Today's blog is a short (less than 6 minute) video modeling of direct instruction and guided practice about using an AAC device with a student.  It has been amazing to see the growth of student's esteem, vocalization (believe it or not use actually increases the intelligibility of vocal output of student's natural voice as well) and the ability to communicate to others with independence with out relying on a familiar adult to interpret.  Just giving these devices to students does not work.  Intentional practice with the devices is necessary to build fluency.  The digital resource is Reading A-Z https://www.readinga-z.com.  This digital resource provides digital (and can be printed) books at all levels.  It is great for finding 'just the right story' to focus on for specific words, phrases or content. The AAC device is an iPad loaded with TouchChat. 
Please Enjoy Video by Clicking Here
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Today's blog is educational about the beginnings of my personal story.  Not much classroom tips today but more will come on that front.

I have been playing around with the idea of writing a book or publishing several pieces about my life.  I have had a few interesting events I've muddled through; living in poverty, witnessing domestic violence, fantastic tales with siblings, warrant for arrest, brain surgery and more.  I feel that I can assist in building empathy or perhaps even help others who may have struggles connect to hope.  In any case, today I am sharing an introduction to the settings that shaped my childhood.  Please allow me to introduce myself:


You say Hovel I say Home

I’ve traveled between many different dwellings that each had their own unique ambience. To begin with I was told that I spent some time in a garage that my parents were able to utilize with my older sister and I while they got their high school non graduate selves on their feet.  This set the stage for some awesome things to happen I am sure.  When I jest that my name means “like a lamb…to slaughter” perhaps it started here.  Not quite a manger but not quite what would averagely be called a home in some circles.  In any case so began my foray into a variety of residences.  

After a couple of locations close to their parents, my parents decided to move further south.  The day we moved was the earliest memory I still have, I believe I was three.  I remember Wizard of Oz was entertaining us as all belongings were pushed into my grandfather’s truck.  The typical older model truck with items protruding in many directions from the aperture of the truck bed.  If I had seen the Beverly Hillbillies at that time I might have made a connection.   The t.v. was the last to go and I believe that went into our station wagon that we rode across and down state in.  I recall my grandfather gave me a single peanut m&m as we were loading.  We rode in the station wagon to our new home.  The new abode was a trailer that was put on the property of my grandparents’.  This is where my concept of home began to build a more stable foundation.  

This first trailer was situated in a quiet spot quite out of the way of anything.  Except of course for the enormous cross atop a local hill (which later I would visit before and after school on the bus each day due to the caretaker’s son’s presence, did I mention it was a very tall hill with a super windy road…in the middle of nowhere). Given that my mom did not even have her license yet and we had plenty of space to play around with it was not a huge problem yet that we were in the middle of nowhere.  There were only two of us at this time, my younger sister had not arrived yet but would soon.  When I say it was a quiet spot out of the way I mean it was in the middle of the woods surrounded by a delicate creek and was accessible by an even more delicate bridge over said creek.  The trailer had three bedrooms which were enough for our needs at the time.  The heat was a quaint wood burning fireplace that my sisters and I ended up tending to by gathering kindling as a chore.  Each year my father would cut and stack a large pile of logs gathered by way of cutting down a tree or two from the literal forest that surrounded us.  On site there was an outhouse, a chicken coop (which we made use of), a cistern for our water needs (with a hand held pump for when we were asked to go outside and play for some time and wanted to drink something other than the creek water), a large area for a garden and across from the creek there was a tool shed (also an intermittent dead deer shelter during hunting season).  Many adventures happened in this farm trailer location.

After changing up the family dynamics with a necessary divorce for my mother’s sanity and life, we began our voyage through additional doorways.  The next step for my sisters and I was into public housing with my mother.  This gem was a three bedroom residence which I am thankful was available.  Despite getting a forced kiss there from another boy housing dweller and being locked out after school because we ate too much of the peanut butter, this was a decent area.  It was a long walk to school however.  We were lucky at the trailer down by the creek in the middle of nowhere.  We were able to take a bus ride into town for school.  Here, if mom was not able, we had a long walk across town to get to school.  Luckily we were usually dropped off and just had to make the trek home.  

