Digital Story 2 - The Times They Are A Changing

Here it is....

Digital Writing Workshop- Horry County Class

The Many Faces of Autism

What does Autism look like? What is it? How does one acquire it? What causes it? Although Autism has many faces, it has two common elements: delayed language and impaired social skills, all in varying degrees.

People ask: Why has the incidence of Autism increased so over the last 10-15 years? What causes it? Is it environmental? Is it genetic? Is it caused by routine infant/toddler vaccinations? Is there a cure? The typical answer to these questions is...We aren't exactly sure.

The many faces of Autism? As a career special education teacher and school psychologist, I have seen many, many faces... There was Cathy, a moderately mentally disabled child who had no expressive language. She would momentarily fixate her eyes on an object, i.e., a person's hand or arm, prior to a very sharp bite... Trevor, also moderately mentally disabled, said only one word, "blue." This was said during a preschool evaluation with me. His mother cried when she heard him speak. It was his first and only word... There was Cory, mild to moderately mentally disabled, who had never spoken a word at school and in the same school system for his entire school career. His mother told his teachers that he talked all of the time at home. "Sure, sure," they all thought. No one believed her. In the tenth grade, the special education teacher visited the home. There was Cory---talking! Lesson learned? Listen to the mothers... There were the twin brothers, John and Ron, both mildly mentally disabled. Their mother cried and told me that she believed she had caused it. She thought she had held them and rocked them too much as babies because they were so fretful...Stephen was very, very quiet, rarely making eye contact. He would not initiate a conversation with someone, but would respond in short phrases when spoken to. Stephen entered the talent show at school and sang karaoke.

Then there was Julian; we called him Jules for short. Jules struggled so desperately to make sense of his confusing world. Why did that fire alarm ring so loudly and scare him? He did not know that it was going to ring. That is why he screamed and ran out into the hall and out of the building. One day his teacher held up a paper that he had left on his desk and asked, "Julian, what should we do with this paper?" Jules casually replied, "Oh, give it to my locker." Jules danced an Irish jig with a local celebrity at a restaurant on St. Patrick's Day. He cried when another student jokingly wrote "Pooper" on his paper. He loved the theater and musicals. His English class was delighted when he voluntarily stood in front of the class and recited his rendition of Phantom of the Opera with sound effects. He received a standing ovation from his class. He wrote a note to his teacher one day that she had hideous hair. Another day at lunch, a student accidentally bumped into him, causing him to drop his lunch tray. He screamed. The other student was equally upset. It was an accident. She came and sat by him the next day during lunch. He looked at her and said, "Isn't there something that you want to say to me?" She smiled, said she was sorry and gave him half of her roll. He smiled back.

May God bless the children.

The Kid Who Nobody Liked

There once was a kid named Jack who nobody liked. He was handsome enough and very smart. Nobody liked him. He desperately wanted friends. No one wanted to be his friend. Tears would well up in his eyes because he could not understand why no one liked him. Jack's mother had explained to him that he was born with a condition called ADHD--Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Kids with ADHD act impulsively, talking out before thinking, getting up out their seat frequently. It sounded simple enough to Jack. So why did no one want to talk to him or play with him? This made Jack very sad, and the more he tried to make friends, the more he was shunned by his classmates.

Jack did not understand that the Control Panel in his brain was wired a little differently than most others. Because of his condition, he often perceived things differently than others. He was unable to distinguish between positive and negative social interactions. His teachers saw this and tried to explain to him that others did not like to be called names (often racial) or have their pencils and erasers taken or to be constantly poked and made fun of. Jack thought he was playing and did not understand. His teachers explained to him that his classmates did not like it when he constantly interrupted classes. They did not like it when he was chosen to run the PowerPoint (which was a huge privilege) and then used the Ink Pad to draw on the screen. After once or twice, it is not funny to fall out of a desk onto the floor.

Jack thought he was being funny and making friends. It made him very sad to realize he had no friends. He did not understand why. He was the kid who nobody liked.

