harmful, I just think it was a bit misguided and I just have a different perspective on the whole deal. I think she missed a great opportunity to give us all some real information on how to make the classes more welcoming for ALL the kids.

So basically, what she did was a little power point presentation on special needs kids and gave us some articles to read that supported her presentation. Her talk was divided into basically three categories, kids with Asperger's/Autism Spectrum Disorders, kids with ADHD, and adoption as a special need. (I'll note here that she has children who fit into each of these categories. I don't blame her at all for wanting to raise awareness for the teachers that will be working directly with her kids. Sometimes I wish I could preach a sermon so people would understand the whole complex deal that is D's life right now rather than asking me if he is okay and then giving me strange looks and changing the subject when I tell them, "He's fine, but he is on bed rest and I'm really not sure what the answer is for getting him healthy again. But, anyway...)

So, I have a problem with special ed labels. Especially the more fluid and special ed professional made up ones like ADHD and Asperger's. Now, let me make it clear that I do think there are kids that exhibit the kinds of behaviors that professionals use to define them as ADHD or Aspergers or LD or whatever. I'm not saying that these kids don't have issues that need to be addressed. And maybe, as we learn more about the brain and the environment's effects on it, we will learn that some kids have real, organic biological or environmentally induced differences in their brain makeup. So, don't email me and bitch because your kid has an LD and I'm saying it isn't real. That isn't what I'm saying. Your kid is your kid and he has these certain characteristics that he has. I believe you. And sometimes these characteristics require real intervention. I'm okay with that.

My thing with labels in special ed is that people don't get that they are these imaginary and quite movable lines in the sand that are made up by some folks who design an assessment tool or sit around in meetings and decide what makes a kid have a certain thing. Most aren't concrete medical diagnoses that can be shown by a blood test or some such quantitative data point. Special ed teachers are in a difficult position and they use the only tools they have, labeling, to help the kids who need help. I do think they mean well. But they are working within a system that doesn't work for all kids. Regular ed teachers are overworked assembly line workers that have to keep the machine moving. When a kid, for whatever reason, clogs up or slows down the mechanism, the only recourse regular ed teachers have is to send them for a special ed evaluation. Then the special ed teacher sees a kid that needs some specific help and knows he is not going to be able to get that in the regular ed assembly line, so the only option to get that kid the help they need is to diagnose them with something. Since classes have gotten larger and the assembly line has been more strained, new diagnoses needed to pick up the slack. LD, then ADHD and others came around. Instead of blaming the system and fixing it, it is easier to blame the child as having the problem within. Then the child is pulled out (even if included in the classroom) as "different" or "special."

Now, again...I'm not saying there aren't kids with disabilities and needs that are real. My blindness and deafness is real, obvious, and quantifiable. Other kids issues might be less quantifiable and less obvious than mine, but still very real. What you need to look at, though, is how to meet their needs functionally in the classroom. It isn't so important that a teacher know my visual and auditory acuity and all the cookbook handouts about "Characteristics of a DeafBlind Person," which I guarantee will only apply about one percent of the  deafblind population. It is more important that they know how to make the material functional for me. That means that I need information in multi-modal ways. Visually, auditorally, tactually, kinesthetically. I'm saying that ALL kids have different needs and learning styles. None of them are "special" unless all of them are. Now, if you think of kids' learning styles being on a set of continuums (continui?), the middle chunk can be accommodated in the regular classroom and the extreme chunks fall off into special ed. The size of the middle chunk can expand or contract on a special ed teacher or school district's whim. (It often depends a lot on the budget, to be perfectly honest.) Or sort of on how society views normalcy. So these extremes are not necessarily "diseases" or "disorders," they are just kids who don't fit into the majority model of education as decided by educators.

Take my two kids, for example. They are a little young to determine what their learning styles and needs will end up being, but if they continue on the path they seem to be on, I can predict a few things. Aaron could be a model student. He likes to sit and read books and color. He likes to communicate with me and is very motivated by my approval. He is a visual/auditory learner. He has that classic "mastery" style of learning that is a teacher's dream come true. Aaron would likely have no problem sitting in a classroom most of the day and working from textbooks and teacher lectures. Naim, on the other hand, is highly kinesthetic. The kid does not stop moving. He is not interested in reading the book, he is interested in manipulating the book. He isn't interested in coloring, he is interested in dropping all the crayons on the floor and picking them up. It took some doing for me to get Naim tell you that a picture of a ball is a ball, but he can tell you that the 3-D real ball is a ball. But only if he is interested in playing with it. Naim can be hyper and does not focus on any activity for too long. If Naim continues on this path, he will have trouble in school unless he gets a really good teacher who knows how to teach to his needs (or has time to). Naim is also very focused on organizing and arranging items. He can be very socially shy and withdrawn at first. He avoids eye contact. If I let it happen, I would not be surprised at all if Naim is diagnosed as ADHD and possibly even Asperger's by the first grade. Do I think he has ADHD or Autism spectrum? Not at all. I think he is harder for me to teach than Aaron. But, hey, I'm a thirty-six year old mom who likes it when I can just sit there and have Aaron bring me books. For Naim, I have to get up off my ass and roll around on the floor. A twenty-year old might not even notice the extra energy needed for Naim. So, just because I have a problem with the added work I have to put forth for him, doesn't mean he is doing it wrong. He is learning the way he learns best.

