hardofhearingchildren.com by PAM Candlish MLS
"What did you say?" "Eh?" "WHAT did you say?" "MM?" "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" oh "PARDON ME!"

Balancing School and Activities

Inclusion

Relaxing on the shady veranda in the Laurentians at my brother's home last August, I  lazily perused real newspapers, the one and only Montreal Gazette not intending to do more than drool at the Montreal scene...my birthplace.

 the best descriptive article on an inclusion program for students with special needs written by Monique Polak, freelance writer appeared in August 11, 2007 edition of the Montreal Gazette.

I clipped it and brought it home. Fortunately for you the  article is at

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=209e19c2-4e0d-4263-a225-738d2bc7b1be&p=1

Here is John Grant School's website   

  http://www.emsb.qc.ca/johngrant/

the English Montreal School Board listing for John Grant

http://www.emsb.qc.ca/en/schools_en/pages/highschool.asp?id=100

the English Montreal School Description of Programs for Special Needs

http://www.emsb.qc.ca/en/services_en/pages/specialneeds_en.htm

Dr. Daniel Ling was at the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf married to Dr Agnes Ling Phillips when they did the preliminary work which would become the basis of the auditory verbal method    http://www.lingnotes.com/

                                           http://www.auditory-verbal.org/

Mainstreaming the deaf children is an important part of the AV method .so they have a peer group with normal speech. Reid was mainstreamed but without adequate support .

A class room today has many children with special needs defined by the IEP. The students from Day care already come with IEP's and parents who don't expect too much bull from the school system. In many families both parents are working and the school has to educate the child.

Good Parents do Homework.

This is a subliminal message sent out from our society. People have fewer or one child. Many parents are pushing for the child's successful training as a lawyer or doctor from the the first breath. The parents are acquisitive and competitive so one child goes off to "special" schooling after school and does better than the rest of the class. So half the kids will end up at the special school because their parents can afford it and the other half of kids falls behind. The government and the school system tells parents they must do their part doing homework with the child every day.

Well Jonathan is having difficulty learning to read according to the Ministry's province wide reading test. Jonathan has so much homework assigned in kindergarten and grade one that I am near throwing myself on the floor with a temper tantrum.

Better Parents ensure other activities happen after School rather than more school work.

 At the beginning of the school year I told the teachers that I was ready and  willing to educate my children laterally but that it was not my job to teach reading and writing and math at home, so not to expect homework from my children.  I was prepared to support a special project at home but not repetition of what they had at school.

My kids were busy every day with Scouts, band, choir and Reid's speech. We spent time outside in the great out doors every single day collectively as a family. We swam on sundays as a family in the pool in winter. I did gym and swim twice a week at the Y with my preschoolers. I had cheap sports equipment because my sister was a gym teacher and I understood the need for balance in everyone's life. I'm really good with a soccer ball but cannot see a tennis ball. My dog Aslana does soccer balls well but she has that size balls but softer so she won't break a leg or her nose.

The Canadian federal government now allows a child's sports costs to be tax deductible. That is very nice for the rich parents who can afford  it anyway. The rest of the children have a lot of poverty in their lives and the children do not get to appropriate programs. It is perfectly obvious to me that families with kids need to be able to access sports programs without paying for it.

When the issue of hockey , expensive and violent, which I hate anyway came up as a thing for the boys to do, I said they could go but could walk to town... 13 kilometers. So I was able to spend long winter mornings in my own bed asleep which made me a much nicer person.

Learn to say no to homework and establish other things to do which are not expensive.

Happy Hallowe'en.

PAM Candlish

2 October 2007