VoiceThread Project

Another enlightening technological tool for educators...I never knew this was out there. VoiceThread can be used as an online discussion with students. One to four photos can be posted with discussion by the teacher and any assignment. When you create and upload the picture(s), the teacher can give general comments about what the pictures represent and what the students should gain from this. As I was watching and listening, my first thoughts were Bull Island before and after Hugo or Garden City before and after Hugo or Myrtle Beach before and after Hurricane Hazel, just to name a few. It can be used almost like a SmartBoard, it seems. There is a highlighter that the instructor can point out certain areas and highlight. Comments can be made either by audio recording, web cam, or keyboarding. Very cool.

What Am I? What Made Me?

Saturday mornings on my grandmother's porch with fried sweet potatoes for lunch;

The smell of tobacco curing during the summer;

My grandmother saying, "You don't have to go to sleep tonight. Just close your eyes and rest."

My grandfather building a fire at 6:30 every morning and drinking coffee;

My grandfather and I watching Gene Autry and Captain Kangaroo in the mornings;

Going to church every Sunday;

I was age 6 before I realized that "chester draws" was actually "chest of drawers" and "chillun" was "children;"

Then-

Helping care for my grandmother as she aged;

Spending weekends with her;

Visiting her every week in Rehab and a nursing home;

Visiting my Aunt Hazel, her sister, every week and sending her money each month;

Then-

Spending weeks in the hospital with my mom when she was ill;

I slept in the ICU waiting room and showered in the nearby empty rooms at 4:00 each morning. Three Christmases were spent in the hospital. I remember her staring through me saying, "I can't live with this pain. I can't live like this anymore." I asked her doctor if he could manage her pain. He said no. My dad kept telling me that we would get through this. Five months after my mother died, she came to me in a dream. She told me she did not want me to worry about her. She was in a much better place and she was out of pain.

Then-

Helping my husband take care of his mother and her two sisters;

They were all ill at the same time;

Nursing homes, hospitals, nursing homes, hospitals;

They were such elegant ladies when I first met them. They loved lively conversation and politics, and they loved to laugh. They loved family and friends.

Then-

The last aunt living with us for 5 years;

She was actually my favorite sister. There were five sisters in all---beautiful girls in their day. We loved to go out to dinner, and we loved our glass of wine and good conversation in the early evening. Her health gradually declined.

They are all gone now. I would give just about anything for one Sunday afternoon with all of these wonderful people who made me what I am.

It's All About Me

I knew the assignment: begin with a memoir; bring pictures; create a Digital Story. Sounds simple enough...I had my first few pictures scanned in as jpeg, saved on my jump drive. Somehow, I believed that I was beginning my digital story rough draft, to be completed after I had time to review, revise, and think. I had collected other photos that I wanted to include, and my dear husband scanned them in as a pdf file "because they would be clearer." BAM! 11:30 Saturday morning..."Good Luck!" OMG! I told myself to slow down and think. It seemed simple enough. I followed Photo Story 3. I went to pull my pictures and put them in order. The second set was not there! I knew I had seen them right before I came to class!
Plan B: Take the first set; go from there. Things went very smoothly. Since I was at my school, I left the lab to record in my classroom so that it would be quiet. After an hour in and out of my classroom, I found out that the computer did not recognize my mike. I was waisted by then. I came home to use my equipment at home. Except for a few gliches, things went well. I showed it to my Advisory class in the morning and they loved it! It was hokey, but fun. I am going to do this again.

Turn, Turn, Turn

From the Book of Ecclesiastes:

,,,For The Times, They Are A Changing...

