Re: MR Label: Can we choose any other label? HELP!!

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2005 7:55:37 PM Central Standard Time,

jtesmer799@... writes:

Good Luck with getting Sara's IEP transferred to the new school. :-) Hope

it goes well. Exactly when is the big move? I'm assuming you're staying

til the end of the school year with ? (btw, I think I agree with

, will probably decide to join you in your new city in a year or

so,

hehe)

Hi

I will fight my hardest to keep this IEP in place its awesome!!!!!! since

Im NOT moving out of state I really hope they see the team who made this IEP

is the personal who should be writing for Sara.

The house we were to buy fell (finally) through as of yesterday (we had hope

until then) soooooooooo we are out of time and will rent for 6 months and

house hunt together during the next 6 months ............ Mikes been doing it

with my sister and some can imagine what he's looking for lol Our target date

is the 25th but I cant imagine that ....... Mikes dads surgery has been again

postponed because he now has an irregular heart beat and has to see a

cardiologist today, the surgeon refused to do the surgery until he's seen by the

cardio. Last I heard his surgery is tentatively set for the 25th or 26th

............. Im not leaving him or MIL so my stuff may arrive in the new

house

without me ............ what a mess Im in. School is finished the 26th so I'll

arrive when things calm down here .......... 's trying to talk me

into staying with her for the month of June .......... I love this girl

Kathy mom to Sara 13

¸...¸ ___/ /\ \___ ¸...¸

,·´º o`·, /__/ _/\_ \__\ ,·´º o`·,

```)¨(´´´ | | | | | | | | | ```)¨(´´´

¸,.-·²°´ ¸,.-·~·~·-.,¸ `°²·-.¸

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Josh. 24:15

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2005 1:37:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

collarbone@... writes:

Are you suggesting that a teacher needs to look in my child's file and see

the MR label

before he/she will decide my child will not be able to keep up

academically, and will need

learning supports?

Naw, usually they just look at our kids faces to determine that.

Cheryl in VA

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2005 1:37:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

collarbone@... writes:

Are you suggesting that a teacher needs to look in my child's file and see

the MR label

before he/she will decide my child will not be able to keep up

academically, and will need

learning supports?

Naw, usually they just look at our kids faces to determine that.

Cheryl in VA

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2005 8:55:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

jtesmer799@... writes:

Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have

been taught each year.

I spoke with a sixth grade teacher yesterday, seems the idiots making the

tests up are intentionally trying to trip kids up. She said the choices for

answers are so close that it is often 1 word or a double negative is used that

eliminates the wrong answer from the right one! Seems to me the test makers

aren't making tests to test the child's knowledge of the material but their

test taking ability.

Cari

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/16/2005 8:55:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

jtesmer799@... writes:

Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have

been taught each year.

I spoke with a sixth grade teacher yesterday, seems the idiots making the

tests up are intentionally trying to trip kids up. She said the choices for

answers are so close that it is often 1 word or a double negative is used that

eliminates the wrong answer from the right one! Seems to me the test makers

aren't making tests to test the child's knowledge of the material but their

test taking ability.

Cari

[Guest guest]

what confuses me is why kids are having such a hard time being tested on

things they're supposedly supposed to have been taught each year.

Tell me about it!!! For three years all my school has been doing is

" teaching " for the English language arts tests because the scores are low.

They have let everything else fall by the wayside because of thesde stupid

scores and our kids are getting a bum deal in their educations. It is

absolutely ridiculous.

Loree

Re: MR Label: Can we choose any other label? HELP!!

Not confused here. LOL I think I've known you for to long to not know where

your'e coming from. hehe. Still have a copy of each grades curriculum

requirements, huh? :-)

Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have

been taught each year. It's beginning to look like this nation needs a

more comprehensive curricilum that teaches the three r's. and from my

oldest's frustration with 'new' math while in elementry.. and the impression

given by her teachers that THIS IS THE WAY YOU HAVE TO DO

THIS!!!!!...perhaps it's time to quit playing with how things are taught

from the start, to show kids struggling the 'old' way to do it, which made

much more sense for her, but she 'thought' from what the authority figure

said that SHE COULDN'T LISTEN TO ME CAUSE I WASN " T A TEACHER.

sigh......(course that is a whole other argument, hehe)

Good Luck with getting Sara's IEP transferred to the new school. :-) Hope

it goes well. Exactly when is the big move? I'm assuming you're staying

til the end of the school year with ? (btw, I think I agree with

, will probably decide to join you in your new city in a year

or so, hehe)

Take care :-)

Joy ....who hates those sheets with little bubbles to fill in just cause I

always end up going back to find out which question I missed, sometimes it's

a longgggg way back. LOL (maybe that's some of the problem, hehe)

Our schools are graded in 3 areas, one being Sped. If they fail in Sped

(LD/resource kids included) then the school fails. Funding for the school is

a result. We have many schools inside the Memphis area which are close to

being taken over by the state because they are labeled " failed schools " we

are not in that district I can see why they test here but I can also see

how this fails the child later (teachers only teach all year for what's on

the test Not many here like the NCLB for reasons I do understand.

Anyway the bottom line is I have enough safeguards in Sara's IEP to see

growth, even with the Reg Ed curriculum of the year

Kathy mom to Sara 13 .............. betting I confused more than cleared up

lol

¸...¸ ___/ /\ \___ ¸...¸

,·´º o`·, /__/ _/\_ \__\ ,·´º o`·,

