Everyone all around the world, whether they are a Special Needs Citizen or not, has a favorite SOMETHING, whether it be color, animal, cartoon, or all of the above. My Mr. X has a favorite one of each of those things, but the one thing that he cannot live without is the color green! Hence, the name of this blog “special green heart love”. I made the page green and purple because his favorite color is green and mine is purple, that was my way of paying tribute to my special friend, Mr. X, whom I miss very much!
Nearly every day Mr. X wears something green to school whether it is an entire outfit, his shoes, or just his backpack. When he draws a picture, everything, or nearly everything, is colored in green. It becomes quite obvious, even to an outsider, that green is Mr. X’s favorite color. And, sooner or later, one will realize that the dinosaur is his favorite animal and SpongeBob is his favorite cartoon. Ask him to retell you one of the cartoons some time and he will retell you the whole store, verbatim, with voices and all, and it will warm your heart!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
How Do You Explain English To A Special Needs Citizen?
Explaining English to a person with a brain that functions properly is confusing in and of itself, but throw in a mental handicap of any kind and it becomes a bit more difficult. Even the spelling and grammar check on this here computer of mine is off its rocker because the “itself” in the second line of my blog, wants me to change it into “it”. That would be grammatically incorrect. Seriously though, how do you go about teaching the strange little things about the English language to a Learning Handicapped child? Patience.
Patience is the key to everything when it comes to working with a Learning Handicapped (from now on referred to as LH) child. What teachers and aids need to remember about LH students is that they ARE NOT stupid, they just learn at a different pace and will ask a lot of questions because they don’t understand why things are done the way they are in the English language. There are so many rules and they seem silly to them and, to be honest, I agree with the LH kids, some of these rules ARE silly! One time Mr. X, my 1:1 pronounced “know” as “kuh-now” and I had to tell him, “You know what? K and N, they are friends, so whenever you see them together the K lets the N do the talking so you only say the N sound”. Naturally, Mr. X, being the inquisitive and sneaky, wanting to get out of doing work, kind of guy, asked why. I told him, “You know, English, it’s a silly language. We have all these funny rules that don’t always make a whole lot of sense, but we have to follow them, so what do you think about following those rules? Do you think it’s a good idea?” And, naturally, he agreed with me and Mr. X has remembered the “Kn” rule ever since.
English is hard enough for adult English Language Learners let alone children who speak ONLY English, but have a Learning Handicap. Teachers and Aids just need to be patient and come up with some silly reason as to why there is a rule in the first place and, generally, the student will accept and will remember it for the rest of their lives. Patience is the key, they WILL get it eventually
Patience is the key to everything when it comes to working with a Learning Handicapped (from now on referred to as LH) child. What teachers and aids need to remember about LH students is that they ARE NOT stupid, they just learn at a different pace and will ask a lot of questions because they don’t understand why things are done the way they are in the English language. There are so many rules and they seem silly to them and, to be honest, I agree with the LH kids, some of these rules ARE silly! One time Mr. X, my 1:1 pronounced “know” as “kuh-now” and I had to tell him, “You know what? K and N, they are friends, so whenever you see them together the K lets the N do the talking so you only say the N sound”. Naturally, Mr. X, being the inquisitive and sneaky, wanting to get out of doing work, kind of guy, asked why. I told him, “You know, English, it’s a silly language. We have all these funny rules that don’t always make a whole lot of sense, but we have to follow them, so what do you think about following those rules? Do you think it’s a good idea?” And, naturally, he agreed with me and Mr. X has remembered the “Kn” rule ever since.
English is hard enough for adult English Language Learners let alone children who speak ONLY English, but have a Learning Handicap. Teachers and Aids just need to be patient and come up with some silly reason as to why there is a rule in the first place and, generally, the student will accept and will remember it for the rest of their lives. Patience is the key, they WILL get it eventually
Monday, May 24, 2010
Hearing the Broken Heartedness
Everyone has days of frustration, days where you just want to throw in the proverbial towel, but when you’re in elementary school, you don’t have that luxury. When the teacher tells you that you have work to do, by gum, you’ve got work to do! The teacher doesn’t care if you’re having an off day or if your frustrated or not understanding everything completely, he or she has a lesson plan that needs to be followed pretty strictly and that’s the way that it’s got to be. When my 1:1 is having an off day it can get pretty bad and it can get pretty sad, we’re talking snot and tears kind of sad—and we’re talking not only him having the snot and tears, but me too—so there are trips outside that have to be taken.