Fortunately, I had a close relationship with my grandparents. I visited daily. I dearly loved Saturdays when I got my book and a big feather pillow and got in the big swing on the front porch and softly rocked and read. My grandmother would fry sweet potatoes for me for lunch. I loved it. My first remembrance of my grandparents was my grandmother, heavy set, long dress, beautiful white hair. My grandfather was very tall and slender. He smoked Camel cigarettes and drank coffee. Smoking unfiltered Camel cigarettes, I think I was in 7th grade when he died. We went to church every Sunday, even if we were sick. If we wiggled in church, there would be a sharp thump on my leg from my dad. Don't even think about being taken out of church during the sermon. I cherish all of those memories.

I look at my sister-in-law, who is a grandmother, and I look at the lives that she and her grand daughter lead. They are also very close...equally as close as I was to my grandparents. Yet the lives are so vastly different. My sister-in-law and her husband look like me. They don't look "old" in my mind's eye. They go to the wine country in California 2-3 times a year. They go to Las Vegas and Tahoe 2-3 times a year. When they are at home, Jennifer (we will call her), visits a few times a week. Jennifer's memories are going to be of going to Disney for every long weekend with her parents and grandparents. It is the princesses and dancing on stage with the Disney characters and the Magic Kingdom.

The times are definitely a-changing.

Our 10 Year Snow

Ah..living in the South. Snow once every ten years. Just enough that it isn't completely wiped out in our memories. Since being a teenager, I remember the snows of 1973,1979,1989, just a dusting in 2000, and then this past Friday night. That excitement never leaves us. I got up at 2 a.m. and opened the blinds so that I could watch it fall. My husband and I were up at 6 a.m., having our coffee and watching the snow fall. There were phone calls all morning to relatives and friends, "It's snowing! It's snowing!" By 3 p.m., it was all gone. Oh well, I'm good for a few more years.

What Came First?

What came first, the chicken or the egg? What came first, children actually being allowed to learn or Pacing Guides and Benchmarks? Education never ceases to amaze me. What happened to teaching a skill to mastery? Was it taking children too long to process information? I see it on a daily basis, especially in math. Introduce a new concept day one the last ten minutes of class, assign homework for that skill just introduced, spend maybe an hour on it the next day and test on day three. Especially for our children with learning problems, their little heads are spinning. When the test is given, it is a published test that covers the range of the skill, easy to most difficult, and maybe three kids pass the test. Yet, what do we do on day four? Go on to the next skill. It seems so ludicrous to me. It happens day in and day out. We aren't teaching. We are introducing skills and exposing our students to grade level standards. There is no time for processing the information and practice. Good Lord, forget about any review or spiraling to keep that skill in their minute memories. I have tactfully suggested this to a few teachers in the past. My answer has unanimously been, "We have to go with the Pacing Guide. Benchmark is next week." Benchmark often assesses skills that have not yet been taught. Everyone who works with the curriculum knows this. Yet, we continue to follow the Pacing Guide. I don't get it. This is how we will ensure every child will master grade level curriculum?

Recurring Thoughts on Sara Kajder

My initial attraction to Sara Kajder's book was the title, Bringing The Outside In. My career has been working with the reluctant reader in some capacity, be it diagnosis, teaching, or coordinating programs and services. I am not actually sure what digital storytelling is. i do not fully comprehend how visual read-alouds, images and logographic cues can lead us through a text. Being a well-educated, fluent reader, I keep asking myself, "If I were given a camera, and asked to take pictures of what reading looked like to me, what would the pictures be? Thin I look at my eleven and twelve year old struggling readers and wonder what their pictures would be.

The students Sara describes are a bit older and more technology savvy than my students. Yes, they have command of Power Point and know all the cool bells and whistles to make a presentation look good, but they lack the basic knowledge of the purpose of research, the process of research and the end result and benefits.

I recall as a child reading Mary Poppins. On a spring Sunday afternoon, I was in a rocking chair on the outside porch, reading the scene of the colored chalk drawings on the sidewalk. In the story, it began to rain and the pictures melted away. I suddenly realized that I must have been dreaming. I was at home. I was not on that sidewalk. Even with Dick, Jane, and Sally, I recall reading the words and being able to picture the story in my mind. My students do not seem to have that ability. They give me blank stares when I ask them questions about what they see in their mind's eye. When I write, I hear my inner voice speaking. They do not seem to have that inner voice. I wish that I could somehow share that with my kids.

