School

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Last Monday I walked into school and one of the secretaries was waiting by the door to talk to staff as they came in. One of the students had passed away over the weekend.

He was in my classroom this year and took his turn as one of my favorite students (all of the students are my favorites, but sometimes at different times). The student was medically - well, he didn't take solid food by mouth and had a permanent feeding tube. He had a lot of digestive problems and was totally deaf with a cochlear implant.

Two weeks ago he was fine. His mom kept him home from school on Thursday to have two wisdom teeth pulled. The autopsy results are not back yet, but all we know is that he got some sort of infection, it got into his digestive system (which has always been compromised) and within a couple of days he was gone.

This young man had two things going on. The first was ebay. Our students get a small check for piece work they do and he spent his on ebay. I took a trip last year and was in the town where ebay has their international headquarters. So I went and got my photo taken in front of the ebay sign and gave it to this student. He carried it everywhere! He would see me and say (in the stilted way of the deaf)..."Ellen...ebay...California...airplane...whoosh!"

The other thing was Coke. That was unfortunate because of the stomach issues, but it was calories that he had a hard time getting. After his funeral on Friday afternoon his family sent everybody home with a can of Coke in his memory.

There are no guarantees in life.

This student was adopted. We have a large percentage of students who are adopted - some of the families families thought they were going to get a perfect little child and couldn't (for a variety of reasons) gave the child they got for adoption. Other students were taken away from families because while babies should have a loving family, there are no guarantees.

But he was adopted into a loving family with three other children - also impaired.

It was a beautiful service and I will most likely write more on that later.

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This is funny...I can tell when history classes have a research paper due. How?

Google searches. One of the research papers I wrote that I had the most fun with was: Compare and contrast Martin Luther and Henry VIII. I put a few of my papers online and this one is there also. That is by far the most popular search that brings people to this blog.

Of the top 5 google searches on my sitemeter page, 4 of them are looking for...yep. And they're not in the same place.  The cities:

  • Dallas, Texas
  • Tallahassee, Florida
  • Staten Island, New York
  • Van Buren, Arkansas

And I just thought my professor was being inventive...

So...if you're googling for information...please don't plagerize; give credit where credit is due...and enjoy history.

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Our class went to a restaurant today - we had a very nice tour of the kitchen, we got to eat lunch (complete with ice cream) and we all had a very nice day.

The really great part is that the management is open to having our students (one or two at a time) come to do job training. A staff member would take students to do either food prep, dish washing or table "prep" (filling bowls with sugar packets, washing menus, wrapping silverware). This is all stuff that our students can do, but we don't have very many placements. To be able to get into this restaurant would be a really good thing.

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(...)

If we look at a “disorder” and call it “normal”, then we fail to support a child’s true need for support and assistance, if truly needed. However, if we look at behavior which is actually normal for a child and call it a “disorder”, then we instill in the child (many times from a very early age) a belief that there is something “wrong” with her; there is something wrong that cannot be “fixed”, or that must be fixed with drugs.

Is there an alternative to labeling a young child with a mental disorder? Is it possible that “Attention Deficit Disorder” [2] is not a “disorder”, but rather something more natural, a remnant of necessary skills that brings not only challenges, but a skills set that may be seen as helpful in certain circumstances?

Read the rest...(this is the only thing that we were graded on and I got an "A")

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Ahh...tis the week before the last week before Christmas...

I just turned in a Spanish paper, I have a Education Psychology paper due on Monday, a final exam (Spanish) on Thursday - and (extra credit) I just found out that I can do a recitation for the equivalent of one test (I'm doing the Lord's Prayer).  I could conceivably bring my grade up to an A-...except that I have to be pretty good at pronunciation, and I'm not.

So the kids at work are getting weird (and will be until Christmas).

I have a final exam on Thursday night and surgery on Friday morning.

I'm a bit busy...

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In the “Allegory of the Cave”, we see an example of people seeing “through the glass dimly.” Plato describes a group of people in a cave since their childhood, chained so that they cannot move their heads. I could not picture this until I saw the illustration, but imagine a fire behind the people, casting shadows on the wall in front of them. There is also a walkway and animals, people and things are carried along between the fire and the wall in front of the prisoners.

All these people know of the world are the shadows on the wall in front of them. In fact, they may not even know that there is a world outside of those shadows. All they can see – all they can know – are the flickering shadows on the wall in front of them.

Imagine that one of these prisoners is set free. He stands up and turns around, seeing the fire for the first time. This is the first time he sees the direct flame and he is blinded. At first, before his eyes grow accustomed to the light, the objects that cast the shadows seem unreal – less real than the shadows. He rebels – this is not what he is used to!

(continue reading)

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I'll only have three posts this week, but it's been a good week. I think I did okay on the history test, and sure I did ok (meaning "A" on this one) on the psych test.

The psych paper is done - this is the paper that will be my final exam grade. I did the paper on "The Psychology of Deafness" and the subject turned out to be a lot more interesting that I thought it would.

Next up - "The Rise of the Roman Catholic Church - 800 - 1300). I'm learning a lot. This paper is due on Monday.