Because, if you work with Naim where he is, if you move around with him (which is exhausting), If you teach him colors by throwing the crayons in the container rather than using them to color, if you find real objects to match the book you are reading, If you let Naim become comfortable at his own pace, he can learn an exceptional amount. If you take the time to gain his trust, he can be quite the social ham. This is all teaching the child, not the subject. This is all about learning styles.

In grad school, the work of Howard Gardner and others was drilled into my  head. The idea being that the theory of having one IQ score is quite flawed. Instead, we have multiple intelligences. Gardner says there may be hundreds, but broadly defines eight. (Lets see if I can do these from memory since I'm too lazy to look it up.) Um...here goes: Visual Spatial, Mathmatics/logical, Linguistic, Musical, Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Natural/Spiritual. Okay, those might not be exactly right, but you get the gist. The idea is, that everyone has higher and lower capacities for learning through each sort of modality in the brain. If you can tap into the right one, you can learn almost anything. For example, if you are good in music but struggle with math, you may be able to learn math concepts easier through music. Kids that do well in school are often highly intelligent linguistically and mathmatically. Most of the other intelligences are ignored. Alternatively, people most successful in the workplace have great interpersonal skills, even though they may lack some of the actual talents you would think they might need for a particular job. You can also matrix these with a lot of the work psychologists have done on personality types such as mastery, reflective, sensory, intuitive, etc. Public schools tend to teach to mastery learners (kids who like to recite facts and like concret absolute answers) than to kids who like to use knowledge in more creative synergistic ways.

So, what I would suggest to the woman that gave the presentation today (if I were going to open my big mouth and continue to be the girl that bitches about disability issues) is that she do a presentation about learning styles and how we as teachers can include all kids. There was nothing wrong or inaccurate in her presentation, it was just that she singled out two groups, ADHD kids and Autism Spectrum kids, to segregate as having special needs. Why not teach these volunteer teachers to have a myriad of strategies up their sleeves to teach to all kid's needs. I mean, we all know that our kids have days when they ACT like they are ADHD, or ACT a little asperger/autism spectrum-y and who could benefit from some of these strategies. Lets look at the functional implications for learning that all kids have and teach to them. Now if a parent comes up and says, my kid has trouble focusing and paying attention, these strategies help him. Great. Or, this kid is hearing impaired, so functionally in the classroom she needs visual modes of information. (Which, as we all know, will help all the kids. Those who are visual learners, those who have trouble focusing, and those who are just tired that day.) Strategies that focus on multiple ways to teach  a variety of different kinds of kids help everyone. There is not a huge need to single a group out as "Special" or "Disordered" or having a "Deficit."

The system of labeling kids for special ed purposes in the public schools is mostly a result of the fact that schools can't educate anyone outside of the fat bump in the middle of the bell curve. It doesn't so much indicate that there is a problem with the kid, just that the industrial, assembly line mechanism of the classroom has its limitations. Most special ed labels don't have any real practical application in real life after school. In fact, they mostly serve to limit opportunities rather than expand them. Do I know the answer to it all? No. My fantasy answer is that teachers would have no more than ten kids per classroom and would have them for multiple years so they could constantly improve to teach to each kid's needs and facilitate each child reaching his or her full potential. Of course, there would be adequate resources available to teach in creative and multi-modal ways as well, using the whole world as a classroom, not just a small box with a few outdated textbooks.

I don't expect that this teacher from today can, by herself, make that happen. She is still doing the special ed thing and should be commended for it. Probably doing her best to make the system better. I just wish that for our purposes in religious education, where we do have some opportunities to teach to students needs because of our small class size and flexibility, she would have focused on that strength rather than singling some students out who have "impairments" and are defective and have "special" needs.

Now, moving on to adoption as a special need. Hmmm. This is what really sent me over the edge with this presentation. Now, I fully support the idea that adoption brings with it certain issues for a child that are unique to the situation of being adopted. She gave out some good information regarding this. But I just wanted to say to her, "is this what you really want to do? Single out adoption as a special need? With all the connotations that come with that?" Do people need to be aware of the stuff that might come up for a kid who was adopted? Yes. Is it a special need in the common special ed-like definition of special need? A deviation from the norm? A deficit? No. She might not have intended for it to come off that way, but when you sandwich adoption as a special need in with Autism and ADHD, that is exactly what you are doing.

What adoption is, is a way of forming a family that is not the majority/mainstream way of forming a family. There are real issues that children of adoption potentially face. Everything from problems with attachment to interracial issues to medical issues and issues about who you are. The stuff kids from adoption face is so diverse and individualized, that again, singling them out for a little presentation on how adoption is a special need is kind again a situation where you are blaming the 'victim' rather than the real problem that society and possibly Sunday School teachers are unaware of some of the things that people who come from families formed in the minority face.

