Over the course of our son’s time in school, we knew he was facing some challenges especially with transitions to the school environment from daycare and then transitions within the school day as well. But this seemed to be normal for many kids his age. And then of course COVID closed down the schools 2/3 of the way through that first year in school. Homeschooling provided us the flexibility we needed with my virtual teaching schedule and it also allowed us to meet his learning needs during that time, but as staff transitioned back to being in the building full time, we were no longer able to provide that homeschool environment for him which lead us to find a spot at a private school for him where he could be 5 days a week (public schools were not open to students without plans in our district 5 days per week, even if they were the children of teachers). It became evident to me that while he had some behavior challenges, they were not significantly different from other students in the classroom but how he was being dealt with (along with others) was different. We withdrew him from that environment and placed him at the elementary school next to the school where I teach. In that transition, he had an amazing teacher that worked really well with him and provided a lot of the structures that he needed but also helped us work towards getting a 504 for him. We already had a diagnosis of ADHD and so in the initial meeting we worked through a lot of possible accommodations with the team to determine what was already being done in the classroom and what he needed to help him be successful. In the meantime, we were also figuring out how to parent a child with special needs.

In parenting, I have had to learn to let go of so many things and I know that many parents go through that as well even if they don’t have a child with special needs. Some of the things I have learned…

(1) Limiting screen time – I’ve seen the evidence of studies that have been done with a student with ADHD watching a movie or tv show they are interested in and watching a school video lesson and the significant difference – while it is not about the screen (the kid could sit and watch the movie but not the lesson without adhd behaviors), limiting his screen time does allow for him to work to engage his brain in other ways and create the neurological pathways.

(2) Use routines – ADHD kiddos function well within routines. While there are little changes that happen different days, we have found that having a routine in our major daily schedule helps him to know what is happening and what to expect.

(3) Transition Notifications – Related to the routines, we have found that our son responds best to changes in the routines or schedule with a heads up to the routine change. Giving him advance notice of changes has really helped him to be able to understand what is happening and sometimes why.

(4) Seating options – This is a significantly more difficult thing to offer a student in the classroom, especially a student like our son that does not want to appear different from his other classmates. However, when a teacher has various seating options in the classroom for all students, it works best. He used a “wiggle disc” (our name) or a wobble cushion. Its an inflatable cushion that also has two sides with sensory details. One side has raised “bumps” while the other side has raised circular ridges. The student can sit on whichever side will help them most in the moment and it is just sitting on their chair which could be less noticeable. Another seating option is a yoga ball or exercise ball – some come with the chair style base where a student could be seated and bouncing on the ball but at their desk etc. Another option we tried for our son is a rubber band that would go around the front two legs of the chair and then the student would place their legs/ankles in the loop of the rubber band. The student can move their legs by swinging them, etc. but the rubber band restricts them to only so far. It provides some sensory input while also allowing the student movement without disrupting the other students around them. It also is less visual for other students to notice the difference since it is around the bottom legs of the chair. We have a wiggle disc and yoga ball at home that he uses at different times.

(5) Timers, checklists, and small immediate rewards – Last year his teacher used a small checklist on his desk with three things he needed to do. Once that was completed, he earned a small immediate reward (usually time to read or time on the computer playing a game, etc.). He then went back to the activity after the reward time and did the next three things. This year, his teacher has found that having a timer has helped prevent arguments about how much time he has earned or has remaining on the computer game time or reading time. We also use this at home to help his understanding of how long tasks take and how long he has to accomplish a task or activity. This helps his executive functioning skills which are lacking with the ADHD. It also helps with the high cognitive demand tasks – most of school – to help him break down the larger tasks into more manageable ones. ADHD kiddos have great difficulty breaking down a large task and often give up without even attempting because they can’t see the smaller tasks in the larger one. They become paralyzed because they can’t even see how to start or where to begin. This is often why writing is the least favorite activity for these students.