```)¨(´´´ | | | | | | | | | ```)¨(´´´

¸,.-·²°´ ¸,.-·~·~·-.,¸ `°²·-.¸

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Josh. 24:15

[Guest guest]

what confuses me is why kids are having such a hard time being tested on

things they're supposedly supposed to have been taught each year.

Tell me about it!!! For three years all my school has been doing is

" teaching " for the English language arts tests because the scores are low.

They have let everything else fall by the wayside because of thesde stupid

scores and our kids are getting a bum deal in their educations. It is

absolutely ridiculous.

Loree

Re: MR Label: Can we choose any other label? HELP!!

Not confused here. LOL I think I've known you for to long to not know where

your'e coming from. hehe. Still have a copy of each grades curriculum

requirements, huh? :-)

Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have

been taught each year. It's beginning to look like this nation needs a

more comprehensive curricilum that teaches the three r's. and from my

oldest's frustration with 'new' math while in elementry.. and the impression

given by her teachers that THIS IS THE WAY YOU HAVE TO DO

THIS!!!!!...perhaps it's time to quit playing with how things are taught

from the start, to show kids struggling the 'old' way to do it, which made

much more sense for her, but she 'thought' from what the authority figure

said that SHE COULDN'T LISTEN TO ME CAUSE I WASN " T A TEACHER.

sigh......(course that is a whole other argument, hehe)

Good Luck with getting Sara's IEP transferred to the new school. :-) Hope

it goes well. Exactly when is the big move? I'm assuming you're staying

til the end of the school year with ? (btw, I think I agree with

, will probably decide to join you in your new city in a year

or so, hehe)

Take care :-)

Joy ....who hates those sheets with little bubbles to fill in just cause I

always end up going back to find out which question I missed, sometimes it's

a longgggg way back. LOL (maybe that's some of the problem, hehe)

Our schools are graded in 3 areas, one being Sped. If they fail in Sped

(LD/resource kids included) then the school fails. Funding for the school is

a result. We have many schools inside the Memphis area which are close to

being taken over by the state because they are labeled " failed schools " we

are not in that district I can see why they test here but I can also see

how this fails the child later (teachers only teach all year for what's on

the test Not many here like the NCLB for reasons I do understand.

