corny post, awesome at everything

here are some plugs for my kids' school:

next weekend will be the big school fundraiser. it is not dog fest or gran pachanga, but still, a nice little event with a bluegrass prodigy and lots of goodies up for auction. come by if you can and make a bid on something...last year i bought one raffle ticket and won $500! yes! here's the info.

you are also invited to the annual stage write performance of plays written by 5th graders and performed by awesome adult actors with a live band playing songs with lyrics the kids have written. it's at the brava theater this year. you'll laugh, you'll cry, at least one of each, i promise. more info. and my son drew the bubble gum machine man which is featured on the poster. (i'll have to put that on here later, i'm very proud).

which leads me to the title of this post. over the past few years my son has changed from an anxious kid who was worried about trying new things and going places without me to a pretty confident person. these past few weeks have been good ones for him. he played some great soccer, had his artwork chosen for the stage write poster, and won two blue ribbons at the mac can do track meet (which was held on 4/20 from 4-6 in kezar stadium in gg park right near hippie hill --parking was not easy but it was a very mellow crowd). he also started a writing class at 826 valencia and i noticed he was having a pretty good time hamming it up and even arm-wrestling a very cute girl (she beat him). when he showed me his blue ribbons from the track meet he said "awesome at everything" about himself with a huge smile.

part of me wanted to reel him in and remind him he has to work hard, don't get a big head, etc etc but part of me is just so proud. and grateful to the programs that are supporting him...the school which has drama and sports, the parent friends who have worked so hard to make soccer happen, the pirate store tutoring center full of eager young volunteers, the tenderloin track club. my kid is benefiting from some wonderful programs set up to help kids who really need it gain confidence and skills. he is very lucky. and it is inspiring to see all these programs in action, which is nice when things seem so dire with budget cuts and wierd societal priorities. if my kids were being raised solely by their parents i do believe they would be neurotic wrecks so i am glad they do not have to depend on us for everything. i hope things keep on the way they have for my kids, so they can feel mostly good and confident and occasionally even awesome at everything, and i hope all these fabulous programs can continue to survive because i want all the kids i know to feel this way too.

so come to the fundraiser and stage write show!

random spring holiday-ness

sometimes it bums me out that all of our holiday rituals seem to revolve around candy and/or gifts.

i tried to get the kids interested in learning about the pagan roots of easter with minimal success. i blew eggs and we dyed them and in a moment of inspiration made this mobile. at the zoo we saw a bunny princess but she was all about easter books and parachute games, not springtime and rebirth. last night miles and i accompanied friends to a huge potluck passover seder which was pretty interesting. one of the ideas discussed in little groups was thinking about what our own egypt was and why the desert with its freedom, responsibilities, and dangers might be hard to face, which gave me some things to contemplate. there was great live music and a very cozy singalong at the end with everyone putting their arms around each other's backs in a very friendly way. miles said he liked it but would have liked it better if there was some meat in the potluck dinner. today my brother hosted his annual backyard sugar hunt complete with water machine gun fight, friendly neighbors, and some serious fuzbol. and i did mange to get the kids to help me with the garden a little. damn you, rats! continues, but we harvested some amazing florence fennel and tons of arugula, and i noticed there are now a few artichokes almost ready.

the kids and i capped off the weekend watching the annual bring your own bigwheel race (photo is of maya's favorite racer, her love of nice dresses is gender blind) on vermont street. we were a little late and ran from our house, dashed behind the hospital and zipped right over the highway on the pedestrian bridge. there were so many contestants that the event went on for an hour or so longer than last year so we saw plenty. great music, great costumes, and wonderful to see so many elated adults reliving childhood thrills as they careened around the curves and down the straightaways. if you watch this video to the end you will see that we were almost hit by a michael jackson impersonator.

happy spring!

so there, furlough day!

wow, feels like a lot of furlough days.

we stopped by the new dolores park playground. the best part about this park is, of course, the surreal view. recently the old metal and wood play structures were replaced by the friends of dolores park playground. when miles saw it he commented that "it's not just cool it's sick." but despite the tall and wide slides, climbing wall, kinetic wind sculpture, rocks to climb and blue foam hills to stumble over, my kids were not excited for long. they did spend some time playing with these cool chimes, but overall were more into this climbing tree and the way the leaves smelled (delicious). i wonder how much longer i will be able to hang out at playgrounds with my kids...i love 'em, just the energy of a playground, but maybe my children are starting to move on. waahhh!

we also stopped by the bernal library where miles ran into a buddy. they started reading a book called fart powder aloud together and then discussed the merits of this fine piece of fiction, so they did get some english language arts time in--so there, furlough day!