(6) Visual schedule – In elementary school, teachers display the daily schedule on the board with visuals to cue students as to what they are doing during each part of the school day and this has helped our son to know what they are doing and what is upcoming, especially as the “specials” or “related arts” classes change daily. While they do follow an order weekly, the schedule helps because an ADHD student does not have the executive functioning skills to remember the weekly schedule of related arts classes.

(7) Fidgets – we have learned that in times when he is going to be expected to stay seated and/or quiet for a lengthier period of time (church service, etc.), it is beneficial for everyone involved for him to have a fidget or two. Something that can occupy his hands without being noisy or distracting to others. This is an area that has really taken off and many students have or use them (even those without ADHD). I have some in my own classroom to provide to students if needed. We also have a lot at home that we have purchased to help him. I often carry one in my purse as a just in case. There are so many available and you can easily find them with some simple searches. Different fidgets are intended to help with different issues that the student might be having. We have lots of pop its, noodles, marble mesh tube, small slinkies, squeeze balls, gyroscope balls, slime or silly putty, mindful magic ball/breathing ball, etc. We have also asked for him to have fidgets at school which they provide or we provide some from home. The issue this can create, though, is that the child and/or other children do not understand the difference between the fidget and a toy. So, we have found that defining how/when they are used and for what purpose is helpful for our son and that they are only for him, not toys for other students.

(8) Letting Go – There are so many things that I have ideas about how they are “supposed” to be done or the “correct” or “right” way to do things. I have to let that go. He has to learn what works for him and while I can put things in place to help him, I have to remember that my way is just my way not the “right” way and he can find what works for him. A perfect example – a few days ago he was doing stuff upstairs in his room and he told me he was reorganizing his room, etc. I have ideas about how that should be but I let it go and let him do it himself and figure out what he wanted. He moved things around, reorganized drawers, took things out that he no longer needed, and set it up the way he wanted and the way that works for him right now. This also gives him ownership of it and pride in the accomplishment of the task and making it something of his own.

(9) Don’t Make Everything about ADHD – Remember that he’s just a kid with a thing that is part of who he is. Don’t make everything about the ADHD. Don’t make it an excuse for everything but also don’t allow it to hide or mask all the other things about your kiddo that make them who they are. This is just one small part and while there are impacts, focus also on the interests of your kiddo.

I’m sure there will be more things to talk about as we continue this journey of parenting ADHD.

It’s been a LOOOONNNNGGGG time (2+ years!) since I have written on the blog. There was so much going on when I last posted on here both professionally and personally that I wasn’t really focused on writing or publishing here. But as we are ending one calendar year and moving into the next, it seemed appropriate to start writing and publishing here again. Professionally, I have transitioned in my role at school from being a social studies teacher for 20+ years to now being the GT (Gifted and Talented) Resource Teacher at my school. This places me in more of a support role for our teachers and staff as well as teaching a semester long research class for 6th graders, and leading interest based seminars for students. Before taking this role, I had sought transfers to a couple of the local high schools to teach social studies but those transfers did not pan out and so I was content to stay at my school teaching US History. Then, the GT Resource teacher at my school received a transfer to one of the high schools to be their GT teacher, so when that position opened at my school, I sought her out to find out more about the position. I pursued an interview with our administration and then was offered the position two days later. I was happy to accept the position and have now been working in that position for just about half the school year.

This position allows me to interact with students in a different way than the regular classroom teacher. While I do teach a semester long research class for 6th grade students, my main interaction with students is through teaching the interest based seminars. These seminars are not graded and students must get permission of their teachers to attend the seminar. The seminars rotate through the class periods so that students are not pulled out of the same class more than twice per quarter per seminar (students can be in up to two seminars). Seminars are things like photography, debate, advanced debate (students that were in debate previously), TV production, math/logic, writer’s workshop, book club, newspaper, and African American history. I am learning alongside the students and I am able to tailor the activities and lessons to the interests of the students. For example, the students in the African American history seminar completed a Google form for me to indicate what events/people/time periods they would like to learn more about and I was able to take that information and design activities about those things. These students are also creating the information for part of our Black History Month celebration for our school.

