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School's inclusive welcome sign means 'everything' to mom of kindergartener
Sep 1, 2020 19:40:09   #
rumitoid
 
Good Morning AmericaSeptember 1, 2020, 11:39 AM MDT

This will melt your heart.

On Monday this week, I dressed up my 5-year-old boy, all bright eyes and smiles and backpack-sporting glee, for his first day of kindergarten. We gathered in our ritual spot on our porch to take first-day-of-school pics. We yelled "CHEESE" and "GO PUMAS!" to capture his maturing little face in a delightful smile. And then we walked back into the house to start school on Zoom.

I was a ball of nerves, for many of the reasons every kindergarten parent is frazzled right now.

It's distance learning.

With 25 five-year-olds.

But I had an extra excuse for my high anxiety and deer-in-a-headlights gaze: My son has Down syndrome, a naturally occurring chromosomal condition that comes with some intellectual and physical delays. He also has alopecia, a fancy word for hair loss, meaning he's bald as a cue-ball. That's something other kids notice, big-time.

In a word, he's different. And he was starting kindergarten as a member of an inclusive class. As far as I know, he's the only one of his classmates who is classified as having "special needs." He's not pulled out into a separate special education setting. He's there with his typically abled peers, where he rightly belongs.

Since 1975, when federal law changed to require public schools to provide a free, appropriate education to all children regardless of their ability, parents of differently abled children have fought for them to be included with their peers. Decades of research has shown that combining children of all abilities in a classroom yields better academic and social results for all stakeholders. Pockets of our public education system have caught on, but only after long and hard work to change hearts and minds.

MORE: Why parents should be concerned about cameras in classrooms: Advocates

Parents of differently abled kids are no different from any other parents in this fundamental way: We want our children to be accepted by the world. We want them to be seen, embraced, befriended, included, and loved. We want them to have opportunities. But when your child is noticeably different, you just can't take that condition for granted. So we worry and we advocate and we bravely build bridges with our communities and the school system. We bear the heaviness of this work. We hope it's enough.

Now and then, we get a reminder that it is enough. And it washes all that anxiety away and recharges our courage batteries.

On Friday last week, we went to my son's new school to meet his teacher and pick up supplies. There, at the front entrance of his school, I saw this gorgeous, slightly weathered, hand-painted sign. "Welcome," it read, "All abilities. All religions. All orientation. All cultures. All colors. Love lives here."

It was just some words painted on a sign. "Welcome ... All abilities." And it was everything.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/schools-inclusive-welcome-sign-means-173906435.html

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Sep 2, 2020 12:12:52   #
FallenOak Loc: St George Utah
 
Your direction to the article was very informative. It also contained direction to another article:MORE: Why parents should be concerned about cameras in classrooms: Advocates. This seems to be mostly by Consumer Reports privacy director Bill Fitzgerald, also a former classroom teacher, who seems against cameras. My take on that part is that Mr. Fitzgerald is more afraid of parents seeing what is being taught. Perhaps I am too negative but I remember once when a teacher said, “In the classroom we teach democracy but the classroom is a dictatorship under the auspices of the teacher, the dictator.” The autocracy of the classroom is something everyone has experienced but after leaving public education do we ever think about it again. The camera Mr. Fitzgerald is afraid of will remind us of the dictatorship we lived under for twelve years of our lives. If teachers and ex teachers are opposed maybe it is a very good thing. Will give the parent who wrote the article a more inclusive monitoring of her child's education.

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Sep 2, 2020 12:18:11   #
FallenOak Loc: St George Utah
 
Forgot to mention I really liked the mom's story. It was very uplifting. Thank You.

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