Now, for those of you who don’t know or who don’t have children in school who require Special Education services, what is Inclusion?  In a nutshell, Inclusion is the new movement to take a majority of kids in public schools who have been in Special Education classes [some of them for years now], take them out of the specialized, smaller and separate classes that parents and advocates fought so hard for so  many years to get for these kids, and dump them back into mainstream classes with a support staff member that is supposed to co-teach with the main teacher to help the ’special’ kids.

Why is there a push for Inclusion?  Well, money is the real reason.  It costs less.  If you are to ask a School Administration or Commissioner, though, they will tell you that move is prompted because students need to be with their same age ‘normal’ peers.  They need to see ‘normal’ social interaction, be taught at the same level as all of the other kids, and have the same opportunities as all of the other kids in school.  Separating them hurts them more than it helps them.

But is this really true?

In our experience, no.  Inclusion was the death of us with the public school system.  Granted, we homeschool now and I would not trade that for anything.  It has done wonders for my son and we will never go back to public schools unless we move to a state where you can pick and choose the classes your child takes, homeschool for part of the day, and play public school sports as a part-time homeschooler (because after all, we do pay the same taxes as everyone else to pay for those schools and sports).  But honestly, Special Education services were the only thing that worked for us in public school.  My son has a hard enough time learning in small classes in huge schools.  Do away with that, put him in a middle school class of 30-35 kids and two teachers, and it is a death sentence.  Now he has to deal not only with just trying to learn at the same pace and level as his more advanced peers but also with the commotion and actions and behavior of himself as well all of the kids in the class (many of whom are frustrated and struggling as well) and simultaneously listen to two different teachers.  All in one room.

Disaster.

And doesn’t this move to Inclusion go against everything that caring parents and advocates fought so hard for for so many years with regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act, IDEA and FAPE?

Yes, it does.

So, what to do…what to do?  Honestly, I don’t know.  And I no longer have a horse in that race.  But it concerns me greatly for those that do and for our society in general.

I know in our state the drop-out rate in the 9th grade is over 50% .  And that is pretty standard across the county.  And that was before Inclusion.  My guess is that it will increase now as these kids get more and more frustrated and say to hell with it. I know a Special Education teacher at Rye’s previous school told me that due to Inclusion they are now sending many 8th grade kids this year on to the ninth grade to enter Algebra class at the high school with a current 2nd grade math level.   Because they just cannot reach these kids in a class of 35 kids and 2 teachers.   And they cannot hold them all back.

So, what do they do? I don’t have any answers but I know that at this rate things will get worse before they get better and it breaks my heart that people work so hard in this country to make progress for disabled rights and help our future generations only to have it all undone but some bureaucrats that don’t want to spend money on education or mental health services, all in the name of ‘helping’ our kids.

Yes, by all means, thanks for the ‘help’.

And if you think Special Education services are expensive, wait for the bill on all of these kids as they grow up and become adults with no education, no life skills, and no way to adequately support themselves or their families.

Now that will be expensive.

If I had to look back on our past month or so, I would say learning outside the classroom has been our focus.  Learning about the world around us and learning about ourselves.  I mean, yes, we have been doing daily math lessons, we have been watching educational movies involving pieces of American History (some of which have been great), we have been playing the word game and building our vocabularies, we have been reading and writing a bit and are back on track with the tutor.  But really, we’ve been exploring.

As you know, we spent many weeks in the past month + at the beach.  As it turned out, this was a great lesson not only in nature but also in one of my favorite lessons of all time…only boring people get bored.

Why do I say this?  Well, there isn’t technically much to do at the beach we go to as far as traditional entertainment.  As a result I was asked many times, what is there to do here?

My answer?  I don’t know, you tell me.

At one point Rye’s friend asked me out on the beach, so what kind of beach toys or games did you bring? What do we have to play with?

My answer?  Well, we brought you, silly.  And your imagination.  And you have all of the outdoors to work with.  Show us what you’ve got.

A novel thought.

And you know what?  They made it work.  They made up games.  They had fun.  Rye sank into the slow pace at the beach even when his friend was not there and managed to enjoy himself.  We found things to do.  And again, we had fun.  And for a kid who has never been good at self entertaining, this was a major accomplishment.

