Which Path to Take

Which Path to take

In the special education profession there are several paths available. The obvious path follows the beaten trail; it's down the lane where everyone expects you to go. Then there's the other path.  The second passage, that's the one that had my name written all over it!

I went from horticulturist to special ed teacher and at first I was fine with this transition. But, the status quo or 'normal' approach of treating our learning disabled kids wasn't giving me or my students the results they deserved. The kids weren't blooming. All kids deserve the best we can give them.  I wanted the kiddos to have the opportunity to weave down paths where they could bloom. To bloom like the roses I'd cared for in the past.

Once I maneuvered onto the unknown trail in search of 'roses' there was NO turning back.

The trail began innocently. In a way I think it started when a student needed a place to stay over a weekend. They would spend time with me and my family. Or, a parent would confide in me their concerns for the child's education. I'd make special arrangements to hang out on a Saturday with another student and learn more about them then I could at school. A parent would come into my office in tears. I'd try to help and I could at least listen. These special events, they impacted me.

Tourette's and Autism info

But there was more. These kids had enormous difficulties in reading, writing effectively, solving math problems and more. Even greater was their dislike for school. I needed answers. Parents needed answers.

I started out researching in an area where a student was having difficulty. Then another area of need would arise..for that student or for another student.

At the top of the picture that's in the center of this page is the receipt for the Tourette's conference I attended in St. Louis. One student had received a Tourette's diagnosis and I wanted more info on how to work with this disorder. It was a stepping stone on my path.

Categorizing my searches into areas like dyslexia, diagnostic teaching, brain processing and multi-intelligence helped me to sort out the massive amounts of info I was collecting. These binders held my mounds of paper; research I'd tucked away and forgotten about until I started cleaning out the storage area!

I have to admit that at first I was excited when I found these old things...only because I figured here's something I can get rid of!

Then I realized these verify my early searches. Now the question is do I keep these as reminders, or recycle them and free up space?

Early dyslexia and speech implementer info 

Save or recycle? In the meantime I'm amazed at the journey I've been on. 

It's a LONG Journey

"For me it was the beginning of a long journey. Long journey, oh how those words don't even begin to convey the truth...exhausting, challenging, overwhelming, lonely, intense, and long, yes, it's been a LONG journey!"

That writing above is from my last post. I reviewed the post, hit PUBLISH and immediately realized the 'exhausting, challenging, overwhelming....' part gives a false impression. The journey WAS all those things, but mostly... it was an unknown, lonely and alien path.

Have you ever been on your journey of life and in the back of your mind thought everything was hunky-dory or normal; on autopilot? Yes, I was on autopilot until W H A M!  I slammed head first into a MAMMOTH wall.

Simply put, the path of my life suddenly diverted from autopilot to grad school for a master's degree in special education. Meanwhile, life took a thousand twists along the mountainous path of raising my four children by myself. Here you can insert EXHAUSTION!

At one point I quit grad school out of frustration. Learning the history and theories of education didn't seem relevant anymore.  Eventually God turned my heart around and I was back in school. It took me more than a few years to get that master's degree, but I did it! Before the ink had dried on my diploma my phone was ringing and I had a request to interview for a special education position. After one interview I found myself heading to the classroom, this time as a teacher!

I'm forever grateful for that opportunity to work in elementary education. It was a new road to say the least  (after all my bachelor's degree is in applied science, agriculture, emphasis on horticulture, where my favorite saying was, "I like working with plants because they don't talk back! HaHa!) 

Working on a master's degree, holding down at least one job and substitute teaching pre-school through high school, raising my kids by myself, while maintaining a house and eight acres was absolutely exhausting but oh, so worthwhile.

You see over the years I knew my kids learned in a different way. My true journey had begun with my own children when I realized their strengths and weaknesses in learning. Finding the best way for them to learn to read, write, do math, had been my first goal. DYSLEXIA back then was not an unheard of thing. Unknown no: forbidden describes it more clearly.

Finding myself as a teacher would mean that for the first few years I'd be back on autopilot, until I couldn't stand it anymore! 

What's next?

The Final Straw: Let's go back a bit first

Previously I wrote about my overpowering desire to learn about dyslexia and to figure out how in the world I could help my students. I wanted to learn beyond what I already knew about special education, learn from my past, from my experiences, to ...  really, I did not know what to expect!

There seemed to be too many unknowns and no answers!

