Moving Right Along

Well, we have now had a little more than two weeks of home school, and everything is going swimmingly. We finally got access to the Online School system last week or so and have been doing whatever parts of everything we can without books. Our books should be here Friday - at least I got an email from UPS saying that something is coming on Friday for Charlie that weighs something like 57 pounds, so I assume that's it.

Charlie loves being at home for school. He goes to the actual school for his therapy on Wednesdays and everytime he tells me "I'm not going to stay, I'm not going to school there, I am only there for 30 minutes" so maybe he disliked school there more than I knew.

He is flying through math lessons like a crazy person - he loves math and the beginning of 1st grade math is so easy for him that we have been skipping the lesson parts and going straight to the assessments - if he gets every question right on the assessment I tell him he has "tested out" of that lesson and we move on to the next one. If he misses a question he has to do the lesson. I limit him to either an hour of math a day or 4 lessons, whichever comes first. :) He doesn't love Language Arts quite as much - he doesn't like to write. Right now we have only been doing the spelling and grammar parts of LA since I don't have the reading, vocabulary or handwriting books yet, and couldn't find them at the library. I've been making him write out his spelling and grammar even though I could let him type, just so he gets the handwriting practice, since his writing is just really really bad - practically illegible. The spelling is actually kind of a joke for him, he can spell almost any word you throw at him, but he said he didn't want to skip it, or test out, so who am I to say he has to? :) I think he is fascinated by the structure of words. He loves strange spelling rules like ph=f, kn=n, that sort of thing and will repeat them throughout the day. He likes history and science as well, we haven't done any music yet (there is apparently a CD and video in one of those heavy boxes) and art... well, he's not a big fan of drawing either. The art lessons are very history and theory related, but there is some drawing. I tried letting him use clay to make things instead, but he wasn't that interested in that either. He did ask for some special markers we saw at Wal-Mart the other day, so I will try getting some and see if he will be more up for drawing some pictures with those.

We haven't done much in the way of social things yet, although there are a bunch of field trips coming up in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I have Todd take him out back, beat him up and steal his lunch money, so it's just like being at school. :)

Ok, that's it - and here is a special note for Gram - I cut my hair over the weekend, it's now all one length, just barely past my shoulders, and back to my natural color to boot. :)

Just a cool thing

I have nothing new to report on the school front, but I thought I would post this for everyone, as it's much more descriptive of my life than the original "Holland story" as we call it. If you haven't seen the whole Holland story and want to, I have it somewhere, just email me.

Holland Schmolland
By Laura Krueger Crawford

If you have a child with autism, which I do, and if you troll the
Internet for information, which I have done, you will come across a certain inspirational analogy. It goes like this: Imagine that you are planning a trip to Italy. You read all the latest travel books, you consult with friends about what to pack, and you develop an elaborate itinerary for your glorious trip. The day arrives. You board the plane and settle in with your in-flight magazine, dreaming of trattorias, gondola rides and gelato. However, when the plane lands you discover, much to your surprise, you are not in Italy -- you are in Holland. You are greatly dismayed at this abrupt and
unexpected change in plans. You rant and rave to the travel agency, but it does no good. You are stuck. After a while, you tire of fighting and begin to look at what Holland has to offer. You notice the beautiful tulips, the kindly people in wooden shoes, the French fries and mayonnaise, and you think, "This isn't exactly what I planned, but it's not so bad. It's just different." Having a child with autism is supposed to be like this -- not any worse than having a typical child -- just different.

When I read that, my son was almost three, completely non-verbal and was hitting me over a hundred times a day. While I appreciated the intention of the story, I couldn't help but think, "Are they kidding? We are not in some peaceful countryside dotted with windmills. We are in a country under siege -- dodging bombs, trying to board overloaded helicopters, bribing officials -- all the while thinking, "What happened to our beautiful life?"

That was 5 years ago. My son is now 8 and though we have come to accept that he will always have autism, we no longer feel like citizens of a battle torn nation. With the help of countless dedicated therapists and teachers, biological interventions, and an enormously supportive family, my son has become a fun-loving, affectionate boy with many endearing qualities and skills. In the process we've created… well… our own country, with its own unique traditions and customs.

It's not a war zone, but it's still not Holland. Let's call it
Schmolland.

In Schmolland, it is perfectly customary to lick walls, rub cold
pieces of metal across your mouth and line up all your toys end to end. You can show affection by giving a "pointy chin." A "pointy chin" is when you act like you are going to hug someone and just when you are really close, you jam your chin into the other person's shoulder. For the person giving the "pointy chin" this feels really good, for the receiver not so much – but you get used to it. For citizens of Schmolland, it is quite normal to repeat lines from videos to express emotion. If you are sad, you can look downcast and say "Oh Pongo." When mad or anxious, you might shout, "Snow can't stop me!" or "Duchess, kittens, come on!" Sometimes, "And now our
feature presentation" says it all. In Schmolland, there's not a lot to do, so our citizens find amusement wherever they can. Bouncing on the couch for hours, methodically pulling feathers out of down pillows, and laughing hysterically in bed at 4:00am, are all traditional Schmutch pastimes.