Anyway the bottom line is I have enough safeguards in Sara's IEP to see

growth, even with the Reg Ed curriculum of the year

Kathy mom to Sara 13 .............. betting I confused more than cleared up

lol

¸...¸ ___/ /\ \___ ¸...¸

,·´º o`·, /__/ _/\_ \__\ ,·´º o`·,

```)¨(´´´ | | | | | | | | | ```)¨(´´´

¸,.-·²°´ ¸,.-·~·~·-.,¸ `°²·-.¸

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Josh. 24:15

[Guest guest]

I can remember when I was in 6th grade and they started teaching the " new " math.

I won't tell you how old I am, suffice it tpo say it is going back a ways.

Anyway I was so totally confused that my dad did what you did and set me back to

basics. Well the teacher went nuts telling me that it didn't matter if I got

the right answer it was all in the " problem solving " . When I told my dad he

went nuts too, went to school and told the teacher what the heck was he

thinking. I could problem solve all day long but if I could not get the answer

this way I wasn't problem solving at all. A whole group of kids had a LOT of

trouble with Math after they switched us to a new way of doing math and told us

to forget everything wr learned up to that point. Where are their heads??

Loree

Re: MR Label: Can we choose any other label? HELP!!

Joy wrote:

>Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have been

taught each year. It's beginning to look like this nation needs a more

comprehensive curricilum that teaches the three r's. and from my oldest's

frustration with 'new' math while in elementry.. and the impression given by her

teachers that THIS IS THE WAY YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!!!!!...perhaps it's time to

quit playing with how things are taught from the start, to show kids struggling

the 'old' way to do it, which made much more sense for her, but she 'thought'

from what the authority figure said that SHE COULDN'T LISTEN TO ME CAUSE I

WASN " T A TEACHER. sigh......(course that is a whole other argument, hehe)

>

I TOTALLY agree! My 4th grader (good student, gifted program) broke

down the other night while doing math homework. Turns out, she couldn't

multiply anymore! Asked her " What? You've been able to do

multiplication since 3rd grade...... what's up? " Well, in 4th grade,

with the (IMHO stinky!) " Everyday Math " you have to learn to multiply

many different ways, including " partial product method " , " lattice

method " , etc. That poor kid was taught so many different ways to

multiply that she looked at a pretty simple problem and didn't know what

to do anymore! I told her " I don't care what the directions say,

multiply these problems the good old way you were first taught " . (which

we then had to quickly reteach her) Of course, she cried harder,

worried about what the teacher would say. Told her " don't worry about

Mr. A " (LOL) Told the teacher about it the next day (he loves the math

program our district uses..... pretty much his only fault!), and said

that we had decided to go back to math basics, and that should not

lose credit for using more " traditional " methods for multiplication. "

He knows that (1) I have probably had more years of math than he has,

(2) is bright, and if this is confusing her, hummm..., and (3)

the kinds of issues I have deal with for , and that I am not

afraid of the anyone at school or the district! So, it has never come

up again, though her confidence in math was shaken quite a bit,

especially when it came time to take the State tests last week!

I certainly agree that teaching different methods can be useful for

students who don't get the " standard " method....... obviously,

uses this every day. Certainly, Touch Math has made adding and

subtracting more doable for her, where the standard method she didn't

get. However, I'm not sure that it would have been necessary to teach

the entire class TouchMath (though there are several kids who could

certainly benefit from it!), and/or several different methods of

addition. Ahhhhh, I predit the pendulum will soon begin to swing the

other direction......... remember " Whole Language " rather than phonics?

, mom to (9), (7 DS), and (5)

Click reply to all for messages to go to the list. Just hit reply for

messages to go to the sender of the message.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

I can remember when I was in 6th grade and they started teaching the " new " math.

I won't tell you how old I am, suffice it tpo say it is going back a ways.

Anyway I was so totally confused that my dad did what you did and set me back to

basics. Well the teacher went nuts telling me that it didn't matter if I got

the right answer it was all in the " problem solving " . When I told my dad he

went nuts too, went to school and told the teacher what the heck was he

thinking. I could problem solve all day long but if I could not get the answer

this way I wasn't problem solving at all. A whole group of kids had a LOT of

trouble with Math after they switched us to a new way of doing math and told us

to forget everything wr learned up to that point. Where are their heads??

Loree

Re: MR Label: Can we choose any other label? HELP!!

Joy wrote:

>Regarding 'teaching to the test " what confuses me is why kids are having

such a hard time being tested on things they're supposedly supposed to have been

taught each year. It's beginning to look like this nation needs a more

comprehensive curricilum that teaches the three r's. and from my oldest's

frustration with 'new' math while in elementry.. and the impression given by her

teachers that THIS IS THE WAY YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!!!!!...perhaps it's time to

quit playing with how things are taught from the start, to show kids struggling

the 'old' way to do it, which made much more sense for her, but she 'thought'

from what the authority figure said that SHE COULDN'T LISTEN TO ME CAUSE I

WASN " T A TEACHER. sigh......(course that is a whole other argument, hehe)

>

I TOTALLY agree! My 4th grader (good student, gifted program) broke

down the other night while doing math homework. Turns out, she couldn't

multiply anymore! Asked her " What? You've been able to do

multiplication since 3rd grade...... what's up? " Well, in 4th grade,

with the (IMHO stinky!) " Everyday Math " you have to learn to multiply