The Education Pendulum Swings Again

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I have been in education, particularly special education, long enough to see that great pendulum swing...more than once. I grew up in rural South Carolina in the 60's. In my little community school, there was no special education. There was one girl my age in my church with Down's Syndrome . Mollie went to church with us, but she did not go to school. My mom just explained that she had the mind of a 5 year old and would always be like that. We didn't care. We liked Mollie. We just all played together.

I was taught to read phonetically. There was no other way. In college, I became fascinated with something called dyslexia and learning disabilities. At the time, I was working dually on my Masters in learning disabilities and obtaining my school psychologist certification. I was just in awe of the work done by Dr. Samuel T. Orton and the Orton Dyslexia Society, Dr. Albert Gallaburda at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Dr. Margaret Greer and her work with preschoolers at MUSC. My life was also blessed with having the opportunity to work very closely with Dr. Alice D'Antoni Phillips for almost 20 years. I could not learn enough. My eyes had been opened. Being torn between working in the private or public setting, I decided that I could reach more children in the public sector. Special Education law and litigation intrigued me. I knew in my heart that this was right. I knew these were bright children.

It was then I noticed a problem. Public education was using a different way to teach kids how to read and write. It was called Whole Language. Spelling was not important. Phonetic rules were not important. Kids would learn. Yeah, right. How many did we lose? "Typical" kids will learn in spite of a bad program or teachers. The learning disabled child did not have a prayer. By then, I was an eager beaver school psychologist evaluating children left and right, trying to identify those children with learning differences to try to help them in a world of failure. Could we go to work every day and not be successful day after day after day? After a few years of Whole Language frustration and an entire loop of kids not being able to read, write or spell, I began to see a change. I saw reading moving back toward phonetics. Being trained in the Orton-Gillingham method, I could not fathom why public schools did not utilize what had been proven over and over since the 1940's. Then I saw phonetics being taught through SRA materials. This was good. It was very much like Orton-Gillingham. There seemed to be progress. Kids learned and felt better about themselves.

Time moved on. I began hearing, "too many children identified;" "higher than the national average;" and "money is being wasted." There seems to be a huge movement to "not identify" children with learning disabilities. In one respect, that is fine as long as these unidentified children with learning disabilities can receive the strategic or intensive programs they need in the public school in order to be successful and make the playing field level. On the other hand, the child whose needs are not being met will usually present themselves in one of two ways. One, they are the quiet child who believes that they are "stupid" and fades into the background and goes to the nurse every day at 1:00. Two, we have the Tazmanian Devil who can totally tear a classroom of 25+ apart with a nationally certified teacher at the helm who feels totally inadequate because she/he cannot control ONE twelve year old.

Are we moving forward to help ALL children or are we cutting our nose off to spite our face in order to appear to be politically correct?

Time for Spring!

Okay, anyone else had enough of the cold? I actually look forward to it every fall, but by the end of January, I've had enough. I am tired of being cold. I want to get out and ride my bike. I want to walk to the beach. I want to work in my yard. I need sunshine. Yesterday I did see the tips of daffodils coming out. Spring is coming.

The Search

After beginning to read Sara Kajder's book, Bringing the Outside In, my interest peaked as to how to help the struggling reader. My whole career has been dedicated to the struggling learner. I use the latest programs recommended by the leading universities; I know all the current buzzwords; I am not afraid of work and go over and above my job expectations. My kids continue to fall behind. They continue to be the subgroup that does not meet requirements. There must be an answer. I do not accept that is all there is. Perhaps this is the key that I have been searching for.

I am a teacher working with students with learning disabilities in a middle school. My educational training and experience have been in special education. I have seen the tears and successes of our children struggling to succeed. When I am not overwhelmed with schoolwork, I enjoy gardening and my cats.