Beyond this setting awaited our first foray into what I call our white house.  After a series of unfortunate events we no longer lived primarily with our mother and my father took the four of us in.  Yes, there were four of us now (my youngest sister happened to be the straw that broke my mother’s last neuron holding the thought of my parent’s union together).  My father happened to be living in the upstairs apartment of the 100 year old house that had been broken up into apartments.  His dwelling was quaint.  Three rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen area at the time equipped with a hot plate as a stove.  Two of us shared one bedroom, my baby sister at the time shared a room with my older sister (who had at the grade level of 5 had been jolted into a primary caregiver role). There was not much beyond these rooms.  My father’s bedroom also being the ‘living room’ (where he often forgot to put away his bachelor magazines at times, my first exposure to such a thing).  We stayed here for some time until my dad upgraded his residence.

We encountered another living arrangement as my mom had met a new friend that she eventually married and we traveled to another trailer in a slightly more urban setting.  On every other weekend we holed up with our two new stepsisters and our sleeping bags in the living room or in the one bedroom that was meant for us girls.  Honestly the living room was better as the bedroom meant we were most responsible for our youngest sister.  What I remember most about this specific trailer was that there were many, many dogs surrounding us and it was unfortunately at a time we had recently seen Cujo.  There were quite a few dares made at this situation as well as one of us shoving the other out the door and closing it ‘as a joke’ as several members of the brood would bark loudly.  This living situation did not last for too long before providing us with yet another scene when visiting our mother.

My father realized that a tiny apartment was not quite cutting it.  He also met a lady he wanted to spend more time with, which required more space to satisfy her.  So a home was rented out of district for less than a year.  I do not remember much about this space aside from our temporary (very temporary) stepmother’s dog sliding on the wooden floor and going smack dab into the wall.  He seemed to do this for fun.  What made it most memorable was that he was a moppy pug, the kind with a super flat face so that when he round-abouted the wall he always looked freshly squashed.  I also remember that I had a step brother for just a bit and that this was the location where I suffered through chicken pox the good old fashioned way, calamined and oatmealed. I really have a hard time remembering seeing much of our step mother in this location, definitely my least remembered home.

My mother and new step father purchased a house in our tiny town that we went to school in.  It was a large two bedroom yellow house with very uneven floors.  Here we each had close to our own rooms.  I shared a room with my incredibly OCD step sister but it worked out as I was incredibly quiet and a bit sensitive to the clutter surrounding the rest of the house.  This setting also became a place full of wonderful memories as my mother’s then lackadaisical and laissez faire parenting attitude gave us many opportunities to get a little colorful and I mean this quite literally as I remember the carpet sample covered floor of my bedroom (my stepfather was thrifty or a klepto…who am I kidding, probably both) This house also came with a wedding dress tucked away in one of the upstairs closets that my stepfather had decided to leave there for some time after moving in. I’ll get to that in the recollection about the locations I have been locked in.   This was our every other weekend residence for many years.

After realizing he was going to have majority custody of the four of us for some time and having divorced his recent marriage,  my dad  and his then girlfriend (eventual quasi stepmother) decided to buy a cute little house on the outskirts of town.  It even had a pool although we never got to realize the potential as it was cracked and there were other fish to fry with whatever spare money my father could procure.  This was my favorite home due to a beautiful sunroom and the two fireplaces down stairs.  The neighbors had horses and it reminded me of Kentucky so that was another bonus.  We stayed here through a fall and winter until a major water pipe cracked, sending my father and quasi stepmother into a rush of activity and curses (mostly my dad).  Despite the wish to stay in this location the finances were just not there and as karmic justice would have it they were able to get out of the home without losing too much.

This last poor luck in home ownership led us back to the white house.  During our remaining weeks at the fireplace and sunroom heaven, my dad worked each evening to restructure the white house from two apartments into one single family home again.  He would work his heating and cooling technician job by day and apply sheet rock, flooring and rewiring to the white house.  Walls were knocked out, kitchen turned to bathroom, bathroom turned to hallway and a whole medley of actions.  We rarely saw him during this time but afterwards the progress was remarkable.  When my sisters and I first got to see the almost finished project we were extremely excited to see what was in the bottom level of the house.  This excitement was because when we had lived in the upstairs apartment we rarely, like maybe twice, even saw the downstairs neighbors let alone saw what the contents of what their part of the house looked like.  This was the home that stayed for much of my youth and currently is in my sister’s care.  It was turned into a 6 bedroom house which included the servant’s room with accompanying private stairway to outside (my rooming choice until my quasi step mother grew worried about my introversion and encouraged my change to a room with taller, sunnier windows.  She even picked up a can of pink paint for the walls, to which I used to inscribe “I hate pink” on the west wall leading to adult disappointment but also a different can of light creme paint).  Such ample living space afforded us our own bedrooms for the first time which I am grateful to ever have had, including one of my quasi stepsisters who resided with us for several years.  Our other stepsister from this romance arrangement had already moved out of her parent’s care.  

