Dyslexic children vs. children with dyslexia, I don’t know which is the best way to say it, but people have some strong opinions on it. My son thinks the debate is a waste of time and since he’s a dyslexic child or child with dyslexia, I’m going with what he feels comfortable with and will refer to him most of the time as Payne but when necessary will refer to him as my creative, intelligent, dyslexic child who takes beautiful photographs. It’s irksome when I see what I consider some helpful information on dyslexia and someone will start commenting on the correct way to address dyslexics or persons with dyslexia and the helpful information I was getting turns into a battle of who’s right. Feel free not to school me on it because it doesn’t matter to me how many initials you have or don't have behind your name, I’ll just continue to use whatever makes my son comfortable because his opinion matters more.
Speaking of professionals with a lot of initials behind their names, congratulations on your achievements. I worked two jobs while earning my one degree, so I take my hat off to all those initials because I know the amount of time and effort it took me so I can only imagine the time and dedication it must have taken you. I understand the need for letting others in your profession know your credentials and even parents looking for a specific type of professional but I do have a suggestion from a parent’s point of view. If in your profession you work with parents and they come to you in desperation looking for help for their child, maybe forget sharing all those initials and focus on what the parents are telling you because most likely they don’t care which initials are behind your name they just want to be able to relate to someone who seems to know what they are doing and who is interested in helping their child. I received an email not too long ago and the person’s signature contained at least six achievements/certifications and I was thinking what in the world would possess someone to put all those in their signature? I didn't even know what some of them meant and it just seems to make the person a little less approachable. I don’t know, maybe it really knocks the socks off of some, but it just kind of makes me go, “blah.” Of course, that’s just sharing from my parent point of view. This was my final rambling of the year. Happy holidays and wishing you a wonderful new year, Penny Wagner-Auchmuty, MOM, P.L. (Pizza Lover), H.D.O. (Happy Dog Owner), C.M. (Cookie Maker), T.P.O.T (Tired Parent of Teenagers) Perhaps it’s because I’m an introvert but I’m sometimes amazed when I watch people step over others to receive some sort of recognition for what they’re trying to accomplish in helping others and I really don’t understand it, maybe it’s a personality flaw on my part because I realize I’m not perfect and I think you should deflect attention anyways. Sometimes I think maybe these types of people should take a step back and ask themselves if they only do the work if it comes with some sort of reward. My husband and I have advocated not only for our children, but other children for a while now and frankly, it’s embarrassing when attention is brought to it because that’s not why we do it, we do it because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve had someone say that we were, moving mountains which, I guess, was meant to be a compliment, but that just helped me realize that the person I was communicating with was a windbag who likes to talk about getting things done instead of working to get things done because there is no mountain moving on our part, we are just working to make things better for children like ours and if this person thought we were moving mountains, they should have jumped in to help. A compliment is a compliment, I get that, but when the moving mountains hyperbole starts flying, I duck because it’s just bunk and I’d prefer they move on and blow smoke somewhere else or tell me how they’re working to make a difference. That may well be a class difference, I was raised by a working class family who didn't talk a lot about doing things, they saw the problems and worked to fix them. My parents didn't have money to throw at issues, they gave their time. My father was a volunteer football coach and my mother was right with him helping to raise money for uniforms, helmets, etc. They gave their time to kids that came from the same project they both were in and out of when they were growing up. Trust me, they never thought they were moving mountains, they just knew help was needed and gave it. I trained to tutor children with reading issues whose families most likely don’t have the resources to spend on specialized tutoring and there’s no pomp and circumstance for doing so. I get the satisfaction of communicating with teachers and parents and seeing and hearing about the progress that is being made and knowing that a student I'm working with is able to pass the Read to Achieve Assessment. Sometimes I even receive beautiful artwork like this, which I proudly hang on my wall. If you have a lot of awards to hang on your wall and enjoy the recognition you get while working toward helping others by all means, enjoy it, hang your awards up and be proud, you’ve worked hard to receive them, just make sure you're not one of the people who pushes others out of the way to be in the front row of the picture because there is plenty of volunteer work to go around.
We’ve met some wonderful people who couldn’t care less if anyone knows who they are or why they do what they do, but then there are some who would just as soon, step on your head to get past you to reach their goal. We need to get away from calling ourselves warriors or heroes for just being decent and refocus on doing the work. If you think about it, is going around and speaking at conferences where the parents have the means to afford: Travel, lodging and cost of the conference the best way to make a difference? I don’t know, but maybe some of that knowledge could be shared with parents who can’t afford the conference costs, parents who have children in schools that have high drop-out rates and poor performing schools where the work might not get as much press coverage or acknowledgement but it's needed. If you already take your time to do this, thank you. If you don’t, will you consider? Maybe, just a reminder to take a little step back and ask yourself, do you work hard to make a difference even when no one is watching? Can The Happy Dance & IEP Meetings Coexist? This is a question that has baffled the most astute scholars for ages…okay, maybe not but I enjoyed writing this and I like my snowman graphic.
We are numb from ten years of IEP Meetings for both of our children who have specific learning disabilities, that is why there was little reaction as we sat through the latest IEP Meeting and listened to another educator try to explain away our son's dyslexia by calling him a “nervous” reader who is fine once he gets rolling. I did start to wind up a little as I was listening to the educator speak about how important context clues are to reading and how they didn't care for evaluations on “nonsense” words because there was nothing for the student to gauge off of to understand what the words were, but my reaction may have just been out of habit. I did share that “nonsense” words are important because it allows you to see if your student is understanding the sounds of the letters and applying rules to be able to read a word, but I let it go at that because our son is finished with all the battling we've done in previous IEP Meetings, he understands how sometimes battling in those meetings means that frustrations are carried right out into the classroom and I could tell by his body language and could feel his, “let's move on stare” burning into the side of my face. So, we moved on because it's his IEP and at seventeen he knows what he needs in terms of goals and accommodations. We've worked hard through the years to understand what our children's special education rights and needs are and have tweaked our son's accommodations during that time to help make him successful. We've been told at times that some of his accommodations are unique, making it hard for some educators to understand how to implement them, but it's hard for us to understand how having: extra time, not grading on spelling, having tests read aloud, testing in a less distracting space, copies of notes and having a set of textbooks for home are unique, but that's subjective, I guess. I would like to share that he has had many teachers who, once they understood his learning style would go above and beyond what was written in the IEP to help him succeed in their class. Then, you have the few educators who make you scratch your head and wonder what in the world is making them so angry about a requested accommodation and they are unfortunately the memorable ones because they have caused your child angst and frustration. For example, the educator who was visibly angry at an IEP meeting when we asked for an accommodation of receiving a copy of the class notes. They were angry that they would have to walk to the office and make the copies. During the meeting, the principal offered to get them a printer to avoid the trip to the office and they did receive one in the classroom, but apparently had trouble operating it so it disappeared from the class and our son was then sent to the office to make his own copy of the notes. So, Can The Happy Dance and IEP Meetings Coexist? That’s probably a question best answered by someone more scholarly than myself. We haven’t had the fortune of having a wonderful experience during our time of IEP Meetings but I believe we have just one meeting left during our son's school career barring any unforeseen issues, so we are doing the happy dance because we see the end approaching, but there's an anxiety cloud looming that I keep pushing away for now, it's our daughter's first high school IEP Meeting on the horizon. She has dyscalculia and has been fortunate enough to have supportive school staff in the past, because with her, we've heard things in meetings like, how lucky she is to just have an issue with math and not reading because at least she can read and that's more important. We're hoping for the best. |
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