_________

This past week since coming home we’ve had more of a cultural exploration.

We visited a museum and learned about Modern Art.  We saw a play, Cats [the musical].  And really, it’s been nice.  One of the things I notice the most these days, Rye is growing up.  He is maturing.  None of us were overly crazy about Cats and yet he sat through the whole thing with no issue.  He never once complained.  He simply commented, when appropriate, about what he thought of the show.  Just as we all did (it was all adults and Rye).  And most of it was constructive criticism. And in the end, we were all glad we saw it.

As Rye progresses this year into eighth grade, our focus in learning will shift.  We will add a dimension and go from learning not only the concrete but also the abstract.  And this will not be easy as learning disabled kids like Rye have a hard time with abstract concepts.  But you know what?  We’re going to try anyway.  And I think he can do it.  We will use poetry, art, life, emotion, the senses, experience.  All of it.

And most importantly, we will learn most of what we know outside of the classroom.

Because for us, that is what works best.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love Teaching Textbooks.

When we started this year [Grade 7], Rye would not use this program.  We tried a few sample problems from their website

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/

and I loved it but because he is learning disabled and was used to having a live person teach him, he wanted to continue learning in the way that was familiar to him.  So, we did.  We used the textbook Bob Jones Pre-Algebra, I made lessons for him every day, I made worksheets for him by hand, and I taught him.  It was dry, boring and a bit tedious and after six months of it, he was ready to try something new.  And so was I.

Enter Teaching Textbooks.

What a difference this has made in our lives!  Teaching Textbooks is interactive, interesting, broken down into reasonable sized lessons, incorporates a lot of review and looping back (which I was not great at), and takes nearly all of the work out for me.  All of the grading is done online and everything is planned, laid out, and taught for you.   And Rye really likes it (well, as much as he will ever like math).

Now, I will say that because Rye is learning disabled, I still do have to jump in from time to time and explain some things to him.  And so it’s not completely hands-off for me.  But, it’s about as good as it’s going to get because he will always need some help and I am happy as a clam to have 95% of the work done for me.  And at this level it gives cute encouraging displays when the student does well and those are nice.

So, where are we?  Well, although we have already spent most of this year on 7th grade math, we decided to start fresh with Teaching Textbooks and start from the beginning with the Grade 7 math curriculum.  Just to make sure we have it down.  So that is where we are now.  My goal is to be through Grade 7 this summer (as most of it is review for us) and start next fall on schedule with Grade 8 (Pre-Algebra).

Wish us luck!  And check it out if you haven’t already.

Also, I would say this would make a great at-home supplement for kids struggling with math even if you don’t homeschool.  It really breaks down the concepts, explains them very well, and makes sure your child has the basics down well.

I can’t help but think

that one day I will look back

on this time in my life

and think

these days

were some of the best days

of my life.

Apparently Rye’s talk with God the other day helped.

Last night he sat down, completely of his own free will while Don and I were watching TV in another part of the house, and wrote a 2 page, single-spaced story about himself.  No one asked him to do this.  There was no assignment he was trying to complete.  No one was waiting for a finished product.  He just did it.  For himself.  He just sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote.  And the grammar was decent.  And the spelling was reasonable.  And the story made sense.  It flowed.  It gave good visual references.  And it told a complete story with a beginning and an end and used a variation of sentence types.

This is nothing less than a miracle.

This is a kid who 3 months ago at age 13 could only write 3 or 4 barely legible sentences at a time.   He hated writing.  He is dyslexic and it has always been very, very difficult for him.  And because of this no one, including me, has pushed him to learn it.   Now, however, with the help of a tutor twice a week and him relaxing at home and leaning in a relaxed environment [and me and the tutor constantly reminding him (gently, of course) that if he can't learn to write well he will never be able to do college level work], this is what happens.

Beautiful.

And to top it off, he looked at me last night and told me he now thinks writing is fun and that maybe he will be a writer when he grows up.

Do it, Rye.

You will be nothing less than great.