Last but not least is the quaint little brick house in Eastern Kentucky.  The place of rabbits and root beer.  This was my perpetual pad of peace.  Each summer growing up we would take the long drive to my grandparents to stay for a couple weeks to a month.  The voyage varied.  At times it was my father’s fast paced, high profanity progress and on the other times we voyaged with my grandparents in their sturdy yet holey (the kind of holes you could lay on the floorboard and see the ground scoot by quickly while simultaneously getting dizzy) pick up with a camper top.  My sisters and I, being young juveniles for most of these jaunts,  were often expected to sleep during the travel.  Both drivers opted for twilight travel as opposed to the clarity of day (which I mentally questioned a few times then but now fully appreciate).  The destination of these drives always led to the same sturdy brick home centered amid a large clearing and surrounded by mountainous country.  Relatives nearby had horses that roamed the shared family fields.  A small raceway could be heard on weekend evenings.  Cousins abounded in this area.  The anticipation of increased attention and adventure typically made it difficult to sleep during passage (well, that and the ease of sleeping with 2-3 siblings on the floor of the wagon or truck bed).  This commute evoked a yearly feeling more craved for than Christmas.  

These are the lodgings I became familiar with by the age of 10.  After moving out I got to experience a couple more trailers, apartments, house, and then back to an apartment.  If you wish I will take you on a journey of events that wind through all of these shelters.

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I have coached behaviors for just about everything.  Continue focus on non preferred tasks.  Build independent self monitoring skills.  Build the stamina to stay out of your peer's face (literally).  Rub the velcro instead of poking yourself with metal until we can regulate better.  You name it I have probably tried to increase or decrease a specific skill.  For some students extra motivation is required.  This is a video modeling the use of a token board to support work habits for non preferred tasks.  I have lived through days of multiple Velcroed pieces everywhere.  In pockets, favorites squirreled away in backpacks, the frayed the 5mm.  So... much.. velcro... it bordered on obsession and still today velcro crosses my mind as a solution for any problem at least 60% of the time.  I was so glad that as the students grew skills I could also become a little more simplified in supports by using dry erase token boards.  Please enjoy this real life modeling of a simplified token board with a high rate of reinforcement.  ​https://youtu.be/BsN2QbbJ_ss 

This is all about teaching.  Here is a video example of embedding multiple academic skills (as well as functional communication) into a daily routine for students with exceptional learning needs.  Less than 10 minute pinkie promise.  Click here to access the link

So here is a two part story that could be used for professional development in perspective taking, reflection or even a 'what would you do'.  I hope you enjoy these accounts based on true stories.

Part 1: Asked to Leave

There was only one time I was asked to leave a location.  It was when my social studies teacher Mr. W asked me to leave school and “just go home”.  That type of situation in the teeny tiny rural school with graduating classes around 30 was pretty rare. Typically teachers wanted students to stay in their classroom if for nothing more than to have great attendance records for those who stopped caring about true education. 

This event unfolded as such:

While quizzing us about information we were to have integrated through reading and listening to lecture, dear Mr. W called on a student we’ll call Kyle.  Now Kyle was often called on in this class.  It was rare for him to volunteer participation and most other classrooms had a more averaged rate of each student participating.  In Mr. W’s class though Kyle was a beacon for inquiry.  It was not that he was a star student, that his voice was so melodic or because it was a behavior intervention to pre stack attention.  No, it was often so that Mr. W could point out how much Kyle did not know.  Often questioning him directly after he said something his words would be in a pattern of “Oh didn’t you hear me?  I just said it '', or “Do you want me to repeat it for you a little slower this time Kyle?”. A generally degrading process that led to Mr. W getting his bushy mustache into a broad smile while the rest of the class just watched.  Years later I found out that supposedly there was some tension between Mr. W and Kyle’s parents.  This I did not know about at the time.  