30 Years
Over 30 years ago... I was, minding my own business walking through the education wing at church, when the children's ministry director, Cindy McKee, stopped me.

"How would you like to teach Sunday School?" she asked.

"ME?"
"Oh, NO."
"I am NOT a teacher!" I protested (Loudly!)

"I really need a teacher, Cathy." She said. Her tone was serious and the look in her eyes said she wasn't messing around!

Who was I? I was just a young mom with a degree in applied science, an agriculture degree for goodness sake! What could I possibly know about teaching?!? I just knew there was nothing in my background that prepared me to be a teacher! I had two young children and in my eyes there was no way, NO WAY, I was remotely equipped to teach!

Cindy continued on. "I need a 1st grade teacher."

"No. I can't do it." I was not the answer to her problem!

Little did I know, while I thought I wasn't the answer, here was one of the beginning points in my career in special education.

AND teach Sunday school I did! Cindy's persistence won out. Here's how we handled it: I agreed to not be THE teacher but to be the HELPER! In the end three ladies rotated, each teaching one month at a time, while I served as the support person. I was the helper. In the background. NOT teaching.

Children's Classroom, Cathy's Research lab!
Did I say I was NOT teaching. Silly me, because that's exactly what I did! The year started off with me sitting quietly there helping the teacher when ever I could, but at some point I realized something ----> I was as much a teacher as anyone in that class. Having three teachers originally seemed like a great idea. But it turned out that I knew the kids' personalities, their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses better than anyone because I was there every week. (Only missed one week when I gave birth to my daughter. After that my baby girl came to Sunday school, too!)

The class had about a dozen students, but one little girl to this day stands out in my mind's eye. One beautiful little girl, each week, would grow quiet when her turn to read approached. You see, the ladies who were teaching felt that having the class take turns reading the lesson was a great idea. Sounded good.  At some point that year I realized it was not the best choice for this sweet little girl.

I had no training in learning disabilities or any idea what dyslexia was at that time, it just made sense to let her choose whether or not she wanted to read.

She didn't.

That was 30+ years ago. I still remember thinking: how can someone who's so pretty, and has no obvious disability, struggle to read.  Now I know better. To this day I will occasionally hear someone comment "that child's too cute, they can't have a disability." Still so many people to educate.

For me it was the beginning of a long journey. Long journey, oh how those words don't even begin to convey the truth...exhausting, challenging, overwhelming, lonely, intense, and long, yes, it's been a LONG journey!

Earth Day

Open House at Egerman Woods

This picture is of my neighbor Tina and me from a really long time ago! The pic is so old that when it was taken many of you weren't even born yet!

It was early 1970's when my friends, our family and many neighbors in our country neighborhood in Naperville, went to bat (through the legal system and a court case) to preserve our neighborhood woods named Egerman Woods.

I imagine it was (and is) called Egerman because of a family that once lived here, who owned the woods and nearby land. A small house, years ago, sat just up -what's now called 'old' -College Rd, and I'd be willing to bet whoever owned that little house owned the woods, too.

Remembering back in time rumors were spreading about an apartment complex someone wanted to sink into the middle of the woods (pictured just beyond the BLACK OAK tree my sign and I are pointing at!)  I really can't remember much about this picture except that as the rumors went from gossip to reality we kicked into hyper-drive action and quickly held what you might call 'Egerman Open House!'...for the woods that bordered our backyard.

Caring about trees, grasses, wetlands, and native creatures wasn't part of the developers concern, that’s where we came into play! Developers, their concern had only to do with man-made things like blacktop roads, concrete basements and wooden structures. Lots of details I probably never understood; what I did totally get was that the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, from the whole thing, made me sick.

With the woods just steps from my backyard, to me it was my very own sanctuary. Egerman Woods with its trails, low water areas and triple-crown oak trees were more than a bunch of trees and dirt. This area was a 'pre-settlement' oak forest meaning it's practically one of a kind in these days of massive cities and towns! 

My fascination with trees began about the time I was four years old when my family and I moved to northern Illinois. Dad and I were making trips to the local nursery to study the possibilities for plantings in our new yard.  At four years old I was growing my own mini veggie garden, studying wild onions, drawing landscape plans for the backyard and growing flowers. Then there were the silver maple seeds.  One easy to grow silver maple soon became a fixture in our backyard so that when we moved to Kammes Dr. near Egerman Woods my dad and I transplanted that silver maple onto our property. (Last time I visited my old house that transplanted silver maple was still there, too!)