and there was a poster up at the library about a kindness chain, kids were supposed to write something kind someone did for them on a slip of paper, and the librarian would attach it to the long paper chain laying on top of the dvd section. maya wrote "my mom kised me" with a picture of us puckering up so much i thought i was a parrot. i told miles he had to do it, which sometimes works, and he surprised me by writing "my teacher is kind because she is always teaching me a lot of things and that takes a lot of work." AWWWWWW. so there, nah nah nah nah nah furlough day!

yikes

maya told me that a boy in her kindergarten class has a crush on her. she told me that he said liked her clothes, said she was smart, and that she was pretty and he liked everything about her.

this afternoon she wanted me to pretend i was a boy wearing jeans and a black t-shirt and sunglasses who was watching her dance. her idea was that she would come over and ask me to dance and i would be so surprised and happy and shy because i was in love with her. but then i would dance with her and we would kiss. a good distraction got me out of this rock and roll version of cinderella because her brother came in and they started playing a wildly unsuccessful jump rope game which ended in two injuries .

i think we need to keep maya away from teen media. no more good luck charlie episodes or high school musical in mandarin.

tough

the special education department in the school district i work for is going through a transition. i have hope that things are moving in the right direction, but we are definitely not yet where we need to be. the idea is a move towards services rather than programs but how this looks in reality has not really been spelled out. say you have a kid who needs a ton of support at school for various reasons, but who also has a lot of skills and potential he doesn't always show. say the school district recommends he gets the highest level of support it can offer, which it says is a "severely impaired special day class" even though the idea we are transitioning toward is that kids just need "specialized academic instruction" for a certain amount of their day rather than being placed in a certain category. it is hard not to hear this and not think your kid is being labeled "severely impaired" and it is hard not to disagree with the recommendation when you visit the class where your kid is assigned and see that all the other kids in this class are not verbal and that there is very little interaction between kids happening. tough tough tough.

i am sure this is not so interesting to you non-special education readers, but we really need to do better. what can be better in these crappy budget times? getting rid of the special day class categories and just looking more at student:teacher ratio would be a good start, but would cost more money. if a kid needs a high ratio of teachers: students, a small class, and a lot of specialized academic instruction can't we provide this without grouping the kids in such a leveled way? if leveling/tracking is not OK in general education elementary why is it OK in special education at the elementary level? maybe REALLY individualizing the ieps, because there really are some very unique kids who don't fit in neatly as severely impaired, mild-moderate or emotionally disturbed (which are some of the names of classes the district can recommend they be placed in) by assigning some of these hard to place kids to specific teachers, with specific paras, at specific schools that might be the best match. this would open a huge can of worms, of course, and probably can't happen. but it might be a start. i felt on the wrong side of the table today making a recommendation that did not seem so great, but was the best we could come up with. of course we can tell this parent that if she goes downtown and is a squeaky wheel she might get a different offer. i hope she does, but felt a lot of compassion today for a parent in a tough situation.

there is a lot of "it will all work out in the end" talk in my work and parenting life, and in general i believe this talk is true, but it would be nice if some of the pain could be avoided in the first place.

iPad

I am trying to write my first blog post from my new iPad. I will keep it short as I don't quite have the hang of this yet and don't know how to attach a photo. This piece of technology is pretty sweet, but I am a little annoyed that I dipped into my pretty much nonexistent savings to buy it, when the main reason I bought it was for work. Since I have a budget of zero dollars for materials to use with my students, and since my students need manipulatives and visual supports, I thought the iPad might help cut down on the endless trips to the store for new puppets, books, toys, velcro, and craft materials I have been buying. Plus I do not have a computer in the room where I see walk-in students for therapy and (although I do need the exercise) I am tired of dashing upstairs between students to use the computer in the school library. I have become quite friendly with the librarian, which is nice. I have heard rumors all year about how teachers and therapists serving severely impaired students might get iPads for work, but the rumors seem to be just that, so I gave up and bought my own. Now we won't need piano lessons because Pluto the penguin will teach my kids on the iPad! No need for Mandarin summer camp, iPad will teach the kids Mandarin vocabulary!

On a more serious note, some of the apps for the iPad and iPhone are amazing, especially for visual learners. I have some students who could learn a ton of receptive language from some of these apps. A few of my parents can afford the technology, many probably can't. It would be a good bang for the buck to buy iPads for teachers and their students who could really benefit from them. I can think of several of these kids right now. It would make a lot of sense...but I will be surprised if my district buys any of these magical little devices for anyone in these messed up budget times. So I bought one for myself, will share a little with my students, and can recommend apps to my wealthier parents. The rich get richer. The poor get, well, not richer.