The hard part about living in our country is dealing with people from other countries. We try to assimilate ourselves and mimic their customs, but we aren't always successful. It's perfectly understandable that an 8-year-old boy from Schmolland would steal a train from a toddler at the Thomas the Tank Engine Train Table at Barnes and Noble. But this is clearly not understandable or acceptable in other countries, and so we must drag our 8 year old out of the store kicking and screaming while all the customers look on with stark, pitying stares. But we ignore these looks and focus on the exit sign because we are a proud people. Where we live, it is not surprising when an 8-year-old boy reaches for the fleshy part of a woman's upper torso and says, "Do we touch boodoo?" We simply say, "No we don't touch boodoo" and go on about our business. It's a bit more startling in other countries, however, and can cause all sorts of cross-cultural misunderstandings. And, though most foreigners can get a drop of water on their pants and still carry on, this is intolerable to certain citizens in Schmolland who insist that
the pants must come off no matter where they are, and regardless of whether another pair of pants are present.

Other families who are affected by autism are familiar and comforting to us, yet are still separate entities. Together we make up a federation of countries, kind of likScandinavia. Like a person from Denmark talking with a person from Norway, (or in our case someone from Schmenmark talking with someone from Schmorway), we share enough similarities in our language and customs to understand each other, but conversations inevitably highlight the diversity of our traditions. "Oh your child is a runner? Mine won't go to the
bathroom without asking permission." "My child eats paper.
Yesterday he ate a whole video box." "My daughter only eats 4 foods, all of them white." "My son wants to blow on everyone." "My son can't stand to hear the word no. We can't use any negatives at all in our house." "We finally had to lock up the VCR because my son was obsessed with the rewind button."

There is one thing we all agree on: we are a growing population.

10 years ago, 1 in 10,000 children had autism.

Today the rate is approximately 1 in 250.

Something is dreadfully wrong. Though the causes of the increase are still being hotly debated, a number of parents and professionals believe genetic pre-disposition has collided with too many environment insults -- toxins, chemicals, anti-biotics, vaccines -- to create immunological chaos in the nervous systems of developing children. One medical journalist speculated that these children are like the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" here to alert us to the growing dangers in our environment. While this is certainly not a view shared by all in the autism community, it feels true to me. (note: I don't agree with this at all. - H.)

I hope that researchers discover the magic bullet we all so
desperately crave. And I will never stop investigating new
treatments and therapies that might help my son. But more and more my priorities are shifting from what "could be" to "what is." I look around at this country my family has created, with all its unique customs, and it feels like home. For us, any time spent "nation-building" is time well spent.

For Kerri and Erin - We here in Schmolorado send a happy hello to you in Schmillinois and Schmansas. :)

So far, so interesting

Just a quick update - school is going well. We have no access to the online school. which tells me what to teach, and no books. I guess that doesn't sound like it's going well, but it is. I have found many a website with downloadable lessons for each subject and am winging along just fine till we get our stuff. Charlie loves being at home for school and the only problem we have is that it's hard to keep him on task, he is distractible. Since they have had this problem with Charlie since day one at every school he's ever been at, I talked to some of his former teachers about it today and have gotten some ideas for how to deal with it. His favorite subject so far seems to be Spanish - we are supplementing the school cirriculum with this and he is picking it up very quick. That's about it, if you want more details email me, I'm still working on my time management! :)

Meeting

Today we had Charlie's IEP meeting for COVA. We met his special ed teacher, Jennifer, who is very nice, and went overhis IEP. Nothing has changed, we just had to have the meeting. He'llbe getting his physical/occupational therapies at Pueblo West Elementary from the same therapist he has been seeing, which will be nice. His social skills class will be on Friday afternoons as planned.

Anyone interested in his placement - He'll be doing first grade history, math, science, art, music, and second grade language arts. We expect he will fly through the math and language arts, but we are starting him low so the change goes easy for him.

They gave me a nifty webcam - I haven't had a chance to play with it or even hook it up yet, but if any of you have one or want to get one, you could (I think) then talk to and see the kids or me and Todd over the computer. A good idea for Dad especially, since Kayla still seems convinced each morning when she wakes up that she is "going to Mimmy's house today". :)

That's really about it, they gave me a temporary sign in to the online school (they call it the OLS) but I won't have a chance to check that out till at least tomorrow night as Todd is patiently waiting for the computer to do work stuff as I type.

Cute things:

Charlie, after hearing that my friend Jen's dog had died and gone to heaven: "Tell her to cheer up mom, her dog is playing with Sammy." (Sammy was his grandma's doggie)

Kayla, trying to get out of going to bed: "You're my best best beautiful friend in the world." :)

Between a rock and a hard place...