Loving trees was one thing, but suddenly it was about legal rights, court cases, and, well, finding the right outfits to wear during the week of court proceedings we went through to save the woods!  Funny, I remember more about the clothes I wore for these events than some of the actually events of the day! I guess that's how life goes!

Today my old house that borders Egerman is still there, but its no longer considered to be in Naperville, it is officially Lisle, IL. Lots of things have changed but not EGERMAN WOODS! Check it out:

http://www.recreationparks.net/IL/du-page/eggerman-woods-county-forest-preserve-farmsted

If you look closely you'll find the small pond that I mentioned yesterday in my blog post, the pond where we skated!

There's a connection between Jackie Robinson, Reading and Ice!

*Recently I was out at Midway Heights Elementary for their 'Stampede'. I was a guest reader and that was all I was expecting to do: read!

Since I was there to represent Kona Ice I had on my new Kona Ice groovy-grape t-shirt but, because of my passion for teaching about dyslexia I was promoting awareness for learning difficulties, too.

Before starting to read I asked the kiddos to forgive me if I made any mistakes. Not that I was expecting to make mistakes (but aren't mistakes something we're not expecting to make!) my point was, I'm dyslexic and know that even adults make mistakes. Backing me up, the classroom teacher chimed in and said that her first graders love to help each other out when the reading gets tough. Perfect introduction!

Then she handed me a book, Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson. Little did I know but this book would prove to have lots of connections to my life!

I first thought about Jackie Robinson, a true hero, who debuted in major league baseball on April 15, 1947. His baseball appearance broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. Then I thought about the Dodgers, who in a roundabout way, helped my father become a reader.

Growing up in the 1930's my dad had many dyslexic traits that his teachers didn't understand; one of those was that he hated really disliked reading. In-spite of his reading difficulty he'd frequently stop in his school's library looking at the new books hoping for an interesting one. On one special day when dad was in 3rd grade, it happened; a brand new book that looked interesting enough to read! That book just happened to be about major league baseball and the Brooklyn Dodgers!

From that time forward dad was a reader, and a loyal Dodger baseball fan.

Baseball and reading... but Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson also has ice in the title! At Kona Ice we use lots of ice, and the kids were making that connection, but now we're talking about the ice you skate on!

As I'm reading to the kiddos (and trying to not make any mistakes!) the story turns to Jackie Robinson's children who love to skate on their family's lake in the winter. As the story progresses the children begin to realize that their father is actually afraid of the ice. Isn't that crazy to think that one of the best baseball players of all time, who was not afraid of facing difficult trials in his life, was afraid of the ice. (Reminds me how some don't understand why reading is so hard, because it's so easy for them!)

As I'm reading my mind wanders to the time my family got started in the ice business when I was young. It was the winter my dad flooded our backyard to make a small ice rink for my 5-year-old brother and his hockey friends. When we moved to the country a few years later we didn't flood our yard anymore because a pond became our 'rink'. Out there on frigid winter days I'd clear the surface of the ice with my 'Zamboni'  -our electric riding lawn mower!

Memories of maneuvering our 'Zamboni' over the frozen pond (knowing it was solidly frozen) and then spending hours skating with friends and family over the bumpy surface, filled my thoughts!

After I finished reading the book the children asked question after question about the story and the connection they'd made from that story. All I had expected to do was read aloud to some sweet children but I got so much more!

So many life connections, right there in a book about Jackie Robinson. I called my dad when I left the school to share with him the impact of reading aloud to a first grade class. It thrilled him to know how meaningful it had been!

All I was expecting to do was read...but I got so much more!

*Thanks to Midway Heights Elementary School for allowing me to read at their event and to Michele Spry of Midway Electric for coordinating the event and for taking the pictures!

Nothing Stays the Same

"Nothing stays the same."  Nothing. Ever.

I glanced at my cookbook binder sitting on my counter-top and it hit me like a bag of flour falling from the top cupboard and landing on my head!

Nothing stays the same. Don't get me wrong, it's not so much about the recipes in the binder in my picture below. It's more about how we've changed. With the recent diagnoses of gluten intolerance and food allergies for my husband we've had to change the way we eat. The recipes that fill my cookbooks, folders, recipe boxes and binders have served me well over the years but they list too many ingredients that my husband can't eat now.

Then I looked at the antique spoons, the salt and pepper shakers, coffee maker, jars, recipes and new coffee cup also on the counter, and realized there's more to the story.