The times that are the worst are when Mr. X refers to himself as “a dumb boy”. I don’t like using the word “hate”, but in this instance, I HATE it when he refers to himself as “a dumb boy”, because he is not a dumb boy. When times like these occur I pull him aside and we have one our little chats where I tell him that he is smart for Mr. X, it’s just that sometimes it takes him a little longer to understand things than everyone else. That’s when I start asking him about dinosaurs and he starts rattling off all these statistics about dinosaurs that I have NO knowledge about, but he knows EVERYTHING about, so I am about to tell him, “See, Ms. Christine didn’t know that! See how much smarter than Ms. Christine you are?!” At the end of those conversations he ends up feeling better about himself and we are able to move on with the curriculum and end up having a good rest of the day.
So, my suggestion is: if you find yourself in a similar situation with a Special Needs citizen and you know that there is a subject that they specialize in, get them talking about it and remind them that they DO know a lot about something and it will help them get back on track…at least most of the time
The times that are the worst are when Mr. X refers to himself as “a dumb boy”. I don’t like using the word “hate”, but in this instance, I HATE it when he refers to himself as “a dumb boy”, because he is not a dumb boy. When times like these occur I pull him aside and we have one our little chats where I tell him that he is smart for Mr. X, it’s just that sometimes it takes him a little longer to understand things than everyone else. That’s when I start asking him about dinosaurs and he starts rattling off all these statistics about dinosaurs that I have NO knowledge about, but he knows EVERYTHING about, so I am about to tell him, “See, Ms. Christine didn’t know that! See how much smarter than Ms. Christine you are?!” At the end of those conversations he ends up feeling better about himself and we are able to move on with the curriculum and end up having a good rest of the day.
So, my suggestion is: if you find yourself in a similar situation with a Special Needs citizen and you know that there is a subject that they specialize in, get them talking about it and remind them that they DO know a lot about something and it will help them get back on track…at least most of the time
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Bluntness, No Filters, and Just Plain Ol’ Curiosity
Special Needs citizens are some of the greatest people—whether they are adults or children—that you can ever be blessed to be able to work with or get to know. There’s an old “saying” that children are the most honest people that you will ever meet. They will tell you exactly what is on their mind. They WILL tell you if those jeans make your butt look big. Well, Special Needs individuals are no different, they will tell you, to your face, exactly what is on their mind. My Special Buddy, Mr. X, grabbed my forearm one day, pinching the flab and kind of jiggling it around a little and looked at me and said, “Ms. Christine, why is your arm so flabby right there?” Now, bear in mind that Mr. X does not use his “r”s, so it sounds more like, “Ms. Kwistine, why is yo ahm so fwabby wite derr?” The thing is, he asked me this question with such a straight face because, to him it was a serious question, and then on top of that, he’s just so darn cute, I had to look the other direction for a second to regain my composure and think of an answer that would satisfy him and make sense to him. Once I got myself together I looked at him and said, “Well, Mr. X, Ms. Christine likes to eat too much, so I got fat, but I’m trying to work on that; but don’t you worry about that right now, lets just get back to figuring out how the farmer got the problem solved with the cows.” And that answer was good enough for Mr. X.
The thing that the general public needs to remember about the Special Needs Community is that, while they do need special services and a little extra help with some things, when it really comes down to it, they want to be treated just like you and me. I know that this paragraph is disjointed from the little story that I told in the paragraph above, but I think that it’s something important that a lot of people forget. Down’s Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Retardation, and other Mental Illness are not contagious; so by helping someone with one of these illnesses, we will not get sick with it. There’s no need to walk in a WIDE circle around someone with a mental or physical illness for fear of “catching” it because you can’t! They are people with feelings just like us, so treat them just like you would like people to treat you!
The thing that the general public needs to remember about the Special Needs Community is that, while they do need special services and a little extra help with some things, when it really comes down to it, they want to be treated just like you and me. I know that this paragraph is disjointed from the little story that I told in the paragraph above, but I think that it’s something important that a lot of people forget. Down’s Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Retardation, and other Mental Illness are not contagious; so by helping someone with one of these illnesses, we will not get sick with it. There’s no need to walk in a WIDE circle around someone with a mental or physical illness for fear of “catching” it because you can’t! They are people with feelings just like us, so treat them just like you would like people to treat you!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
It Only Takes Half a Brain To Love With Your Whole Heart
So many people say that it takes a special person with special patience with a special heart to work with special kids; but I think that they have it all wrong. I think that it takes special kids to work with the adults that are thrust into their lives to work with them. Some of us adults come in with such low expectations of these children that we barely expect them to be able to tie their shoes let alone write their own names down on paper. Granted, there are children who aren’t capable of doing these things, but the children I am referring to are the children that are labeled as “high functioning” special education children. High functioning special education children are students who are considered teachable, children who, within the right setting, given the proper tools, time, and instruction, will be able to learn the same curriculum as that of a regular education student. The type of classroom that I work in is called an LH (Learning Handicapped) classroom with students whose abilities range from very poor to very high. In fact, two of the students are mainstreamed, which means they go into a regular education classroom, for a subject. One child is mainstreamed for English, while the other is mainstreamed for math.