We are watching this History Channel series on the history of America now as a part of our homeschooling and I can’t even tell you how good it is.  We have just started but we are watching one episode a day to enhance our learning of American History and it is really entertaining.  It is very fast paced, modern, and informative.  It really keeps Rye’s attention, which is really hard to do, and for that I am very grateful.  He is definitely learning from it and during the show I stop it a few times to make sure he understands what he is watching and then afterward I recap and ask him again what he watched just to make sure he remembers and understands.   There are also educational guides and quizzes on the following site.  We aren’t using those but they look good.  For us the series is on Primetime HD On Demand on cable but it looks like you can watch them online as well or order a video or DVD of the series.

http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us

Definitely check it out if you or your kids are interested in American History.  It’s the American History equivalent of Planet Earth.   You won’t be disappointed.

After which, I felt like this:

And wanted to do this:

But somehow we made it.

And we are both still here and alive.

Well, he’s now asleep.

I’m awake and still alive.

And now I’m going to work in the garden.  Hello peace and solitude.

Amen.

This is not our first time around on homeschooling.  We did it for over a year in the 4th-5th grade.  At the point I pulled Rye out of 4th grade, he was falling behind academically and was extremely frustrated by the school environment. Which, for us, meant nearly daily meltdowns at home.  I pulled him out and he did well.  When I put Rye back into public school with 3 months left to go in the 5th grade (he was ready to try it again for a while), he was able to pass the end-of-year tests at school with higher scores than many of the kids that had been there all year and years prior. And he has significant learning disabilities.

How is this possible?

Because kids like Rye often learn much better in a one-on-one setting.  Rye is dyslexic, has an auditory processing disorder (meaning he often processes what he hears incorrectly),  significant short term memory deficits, and an extremely short attention span.  He doesn’t have much time in the day where he will actually learn and absorb book learning.  So, how do we work with this?

I have found our best bet is to use workbooks and for no more than 2 hours a day.  Normal text books aren’t great for us as he really needs for everything to be hands on.  He learns by doing.  So I do teach him informally how to perform a task and then he does it.  And I generally have to sit with him the entire time he works and work with him every step of the way.  It is not easy.  And it takes a ton of patience.  But it is worth it.  It works.  And this is why he was going backward in public school.  He could not possibly get this much help and attention there and it was starting to show.  In less than one year back  in public school he was going completely backwards academically.  So, here we are again.

So, what exactly do we use?

Well,  we use workbooks for core skills and we use books, hands-on experience and field trips for all electives.   Although we learn a lot in the elective world, we do not have a set structure for electives.  We only use sit down, structured learning for core skills – reading, writing, grammar and math.

Specifically, this is what we are using right now.

http://teachersfriendcatalog.com/daily_chores_friendly_chart-p-58979.html

I use this chore chart (I know, it’s a bit corny for use with a 12/13 year old but whatever.  It’s huge/poster size and it’s clear and it works).  He has his basic skills work on there – reading, writing/grammar/math – and then his other chores for the week.  He checks them off as either done or undone and his allowance and freedoms are based on these checks.  If he does not do his book work for the day, he has no friends over or freedoms that day.  And honestly, I am not a fan of chore charts as by nature I am not an organized or micro-manager type person but he wanted one because it makes it clear and concrete to him what is expected of him.  So, he got one.

For math, we use the Grade 6 End-Of-Grade Coach workbook from the public school he went to and some supplemental workbooks that vary by what is helpful and well laid out (meaning easy to read for him and not too much on a page).  These include Singapore workbooks, hand made worksheets by me and a McGraw Hill one that I can’t find a picture of.

For reading comprehension we use:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Reading-Skills/Flash-Kids-Editors/e/9781411400771/?itm=1&USRI=grade+6+reading+skills

I like these Harcourt workbooks because they aren’t overly complex and they don’t have too much on a page which is great for dyslexic kids.  They also cover all parts of reading comprehension – facts, sequence, contect, main idea, conclusion, and inference.

The writing ones are good as well but we use them more loosely.  And we go down a grade level as we are quite behind in writing skills:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Writing-Skills/Flash-Kids-Editors/e/9781411404823

And this is the grammar book we use right now:

http://shop.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_69639_-1_10001_10002

Again, we go down a grade.  I like these grammar books becasue they are well laid out, don’t have too much on a page, and have a clear lesson on each page.

And, that’s it for the core subjects.  As for the elective work, I’ll write more on as we go.