Flaws

The first thing a child with special needs learns in school is that he is flawed and that flaw is the most important thing about him – I read this today and thought, after the events of the past few days, how absolutely true this is. But it isn’t the child’s classmates that designate the differences. Especially in the early grades, they barely notice and couldn’t care less.

First please know that this blog/rant isn’t directed at the wonderful, sensitive, compassionate and dedicated teachers/assistants/administrators that work under very trying circumstances to make a positive difference for every student in their care. I know, love and respect them. I trust they know who they are and feel confident that many of them share my harsh feelings about the ones among them who destroy self-esteem and the love of learning in small children for personal and/or selfish reasons.

So, considering my own experience, having raised three fairly normal children who travelled through a fairly average school system, graduated, completed post-secondary education, and went on to become productive citizens, and having worked in schools for 18 years, many of them in special ed. classrooms, and who is now watching a small grandson struggle, I have some observations I’d like to share.

Fact: Some students are harder to teach than others.

Two of my children were easy learners and for the most part, they had fabulous teachers. Parent teacher interviews were pleasant visits; everyone parted smiling. My middle child, bless her heart, was more difficult to teach. Sometimes parent/teacher interviews were hell. I can count the number of nurturing, compassionate teachers in her life on one hand.

Was she just unlucky? Heck no. Teachers like children who learn easily – it makes them feel good, makes them feel successful, that they’re doing a wonderful job. For the most part and for most students, they probably are but, when faced with the challenge of a student who just doesn’t “get it”, their nurturing, compassionate nature often goes out the window.

Fact: If a child isn’t learning from the way the teacher teaches, it’s up to the teacher to change the way he/she is teaching.

Children are, after all, children. It is not up to them to adjust to a rigid teacher. Educators are all aware of different learning styles but some only give lip service to the concept. The really good educators are able to pinpoint the needs of each student and teach to them accordingly. Some teachers will say there isn’t enough time/there are too many students/there aren’t resources to teach this way. Not true. There are dedicated, successful teachers doing it on the same resources with the same amount of time and number of students. They are angels and there are far too few of them.

Fact: Busy children are happy children.

However, that means they have to leave their seats sometimes, work on hands-on projects and get down and dirty. They need the freedom to discover what works and what doesn’t work even if this means the classroom is sometimes chaotic. Some children cause more chaos than others. This is not a crime.

Fact: Children learn better when they are having fun.

See above!

Fact: Educators put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

When a child in kindergarten runs into his teacher at the grocery store/gas station/library etc., he is confused. The teacher is out of context and when the child finally places him/her, he wonders why the teacher isn’t at school, waiting for Monday morning and the children to arrive.  However, students soon come to realize that their teachers are just people with hopes, dreams, sorrows and baggage, just like everyone else.  It takes some teachers longer to come to the same conclusion.

Fact: Asking intelligent questions of educators is not confrontational and if a teacher/administrator sees it that way, he/she/they are likely already feeling vulnerable.

Also Fact: A parent has the right to question her child’s program, especially when it does not seem to be working.

Sometimes, when a parent disagrees with the way things are done, suggests for example, that making a child with numerous difficulties write out, in his agenda in his own shaky writing, that he has changed reading levels (and he understands that he has been demoted from one reading level which he was proud to finally achieve to a lower level even though the difference in books is negligible) is a tad cruel, the teacher takes the note as being confrontational. Are parents required to always agree with the teacher? Are teachers not expected to be accountable?

Can a parent not ask questions when her child cries because he doesn’t want to go to school, when a little boy who left kindergarten full of confidence and joy tells his mom he’s stupid –  that he can’t do anything right, when he refuses to try new tasks and who has anxiety attacks? Parents are allowed, no, obligated, to ask questions, to assure their children are being educated in a safe and nurturing manner. And some educators need to weed their own gardens before telling anyone else why their plants aren’t growing.