many different ways, including " partial product method " , " lattice

method " , etc. That poor kid was taught so many different ways to

multiply that she looked at a pretty simple problem and didn't know what

to do anymore! I told her " I don't care what the directions say,

multiply these problems the good old way you were first taught " . (which

we then had to quickly reteach her) Of course, she cried harder,

worried about what the teacher would say. Told her " don't worry about

Mr. A " (LOL) Told the teacher about it the next day (he loves the math

program our district uses..... pretty much his only fault!), and said

that we had decided to go back to math basics, and that should not

lose credit for using more " traditional " methods for multiplication. "

He knows that (1) I have probably had more years of math than he has,

(2) is bright, and if this is confusing her, hummm..., and (3)

the kinds of issues I have deal with for , and that I am not

afraid of the anyone at school or the district! So, it has never come

up again, though her confidence in math was shaken quite a bit,

especially when it came time to take the State tests last week!

I certainly agree that teaching different methods can be useful for

students who don't get the " standard " method....... obviously,

uses this every day. Certainly, Touch Math has made adding and

subtracting more doable for her, where the standard method she didn't

get. However, I'm not sure that it would have been necessary to teach

the entire class TouchMath (though there are several kids who could

certainly benefit from it!), and/or several different methods of

addition. Ahhhhh, I predit the pendulum will soon begin to swing the

other direction......... remember " Whole Language " rather than phonics?

, mom to (9), (7 DS), and (5)

Click reply to all for messages to go to the list. Just hit reply for

messages to go to the sender of the message.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

There are multiple levels to this. One is whether our kids will be

seriously stigmitized by a classification of MR. That itself has

different levels in the reaction of teachers .. and the reaction of

peers. In both cases, there will be both acceptance and rejection.

Used wrongly, the classification hurts, but used correctly it is access

to programs now and for the future.

Another level is whether our kids are counted in the " no child left

behind " testing. That has issues of whether they are just part of a

normal classroom or whether they get some special consideration.

We work hard to make our kids as competent as possible, but that may

well work against them as they grow to adults. If they are never

declared MR (or some equivalent classification), they may never get the

adult services that they might need. There is a sharp cut-off in at

least some states. In CA, down syndrome doesn't immediately imply MR.

After all we've been telling everyone that for at least a decade. So,

those children/adults, who were not determined to be MR before age 18

may be ineligible for the services they need to allow them to live

outside of the home with their parents.

I prepared Jan's documentation today to help get her services. She

never tested outside of the MR range, although she came close. If she

had, it would be a whole lot more difficult to get services. Having an

IEP is simply not enough, at least as I read the rules. Having DS is

not enough, and we've told them that repeatedly as parents. Somehow, we

need to avoid things that will later deny services to our kids as

adults, even though we raise them hoping that those services may never

be needed.

MR is a label and you may not like it. We accepted it. It is something

that Jan has been aware of for a long time. It isn't something that she

has blame for, it is just a characteristic like color of hair or skin or

whether you are skinny or fat. Few of us like the way we are, but we

learn to accept it and Jan has done that. It's OK to be MR, but not OK

to call someone RETARD under any circumstances.

Rick .. Dad to Jan .. moving to CA this summer, at least that is the plan

[Guest guest]

There are multiple levels to this. One is whether our kids will be

seriously stigmitized by a classification of MR. That itself has

different levels in the reaction of teachers .. and the reaction of

peers. In both cases, there will be both acceptance and rejection.

Used wrongly, the classification hurts, but used correctly it is access

to programs now and for the future.

Another level is whether our kids are counted in the " no child left

behind " testing. That has issues of whether they are just part of a

normal classroom or whether they get some special consideration.

We work hard to make our kids as competent as possible, but that may

well work against them as they grow to adults. If they are never

declared MR (or some equivalent classification), they may never get the

adult services that they might need. There is a sharp cut-off in at

least some states. In CA, down syndrome doesn't immediately imply MR.

After all we've been telling everyone that for at least a decade. So,

those children/adults, who were not determined to be MR before age 18

may be ineligible for the services they need to allow them to live

outside of the home with their parents.

I prepared Jan's documentation today to help get her services. She

never tested outside of the MR range, although she came close. If she

had, it would be a whole lot more difficult to get services. Having an

IEP is simply not enough, at least as I read the rules. Having DS is

not enough, and we've told them that repeatedly as parents. Somehow, we

need to avoid things that will later deny services to our kids as

adults, even though we raise them hoping that those services may never

be needed.

MR is a label and you may not like it. We accepted it. It is something

that Jan has been aware of for a long time. It isn't something that she

has blame for, it is just a characteristic like color of hair or skin or

whether you are skinny or fat. Few of us like the way we are, but we

learn to accept it and Jan has done that. It's OK to be MR, but not OK

to call someone RETARD under any circumstances.

Rick .. Dad to Jan .. moving to CA this summer, at least that is the plan