The clippings inserted in the left side of the binder were cut out of the Columbia Tribune on October 21, 1998. It's my favorite Donna Pierce article titled "NOTHING STAYS THE SAME." Donna's story is about the day her friend and neighbor Johanna moved. Donna's articles always touched my heart.

I had the opportunity one day last year to tell Donna's father, Dr. Eliot Battle, how much I loved her articles. It was just before the dedication for our new Columbia high school (named for her late mother, Muriel Battle.) Still wish I'd followed my urge that morning to snap Dr. Battle's picture as we talked. He was proudly wearing his BATTLE HIGH SPARTANS hat and beaming ear to ear as we talked about his beloved daughter. Dr. Battle passed away soon after that.

Nothing stays the same.

To the left of the cookbook are some spoons that belonged to my grandmothers. One is stamped STREATOR ILL HIGH SCHOOL in the bowl and is dated 2•8•'03 (1903), my grandmother's fourth birthday. The berry spoon in the center (that I use almost every day to stir my coffee) was my great grandmother's. It's stamped " '96", 1896 that is!

There's a Keurig Coffee maker, which managed to replace my Cuisinart (NEVER thought I'd give that up!) A glass jar holding Stevia that has replaced our sugar. The white bird salt and pepper shakers remind me of the extensive miniature salt and pepper shaker collection my mom collected in the '40's (mom's been gone now for over 25 years.) On the right side of my cookbook is the gluten-egg-milk-butter-GMO free chicken dumpling recipe I created the other night. Finally there's the mug with two of my grandsons' picture on it. I look at the mug and I'm reminded of how fast they are growing up.

There's more at stake here though, besides the items in my kitchen. It's about more than mugs with the grandson's picture, spoons that bring out lots of memories, recipes and such; I'm talking about changing our way of thinking.

Nothing stays the same.

We're knocking out wheat, egg, milk, cheese, butter, soy, peanut, GMO's and more from our diet, but what I'm thinking about is even tougher. It's about changing the way we thinking about dyslexia; a change of attitude in the schools and in our nation.

When it comes to dyslexia, autism, ADHD, etc. it feels like nothing has changed.

Something has to happen.

Thank you Mr. Falker

"Trisha was sure Mr. Falker believed that she could read. She had learned to memorize what the kid next to her was reading."

I'd been asked to read aloud to a school group. This wasn't something I was doing as a learning specialist or a dyslexia expert, just as an ordinary citizen.  I put a lot of thought into what book I should read and decided it should be a book students could relate to.

"Almost as if it were magic, or as if light poured into her brain, the words and sentences started to take shape on the page as they never had before."

These lines I'm quoting are from the book, Thank you Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. The main character in the book isn't about a fictional character created by an unsuspecting author. This story is about the author, Ms. Polacco herself.

I first read through the book to become familiar with the story. It had been years since I'd read this book. The plan was to 'read' the book from memory on the day I visited the school. Then I could make direct eye contact while I read, in hopes of making a connection with the students. It would be an elementary class so I knew undoubtedly several kids in the group would be struggling with dyslexia, reading difficulties and/or language skills. Maybe reading this book aloud to them would help some know that they are not alone.

I knew it was a lot to hope for over just a short amount of time, but I thought it was worth it all.

I sat down to read through the book that first time and cried. Tears ran down my face as I read about the pain Trisha had experienced because of reading struggles. Guess it was a good idea to read through the book after all. Didn't want to get all teary eyes in front of the kids and not be able to read!

Reading day came quickly and before I knew it I was walking along the school's tiled floor, through the long hallway to the gym. Time flew quickly as I sat down and began to read to the class circled around my chair. But it wasn't long before more than one child told me how they found reading to be the hardest thing they had to do at school. Immediately they began identifying with the book's main character. Some had had the book read to them before and told me it was one of their favorite books. 

In the end I think I learned more than any of the children did that day. I've been working with dyslexia and reading difficulties for over 30 years since I co-taught a 1st grade Sunday School class where one beautiful little girl could not read a word. But even after 30 plus years of trying to understand learning differences I still am trying to take it all in. 

Thank you to all the children out there who touch my heart and inspire me to continue on. 

"'But, little one, don't you understand, you don't see letters or numbers the way other people do.  And you've gotten through school all this time, and fooled many, many, many good teachers!"  He smiled at her. "That took cunning, and smartness, and such, such bravery.'"