Another part of this role is to ensure that students are placed correctly into the appropriate class level as well as providing support to students that are in the GT level classes to ensure their success. This is the part of the job that I am focused on working on throughout the rest of the year as I have been unable to do that as of yet. There are several staff members that have reached out to me about concerns particularly for 6th grade students so my goal for the remainder of the year, along with the other things continuing such as the seminars and teaching the research class to a new group of students, is to meet with students to see how they are feeling and what they need in order to be successful as well as reaching out to their families to explain the expectations of a GT level class and what is needed from home to help their students.

I will leave the personal changes for a different post in the near future.

History education has often been at the center of a debate on what is taught and how it is taught, especially in the United States. In the past, the debate has been over the textbooks that are produced by the large textbook companies and how those publishers tended to write their textbooks based on the choices of the large school districts that would purchase the vast majority of said textbooks. Generally, this was the standards of Texas because so many textbooks would be purchased by the school districts there. Often, this debate centered around the founding of the US, the role of Christianity, the issues of slavery (how much or little it was focused on), as well as the history of Texas itself and how these topics were covered in the various textbooks.

But now, the debate has ratcheted up and is being discussed by people that don’t have any idea what is actually happening in a K-12 history classroom. These days the terms Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is being thrown around without a true understanding of what it is. It is not new. It actually started being discussed as a theory in the 1970s and 1980s and is really a “framework for legal analysis” and says that racism is not just about individual biases or prejudices but is also “embedded in the legal systems and policies” (source: “What is Critical Race Theory, and why is it under attack?,” by Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week, May 18, 2021, https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05).

Critical Race Theory is not Culturally Responsive Teaching. Culturally Responsive Teaching is taking a reflective look at what and how we are teaching and asking questions about how might this impact minority students. How can we, as teachers, reach the students sitting in front of us? Is a student’s behavior actually disruptive or is it coming from a place of trauma or is there some other root cause? Because the vast majority of teachers are white females and the vast numbers of students across the United States are students of color, we have to examine our biases and prejudices to really seek to understand why our students are or are not learning, are or are not following the expectations in terms of school rules and policies, etc. Are our school dress code policies perpetuating a certain ideal of how students should appear? Are there parts of the dress code that make students of color not be able to have certain hairstyles that are culturally important or significant or just simply part of that culture? This would be culturally responsive teaching, NOT Critical Race Theory.

The teaching of history in the K-12 classroom has now become the center of this argument about Critical Race Theory. There have been bills introduced (and by this point some passed) in various states including Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, and others that are written so vaguely that it’s hard to tell what will and will not be allowed based on them. Many are claiming that any sort of teaching about racism will be considered to be in violation of these laws. But will it? And what would happen to a teacher that would be found in violation of those laws? Can they lose their job? Their teaching license? Be fined? Are these laws constitutional? Do they violate free speech? And why are these laws being passed anyway? What is the problem that they are seeking to solve? Does this problem actually exist?

It appears that many of the people reacting to this perceived problem are reacting to the 1619 Project which is a series of essays and other writings about slavery and its foundational role in the history of the United States. They seem to be reacting to the idea that history education is not patriotic education that they may have experienced when the founders were deemed to be heroes and the focus was on how wonderful they were and how great it was that the United States was created. History education has evolved over time, even since I was a student, and is no longer about memorizing a series of names, dates, and places, nor of what some have called founder worship. It is now more focused on the complexities of the humans involved and telling a much more inclusive story of US History in particular. No longer do we focus only on the “Founding Fathers” of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and so many others, but we broaden the story to discuss women, free and enslaved Black Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic/Latinx Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, and the list goes on. We use primary sources to critically investigate the people of the time using their own words. We teach students to read critically, to source the document they are reading, to ask questions about the reliability of the source. Do we still teach about those Founding Father? Absolutely. But it is no longer just about them nor is it just about the positive things they accomplished. It is about the complexity of what happened. Yet, we can’t teach it all and have to make choices about what we discuss and what we leave out. Do students need to know about every single president? Maybe or maybe not.