I am what is called an IA-1:1-SDC which is a lot of letters and numbers that means Instructional Aid-One-on-One-Special Day Class. What that means is that I work specifically with one student all day long, helping him with his work, keep him on task, reinstruct him if he does not understand the instructions the teacher gives, read directions to him as many times as he may need them read to him, follow him from one work station to the next to help him out; basically, I am his mother away from home. However, I am a very strict mother. I refuse to coddle my one-on-one because it is my opinion that he will never learn to be independent if I am constantly doing things for him and following behind him like a little puppy, so I require him to attempt everything himself, before I step in and assist him. Naturally, there are things that I know that he is not really capable of doing on his own, so I am right there immediately to help him; but, by and large, he knows that he has to give it the ol’ college try before Ms. Christine is going to come and help him.
My one-on-one (from now on it will be abbreviated 1:1) is a sneaky little feller. He knows that he’s a cutie pie with big doe eyes, so he does his best to use those suckers to his advantage; but he’s under estimated Ms. Christine’s smarts, she’s no dumb blond (which, by the way, I am no longer a blond), I’ve caught onto his games, so he’s no longer able to get past me any more with his little tricks. My little guy, we’ll just call him Mr. X, LOVES to draw and one day I told him that if he finishes his work that he could draw, but that he could only get one piece of drawing paper from my desk. So I’m working with a little girl with her math and he comes and tells me that he finished his work and shows it to me, so I know that it’s true and he turns it in to the teacher. He comes back and gets into my desk to get drawing paper and he’s roosting around in there a little longer than I think is necessary to get one piece of paper, so when he stands up, I ask to see the paper. “See, I only got one, Ms. Cwistine”. (He talks like a waskily wabbit). I look a little closer at it and it just doesn’t seem right so I make him hand it to me. That little stinker had 5 pieces of paper! I tore up all 5 pieces of paper and made him throw them in the trash and told him that he was banned from drawing for the rest of the week! He thought that I was just the meanest person on the face of the planet for doing that to him!
That is just one story of MANY that I have stored up about life working with high functioning special education kids. It really is a lot of fun and, at the end of the day, not matter how frustrating it is, you really do end up feeling rewarded in some way, shape, or form for helping those kids out.
I am what is called an IA-1:1-SDC which is a lot of letters and numbers that means Instructional Aid-One-on-One-Special Day Class. What that means is that I work specifically with one student all day long, helping him with his work, keep him on task, reinstruct him if he does not understand the instructions the teacher gives, read directions to him as many times as he may need them read to him, follow him from one work station to the next to help him out; basically, I am his mother away from home. However, I am a very strict mother. I refuse to coddle my one-on-one because it is my opinion that he will never learn to be independent if I am constantly doing things for him and following behind him like a little puppy, so I require him to attempt everything himself, before I step in and assist him. Naturally, there are things that I know that he is not really capable of doing on his own, so I am right there immediately to help him; but, by and large, he knows that he has to give it the ol’ college try before Ms. Christine is going to come and help him.
My one-on-one (from now on it will be abbreviated 1:1) is a sneaky little feller. He knows that he’s a cutie pie with big doe eyes, so he does his best to use those suckers to his advantage; but he’s under estimated Ms. Christine’s smarts, she’s no dumb blond (which, by the way, I am no longer a blond), I’ve caught onto his games, so he’s no longer able to get past me any more with his little tricks. My little guy, we’ll just call him Mr. X, LOVES to draw and one day I told him that if he finishes his work that he could draw, but that he could only get one piece of drawing paper from my desk. So I’m working with a little girl with her math and he comes and tells me that he finished his work and shows it to me, so I know that it’s true and he turns it in to the teacher. He comes back and gets into my desk to get drawing paper and he’s roosting around in there a little longer than I think is necessary to get one piece of paper, so when he stands up, I ask to see the paper. “See, I only got one, Ms. Cwistine”. (He talks like a waskily wabbit). I look a little closer at it and it just doesn’t seem right so I make him hand it to me. That little stinker had 5 pieces of paper! I tore up all 5 pieces of paper and made him throw them in the trash and told him that he was banned from drawing for the rest of the week! He thought that I was just the meanest person on the face of the planet for doing that to him!
That is just one story of MANY that I have stored up about life working with high functioning special education kids. It really is a lot of fun and, at the end of the day, not matter how frustrating it is, you really do end up feeling rewarded in some way, shape, or form for helping those kids out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