I like to think of myself as a caring person and I think the pattern started long ago.  Typically quiet but caring.  This class was my least favorite.  I didn’t care for Mr. W in general let alone his torture of Kyle, who was a special education resource student and indeed displayed alternate needs for information retention.  Each time this baiting of Kyle followed by the broad mustached smile occurred it gave me a pinch in my stomach.  One day I just couldn’t be quiet any more.  As he began the third display of mockery I interrupted him and asked him if he knew what his job was.  This took him incredibly off guard.  I was typically a quiet, perhaps odd student that did not volunteer much.  As he just looked at me and didn’t answer I decided to tell him what his job was.  

“Your job is to teach students, not make fun of them,” I said.

He looked a few seconds more, got a little red in the face and then pointed to the door declaring that I should just go home.

No problem I walk to school anyhow.  Wordlessly, I left.

As I gathered my things from my locker outside of the school office the secretary asked what I was doing.  I simply let her know that Mr. W told me to just go home.  Her head cocked and I gave further information that she could ask him about it but since it was the last period anyhow I was going home.  

That was the first and so far only time I have been asked to leave a location.  So far.. I guess I should end with that as the future is unknown.

​Part 2: Asked to Come Back

There was a time my presence was highly sought at school so much that I was asked to do an encore performance by my principal.  It was a regular day.  On this day my last hour was an enrichment class.  This was an absolutely enjoyable time where we were able to do projects that quite honestly every student should have access to.  It happened that our regular teacher was absent (a fun lady that would allow us to shock ourselves with the crank electrical generator when we were in her science classes).  Today the sub had no plan so we were left to our own creative devices.  Harmless enough for our enriched group.  Surely we would find something novel, creative and amazing to do to make use of this time.  

Of course we did.  My best friend at the time and I gravitated towards some harmless crayola markers.  40 minutes later we had utilized them in a way that was complimentary to our imaginative nature that enrolled us in the class.  Yep, my nails were colored nicely, hers too.  She had the best blue eyeshadow you’ve ever seen.  The blush on my face was so raspberry that Edwin Binney would have been ever so proud.  Nice bold circles.  Both of our lips were infra red and I can’t even describe the eyebrows.  Yep, time well spent.  Conspired creativity consummated.  

The bell rang and although enjoyed ourselves immensely in the confines of our classroom we were a bit shy heading into the hallway.  Heads slightly bowed, we made our way to the lockers.  That is when we were spotted by the ever cheerful Ms. Dannering.  She was always hoping to win the students’  hearts by touching our hair (despite some of our comfort regarding personal space), complimenting us and even having a make up day where she brought in samples and showed willing participants how to use them.  Yes, there she was, her super shiny smile glowing as she protected the fate of so many students with her bare hands hands and caring heart.  Her eyes drifted our way and if a face could pop I think I have seen the closest thing to it.  She asked us what we were doing.  We, looking down, replied that we were going home.  She asked us what class we came from.  My friend and I told her as we continued walking.  She walked with us.  Suddenly came the charge.

“I can’t believe that you are disrespecting the school system and making fun of the classes,” she said.  “I will be calling both of your families and will be expecting to see you both back here at 5:00”.  My friend and I were confused.  If anything we made fools of ourselves.  As clever as we might have been accused of being, it didn’t occur to us what she meant until we were halfway down the sidewalk outside of the school.  Adorned as we were with such cheerful faces we began our concerned conversation.  My father immediately bristled when he had to go to the school (there was a standing conflict about the education of my younger sister between the school and my father).  My friend knew her mom would be annoyed as well but was sympathetic to me since she knew my father’s frustration was a little more severe.  

We each made it home.  I went to wash my face off and… surprise… washable markers don’t wash off so easily.  After many failed attempts I rang up my friend.  Her first utterance was, “It won’t come off!”.  I concurred and we both rattled off the soaps at our disposal that we used.  After a bit of a laugh we hung up and awaited our parents’ annoyed dispositions.  When my dad’s truck rolled up I mentally ran through the explanation.  I could hear his quick steps and the door shut heavily.  I walked into the kitchen and luckily he burst out laughing when he saw me.  He asked what the *@# happened that he has to go up to the school.  I explained the situation and he seemed quite calm.  Shortly after we headed to the school.  My friend and I sitting with our colorful visages trying our best not to laugh as the principal explained her position of frustration.  It didn’t take long and eventually we got to leave.  

On the way out of our encore performance my father asked, “How the hell are you going to get that off?” before he lit his cigarette.  I just shrugged because I had tried everything.  Next time I get an encore I certainly hope I can present face, without marker.

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