I just got off the phone with my father's friend, a widow with two young children. Her youngest is 8, likes to play ball and can read 74 high-frequency words. He also has Down's Syndrome. It only occurred to me tonight as my dad was on the phone with her that I could be of help. After all, I teach Special Ed. Duh. I deal with the laws, the IEPs, the services. For some reason, it didn't dawn on me in the past that I could actually be a Special Educator to someone outside of my school and community.
So, I took the phone away from my dad, who is visiting for the weekend with his best friend Roger, and asked if I could be of any assistance to her and her son. We ended up speaking for half an hour, with me explaining some basic legal aspects of the Individualized Education Programs, how to extend her child's learning and therapies at home, and her own rights as a parent. And then I paused. There's so much to know, I said, and I so admire your dedication as a parent.
She sighed and said she's trying to learn. She's a woman who doesn't speak out much, she explained, but since her husband's death four years ago, she's had to do everything for herself and it's so hard. But she's learned with each passing year that she'll grit her teeth, put on a thick skin and speak up for her sons' rights. That means this soft-spoken woman who still bears a thick, immigrant Chinese accent drudged up the courage to go to her son's school and complain about an unkind teacher's aide. This means she's walked into her son's classroom and ask the teacher to send her son's new high-frequency words home to extend his practice. This means she has the nerve to ask at IEP meetings why her son isn't getting his individualized speech services. This means she's gone against the wills and words of teachers, administrators and therapists with PhDs. I stand in admiration of this woman who knows that she knows her child best.
And I told her so. And I told her not to back down on anything she believes her son needs, because as far as anyone at the school is concerned, she is the most important person coming through the front doors (after the kids, of course). School personnel probably won't tell her that, though. As a teacher, it can be more trouble for me to work with a parent who knows his/her rights and who will put me under the gun until I follow through with their requests. I'm overworked, underpaid and lack enough hours in a day to complete my lessons, my office paperwork and my grading. Not to mention teaching. It's tempting to marginalize parents when most of them do not know the full extent of their rights. I'm not saying that is what I try to do, or would ever want to do, but it's much easier to overlook these things when you're so over-burdened already.
I advised her to sympathize with the teachers, but to advocate for her and her child's rights to the greatest extent possible. I explained what inclusion is. I told her about Parents Reaching Out. I explained that she can call meetings and make changes to her son's IEP any damn time she wants. I explained that she can sit in on any class and any therapy session to learn what to help her son with at home. As immigrants, as a non-traditional family with a child with disabilities, as a low-middle income family in a rural community, they are disenfranchised already. When it comes down to it, we teachers are really here to serve, oftentimes in, but sometimes out of the classroom. Now we just need to let the word out.
You rock.
Posted by: B Winzer | April 26, 2006 at 09:37 PM