Printer-friendly versionToday, I got a laptop. Not for me. For Aeesha.
Let me flash back to about six weeks ago. A team meeting took place around a table in the science classroom, completing the annual discussion about Aeesha’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
In eighth grade, Aeesha still struggles with basic mathematics, with written expression skills and with decoding text. In many ways, she is an elementary school student trapped in a middle school student’s adolescent body.
Aeesha struggles more than most students on our interdisciplinary team. Actually, I would place her in the top three.
I am sure she held that “distinction” last year. And the year before.
Maybe even since kindergarten.
Anyway, the team of teachers, a counselor and a parent were sitting around the table. “You know, we have students with far less severe disabilities who carry these fancy laptops with all of this cool software to help them,” I pointed out.
As an after-thought, I asked, “Why is it that certain students seem to get everything and others sit with nothing?”
I already know the answer. And I know that the question is loaded. Some students benefit from savvy parents, parents who know what services are available. They are parents who will ask question after question, who will fight to ensure that their child is fully equipped with technology, with dozens of parent-teacher meetings, with everything.
Then there are other parents. Uneducated? Unaware? Meek?
I am weary of this reality, this inequity, as it manifests itself in countless ways. How can we ensure that students, regardless of their parents’ know-how, receive an equitable distribution of resources?
Our team plans another meeting.
Do I realize that most students in our country survive without laptops? Of course I do.
Will a laptop be Aeesha’s panacea, the tool that allows her to cross some threshold, to develop some skills, to be more independent? Maybe or maybe not. But it’s time to be bold.
So, last Friday morning, together with a technology specialist, we selected software to install on the laptop that Aeesha will now carry from class to class and then home.
I peeked over at Aeesha. She smiled at me.
I leave the room, cheering this simple victory, a victory that took a grand total of 45 minutes.
I asked. She received.
But as I drive home tonight, my brain in reverse, I consider all of those students for whom nobody ever advocates. Not the parents. Not the teachers. Not me.
I picture faces from years past.
And despite this morning’s triumph, I feel like weeping.
Baker is a middle school language arts teacher in Missouri.
Comments
Thanks Debra. I guess we all
Thanks Debra. I guess we all know the saying, "You can't see the forest because of the trees." But in our world of AYP, where we see our students as sub-groups who have to make gains as a group, I've been thinking that sometimes "We can't see the trees because of the forest." In this case, you saw a tree and tended it. Now there is a chance she can grow into all that she can be. I hope we teachers can keep our eyes on the trees.
Yes, our beautiful trees.
Yes, our beautiful trees. Thanks, Trevor.
I feel your pain, but I also
I feel your pain, but I also cheer your victory. We solve one problem only to confront a thousand others. But there are many of us tackling one problem at a time, one child at a time, and slowly, we are getting kids what they need when they need it. I applaud your beautiful efforts.
The case for the laptop needs
The case for the laptop needs to be made for all students, but if the teachers have no idea how to help the students use the laptops, or what educational programs are available that might actually benefit these students, how much difference will it make? I have been teaching college remedial writing for a couple of years and I've seen students from all classes who are functionally illiterate at the college level. The problem is widespread and until we change the way we fund education and provide not only tools for students but a different understanding of teaching and learning (which in my view needs to be more visual, less shame based, less TEST based and more collaborative) we are never going to help change the fact that we are still producing a functionally illiterate society that can't read well enough to glean anything from print other than headlines, slogans and simplistic misinformation of the sort that seems more and more prevalent today.
And until we figure out how to go back and help those that missed out on good reading education in the third or fourth grades we are going to continue to fail miserably at teaching tolerance in this country. I think the bottom line is that we are an intolerant society because we are a society of non-readers.
In addition to your organization, I am a huge admirer of the work done by David Bolton of Children of the Code. Maybe the two should work together on a joint project. Advocating for all the students left behind because of our system of education seems like a place to start...
I whole heartedly understand
I whole heartedly understand your dilemma surrounding knowing when to advocate and how to advocate. It is sad to say that I actually have prior teaching experience in East Baton Rouge Parish and Madison Parish within the state of Louisiana and I still fall short in knowing what services are available to my son. I am further tormented with the fact that I have been told by educators; as well as, an advocate that Science is not important to my son that is currently in the 7th grade. True enough he is not on grade level in any of his subjects, but by taking a deaf ear or a blind eye to the fact that he is sitting in his Science class and not being provided with any accommodations according to his IEP. I am in awe that I am being told that Science is not a core subject. Basically, so don't worry about Science as if it is not important. The truth of the matter is my son sits in the class and time passes by daily without no progress in Science.