I wanted to write a quick post to thank you all for your support and encouragement as I've been recovering from my hip surgery. This was my third (and hopefully last!) surgery on my left hip, and the recovery has been steady, but much slower than the two before. However, I feel confident that the third time will be a charm!!
I am looking forward to returning to school at some point next week. I'm planning to begin with some half days to see how my hip feels about being back at work. So, with my split schedule, I would have a day(s) only at Ambrose and then a day(s) only at Lynch. I truly appreciate your patience as I am trying to strike a balance between getting back to school (which I am mentally 100% ready to do) and being mindful about doing the right thing for my health in the long term (which isn't always easy for me...but I can't tell you how much I don't want to go through this again)!! Ultimately, I believe that I will be at "full strength" after the Holiday Break.
I am working on progress notes for all of my students this week from home. My notes will differ from your child's classroom teacher in that my sole focus is on IEP academic goals. However, I do always discuss progress throughout the year with classroom teachers and my notes are often influenced by their input. For this term, I am also consulting with the teachers who have been covering for me at Ambrose and Lynch during my medical leave in order to "fill in the blanks."
Lastly, I wanted to mention a great book, written by Jerome Schultz, that I read last week which was suggested to me by one of you. It's called, Nowhere to Hide: Why Kids with ADHD & LD Hate School and What We Can Do About It. I found the book to be very well-written and informative for both school people and parents. One of Schultz's main ideas is that children with ADHD and/or learning disabilities often exhibit negative behaviors when faced with tasks in school that they feel are beyond their capabilities or that will expose their weaknesses in relation to their peers. These behaviors ultimately get in the way of their learning and we as teachers and parents must work to understand how to help our students/children overcome the thinking that brings them about. Schultz uses an acronym to name these behaviors; he says that students try to be self-protective and hide their perceived in-competencies by "Saving FASE." Fase stands for: Fear, Avoidance, Stress, and Escape. He goes on to explain, using another acronym, an approach to help our students/children overcome their negative behaviors by improving self-esteem, self-advocacy, and self-understanding. The acronym is DE-STRESS. This is what the TEAM's job is all about, helping students to realize that school can be a wonderful, non-threatening place where they can grow and opening them up to opportunities to learn. None of these ideas are new to me, but I really love how Schultz lays out these strategies so explicitly. I'll copy them here, straight from pages 155-156.
DE-STRESS
- Define: Analyzing and understanding a student's learning profile. Diagnosing and defining LD and ADHD and the impact they have on academic, behavioral, social, and emotional performance.
- Educate: Showing the child how to answer the question, "How does LD or ADHD impact my schoolwork and my life?" Educating those who work with or live with this child about the child's individual learning style and needs.
- Speculate: Helping kids learn to look ahead; to anticipate the problems they might encounter as they face new challenges. Encouraging them to identify the assets they bring to each task, along with the additional supports they might need from other people to be successful.
- Teach: Teaching students the strategies, techniques, and approaches that will maximize success and minimize frustration and failure. Teaching them how to recognize and manage stress, along with the skills of honest self-appraisal and how to learn from and repair errors.
- Reduce Threat: Creating learning and social environments that reduce, remove, or neutralize the risk. Teaching children how to recognize and deactivate "stress triggers."
- Exercise: Building in opportunities for regular and rigorous physical activity, which is known to enhance brain power and reduce stress. Also, recognizing the importance of proper nutrition and hydration.
- Success: Providing abundant opportunities to display mastery and experience success. Teaching students to replace the language of self-doubt and fear with the language of confidence, and using the language of success at home and in the classroom.
- Strategize: Using what you and the child have learned about minimizing and managing stress, and about the relationship of stress to LD and ADHD, to plan for a future in which continued success is likely.
I hope you find these ideas helpful in terms of things you can do at home and what the focus of my work (and the other members of your child's Team) often is at school. I would highly recommend this book to all of you. I plan to keep it in my personal library at close range so that I may reference it often. As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns. Thank you again for your understanding of my absence from school and please know that I am very much looking forward to returning soon!
All the best,
Patrick
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