Carver and Lily were jumping on the trampoline, and as luck would have it... they jumped into each other. When I took this photo, it was just a few hours after the incident. When Carver woke up this morning, his eye was almost completely swollen shut, and the purple and blue hues of a deep bruise were up to his scalp and down into his cheek. It looks quite brutal.
David is out of town again, so we (um...me) are trying to be upbeat and happy. One thing I like to do when David is gone is rent tons of movies just for me and watch them at night to unwind. So of course the electricity would just have to go out at 7:00 and it was hot and getting dark and the kids got their second wind. Lily wound up dancing in the front yard in her nightgown, and Carver played baseball with friends across the street. Not exactly what I was expecting for the evening, but we survived.
Tomorrow we begin the first round of learning disability testing. A woman who specializes in this style of testing (dyslexia/dysgraphia) is coming to our house and will stay for an hour and a half, then come back on Friday for another hour and a half. I could write a novel about this situation and our options and roadblocks, but I'll refrain. I feel quite blessed to have a husband that works for our school district and speaks the language so we at least feel like we are already on step 3 out of 3,000. One of the reasons we're going with the tutor/special education professional is because she will help us write a 504 plan (our rights as parents to determine what our student needs). This means we can go into the school year, meet with our teacher and principal, and explain our child's issues and what we feel will be the best learning methods for them. So if our child has a learning disability in writing, they can be allowed to dictate their homework to me and use the computers at school for more writing assignments, rather than pencil on paper. This is just step A for us, because we need school to be a positive experience again for our sweetie. Right away! Then we get to step B and step C, etc., where we determine how to help our child write better.
Sorry to go on and on, but this is very worrying for us. I don't give a rat's patootie what grades our child earns. Grades are just that--grades! Who cares. I don't play the game of "my child started reading at a 4th grade level in kindergarten" or "my child is in the gifted and talented program." (insert a lot of false humility and batting of eyelashes here.) Some kids really are that smart and that's wonderful for them. But I'm on the other side of the fence. We have a child that finds school so draining and full of opportunities to fail, we watched their zest for life being snuffed out. We have promised our child it will be different this year. I will do just about anything to make sure our child learns to love school again!
1 comment:
I think it is absolutely fantastic that you're advocating so strongly for your child to get exactly the education s/he needs. 504's can be incredible tools for ensuring that school is not a scary place where children with learning differences are set up to fail. The only problem that I've encountered with 504's is that the parents generally have to be completely aware of their rights and willing to be vocal about their child's needs.
and you're absolutely right, I'm completely against grading in schools and wish that we could focus on cultivating a love of learning in our kids despite the myriad of learning styles that doesn't depend upon some external "motivation" to do well. (I realize that this position puts me on the fringe, but that tends to be where I sit on most things anyway...surprise surprise!)
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that no matter what, all of your kids are remarkable and talented. And they have pretty phenomenal parents to help them navigate this crazy, beautiful, often judgmental, and ever-amazing world.
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