It is going to be a productive closet day.. Meaning, I will sort my "stuff" and get a large garbage can filled and out to the trash of papers I have needed to go through. I am on a mission to build a wall of wooded shelves to get my reference materials and support materials to teach the kids in one area of the house which will be appealing to the eye, not look like junk. I am hoping to have two computer work stations for the therapists to have an area to be with the kids not in the center of the chaos. I have resource books, manuals and journals for about every subject one could think of relating to disabilities.
I do a lot of teaching at home and often ask myself why I do not home school although the time they share with peers in school is valuable in my opinion. Just as valuable as their academics. They have never shown a dislike to school and actually up until this year I have felt it was the power behind them to have such HIGH SELF ESTEEM. Now this is the first year I see it leaving my sweet strong Kaitlyn. Her fire isn't there, her confidence is gone and the sparkle is not shining as it always did. I have to figure out if this is a temporary blow or if I need to re-think her path for middle school. I know middle school is not a pleasant place for the typical child. I so remember all the peer bashing/BULLIES those years. I do not see the choice school option being a good fit for middle school age because their solid friendship bonds are torn apart this year from a system suppose to be educating our kids. If educating doesn't include dealing with ALL ASPECTS of our environment I am not sure our future generation will have good coping skills. You see many schools are placing kids by their scores from FCAT. So grouping people is the norm at a young age. ore we preparing these children to be out in the REAL WORLD where they have to work with a co worker that may not have the same IQ as them,does it spread the gap further for our country to be divided by ability? It concerns me that Kaitlyn can not be in a classroom with her BFF because she isn't the same score level on a reading test or math test as her BFF... Does that mean our teacher are no longer capable of teaching across the broad range? Isn't it shown in many research studies that grouping like this is NOT in the best interest for all students?