So I'm running an experiment this week and next. I'm doing "school related" things for 5.5 hours a day, things like reading books on home schooling, taking care of organizing, doing whatever bizarre new paperwork they come up with next to enroll Charlie in COVA, that kind of stuff. The point of this is to see how I can manage to fit laundry, housework, errands, and Kayla (not to mention me time) into a day that includes 5.5 hours of teaching. If you are wondering how it's going, don't ask. :)

I tell you this because today I chose to search the internet for anything and everything I could find relating to home schooling, and more specifically, schooling at home through a charter school, like we will be doing. Here's what I discovered. Schooling at home through a public charter school puts us between a rock and a hard place in the home school world.

Let me start with this. You wouldn't believe how many different types of home schooling there are. Unschoolers, deschoolers, Christian homeschoolers, child-led home schoolers, secular home schoolers, cirriculum home schoolers, it goes on and on. I'm going to clump everyone into one of 3 groups - Those who send their kids to regular public school, those who independently home school, and those who school at home, which (apparently) is a whole different thing. You all know about regular public school. Those who independently home school are "typical" home schoolers... they do their own thing, whether it be with lessons from a cirriculum they create, or they don't have lessons at all, just teach their kids in the "school of life", and everything inbetween. This group includes the majority of what I will refer to as "Christian home schoolers" which does NOT mean simply home schoolers of the Christian faith but those who home school BECAUSE they are Christian, a lot of times because they think Bible lessons should integrate with academic lessons, and you can't get that at public school. Those who "school at home" are often much more structured, using schedules and purchasing entire cirriculums, and often testing their kids. This is where people like us fall, who are using a charter school, run and funded by the government.

Here's where the problem comes in. Charlie will be going to a public school, with all that entails. He will take standardized tests, he has an IEP, and everything is paid for by someone's property taxes. :) But, he'll be doing this from home. Now, the independent home schoolers aren't all too fond of this idea. They fought hard for the right to teach their children themselves, with no interference from the government or the public school system, and they see this kind of duality as an isidious way for the government to enforce more rules and regulations on home schoolers in general. The Christian segment of this group is also opposed to the fact that not only do the cirriculums these charter schools choose to use have no reference to religion except in a historical context, but they don't allow anyone to teach non-secular material during "school hours" and won't pay for any non-secular materials. A lot of (not all, sorry mooless) public school proponents and employees are against the charter school at home concept because they are aginst home schooling and ignore the part about it actually being a public school. SO, we are pretty much hated by everyone. :)

Now let me say before I get accused of anything, that the people at Charlie's school now have been, if not actively supportive, tolerant of our choice for Charlie's future education. So has my mother, a public school employee for many years, and, I think, not the biggest fan of home schooling. But, in cruising the information superhighway earlier today I found that many independent home schoolers are REALLY against anyone who schools at home through a charter school. Especially (and I find this ironic and sad) the Christian element. I actually saw one comment where the Christian woman was ranting about how evolutionism is just propaganda and she said "take your atheistic religion back to hell where it belongs!" What a nice, tolerant, CHRISTIAN thing to say. I mean really. There was an entire website dedicated to some Christian home school support group and how they wanted to make sure none of those "charter schoolers" were trying to get in on their activities. Nice. Very "love thy neighbor" of you.

Anyway, here's the way I look at it. Why can't we all just get along? Instead of worrying about their autonomy being taken away, can't the independent home schoolers and the charter home schoolers work together to create a world where the government pays for you to home school (up to a limit of course, equal to what the public school in your neighborhood would be getting if your kid went there) and yet you can still choose what cirriculum you use, and what electives you can teach? Can't the Christian home schoolers practice what they preach (and preach and preach and preach, sometimes :)) and be supportive of those who take on the challenge to teach their own children, no matter how they choose to do it? The rule is don't talk about politics or religion, and if everyone in a given group of home schooling parents followed that rule, there would be no reason they (and their children) couldn't be friends. In the meantime, I face the challenge of fnding home school support groups in our area that will be tolerant of the way I have chosen to home school. I'd like to hear what you think - leave a comment. I fixed it up so anyone can now. :)

Here's some interesting reading for the day:

Home School Legal Defense Association

- see what I am talking about above.

Technorati

- type in homeschooling, and my bet is you'll find plenty more about my above comments. Then type in anything else and see what people have to say about it. :)

Letter to the Editor

- In the hard copy of the paper, the top of the letter underneath covered up my name. Go figure. I still had a lot of phone calls today, most positive. :)

Old article from Wired magazine

- an interesting article on the prevalance of Autism Spectrum Disorders in communities with a high percentage of smart people. Just proves I'm smart, since I have an ASD kiddo, right? :)