Again, I think of my kids. My kids don't fit into the label of adoption, but they have an adoptive father. My kids have Russian Jewish heritage from an unknown biological parent, and Slovak and Irish heritage from their known parents, but they don't fit into the label of minority children or trans-racial adoption. My kids have parents who live in separate households, but do not fit into the definition of children of divorce. My kids have disabled parents, but are not disabled themselves. My kids have a single mom, but also have a mom with a long standing relationship with their father. My kids don't fit in to any pre-existing "special needs" label (unless you count "at risk" which is a nice catch-all, cover-our-asses label), yet will undoubtedly face challenges unique to their situation. I sat there thinking, if she did this whole presentation about kids who come from gay/lesbian households and called them "special needs" kids, there would be hell to pay. Do kids from  gay/lesbian households have to deal with specific issues caused by the minority status of their family? Yes. But having to deal with , for example, explaining to your friend's parents that you have two moms while the parents stare at you in awkward confusion doesn't mean YOU have the 'special need' it means that the mainstream hasn't learned to deal with you yet. Can that be hard for you? Yes. Does it mean there is something wrong with you? No.

So again, I know she meant well. But rather than saying, "look at these poor kids who come from adoption who have these special problems," she would have done more good by saying to all of us something like: Look, we have all kinds of families in this church. Families from adoption, third party reproduction, trans-racial families, step-families, divorced families, single parent families, same sex families, etc. Each of these different scenarios may present unique issues for the kids involved. Here are some strategies to help you as teachers be inclusive and accepting of these kids and not add on to their burdens. First of all, Don't assume that the kids are going home to mom and dad. Don't assume the Asian looking kid was adopted from China. Don't assume the foster kid is all screwed up. Etc. I think rather than planting assumptions about adoptive kids in our heads, she could have worked to erase erroneous assumptions about all kids. The burden to accept these children for who they are (and help them accept themselves) is on us as adults. It is not to be put on them by labeling them "special needs."

Adoptive parents? Parents of kids labeled some such disability? What do you think? Am I (as usual) full o' shit? Would be interested in your feedback. Maybe by next year when I've taken over the world, I can do my own presentation on learning styles and diversity within families. Or not.

Comments

[shannon]

Lisa, i have never, ever, ever known you to be full of shit! All I can say is, right on about every word you wrote.

All I'd add is, "educators" aren't the only ones to blame for the bell curve lump problem. Let's place a good chunk of that blame at the feet of GW Bush and No Child Left Behind, among other administrative screw-ups by politicians and cabinet members.

I don't know WHAT that mother was thinking putting her own kids in a "special needs" category based on adoption. The last thing I want is my child to be labeled. Hello home school!

And duh, I would think the Unitarians would be all over the "diversity" approach to family strtucture. That's such their thing and all! maybe she hasn't been one for long?

[baggage]

I once read something that said to never tell a teacher that your child was a foster child or adopted because they will be labeled negatively. I'm not sure if that is true or not, but I also feel that the only reason Bug passed 3rd grade was that they knew she was a foster child at a residential home. She still can't complete most of the 3rd grade work. Adoption is something that needs to be addressed as part of a child's life, sure but as a special need?? Noo..I'm with Shannon..homeschool! :)

[angela]

All I will say is that would bother me and I don't think I could have kept my mouth shut.

[luolin]

It reminds me of when my cousin was put in a program at her high school designed to encourage students from a particular ethnic group to prepare for college. Her father was part of that ethnic group, but he was also a college professor. While the program had good intentions and may have been appropriate for some of the students, she needed something more along the lines of support for slacker kids of well-educated parents.

I know I always resented people making assumptions about me based on the fact that my parents were divorced.

[That Girl]

As an adopted kid, I am so insulted! It's like asking me if I know my real parents. (Reply: About as well as you know understanding).
I totally agree with the styles of learning thing. I really never understood, now that we know that different kids learn differently, why school classes arnt segregated that way rather than in the arbitrary way they are now.
My son is in special classes cause he learns visually - they just re-teach the lesson to him in a different way.
He isnt even close to being the only one, so why not have a class taught that way?
Seriolusly, this is why I became a home-schooler and my big regret is that I couldnt continue with him.

[Ryn Tales]

You said "None of them are special unless all of them are." Thank you for that- it's completely true and damn well put. I am dealing with special ed teachers, evaluators, and regular teachers - none who have taken the time to see my daughter the way she truly is. That's hard to do when you are busy trying to see how you can deal with her with the least effort. "None of them are "special" unless all of them are." I so agree.

I have a child who was born 3 months early had a brain bleed. She is almost four now and the love of my life. Her school did not get what integration truly meant. They made no attempt to adapt activities in ways that she could participate. You are dead right regarding different learning styles and the school system's bias towards the visual learner. What a shame too since less than 30% of all people learn that way.
I have experienced alot of what you have in terms of making public places and experiences accessible to all and I share your frustration. I at times bite my tongue and at others am really up front. I have tried to push things through and at other times taken a more tactful approach - either way it's slow going. I see the need for change every time I am out with my daughter and we can't get somewhere because there are steps.

Thanks for your thoughtful, informed, eloquent and insightful post.