Some argue that teaching these complexities and talking about the founders and others as humans that made choices and made mistakes, but also accomplished or achieved, is making students hate their country. Some argue that by talking about racism that we are telling white students that they are racist or that all white people were/are racist. This is far from the reality. We show students using primary sources that there were white people working against racism and injustice alongside people of color at all points in US History. By no means am I teaching my students to hate their country. In teaching the reality of what happened my goal is to show them that while the idea was great and the goal was commendable, we still have a long way to go in achieving it, but I want to, and I want them to, be part of making this country even better than it has been. I want my students to see themselves in the history of this nation. All students benefit from seeing themselves in the story of the history of this country and all students benefit from seeing that all people have always been involved in the history of this country.

Could I be doing more to teach a more inclusive story of US History? Absolutely. And I am open to those ideas and suggestions. But please don’t tell me that I am somehow teaching Critical Race Theory and that it is somehow making students hate this nation. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Critical Race Theory (other than what I described above) so I’m sure not teaching it to my students. It is a college level theory that is most definitely not being taught in the K-12 history classrooms. Am I teaching about the history of this nation and its complexities? Absolutely. We all need that complex understanding that this nation has achieved and accomplished great things, but has also made some enormous mistakes, made decisions and choices that have come at great cost to many people, and it is ok to acknowledge those things in order to make us and the nation better.

In 2020, COVID-19 spread to the United States (possibly earlier) and we have experienced a global pandemic. March 13, 2020 was the last day we were physically present in the classroom and teaching students in person. The governor of my state shut everything down except what he deemed essential services which was gas stations, grocery stores, and things like that. Our schools were closed originally for two weeks and then it became clear we were not returning to the building by the end of the school year. We did what we called distance learning teaching each of our classes once per week until the end of the school year. There were a lot of issues with how we did this distance learning both from the perspective of a teacher and from the parent/student perspective, so it became clear that changes needed to happen if distance or virtual learning was going to continue into the fall. When it was determined that we would remain in virtual learning for at least the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year, my district did make some changes in response to both teacher and parent/student feedback. We went from students having 7 classes for the year in middle and high schools to going to a semester 4×4 schedule. So, students had 4 classes during first semester and now 4 different classes for second semester. This means that what we would normally teach over the course of the entire school year, now had to be taught in a semester. We were also dropped from 50 minutes in a class period to 45 minutes in a Google Meet session. Thus, the time in a particular course has dropped significantly. Someone else can figure out the math of how much time we lost due to these changes. I do understand the theory and reasoning behind these decisions but I think the vast majority of the general public does not understand how just 5 minutes per day can have such an impact.

There has been so much learning and growth on my part in this virtual learning environment. I have learned new tools for getting students engaged in the class while in a Google Meet. Not only have I learned Google Meet and Google Meet has been continuously updating features from feedback from teachers, so the learning process is continuous like breakout rooms, polls, Q&A, and the list goes on. I have also learned about Peardeck, Jamboard, and Padlet, just to name a few. In addition to this learning, I have also taken more time during my classes to really check in with my students in how they are doing in a social-emotional sense. The students have also learned a lot – and I don’t just mean about my content.

Students have also learned these skills of technology, submitting electronic assignments through Google Drive including docs, slides, etc. They have participated in PearDeck activities during class, posted to Jamboards, participated in the chat feature in the Google Meet, answered questions in a poll in Google Meet, had group activities using Breakout Rooms, and on and on. Many of my students have also learned the content I have taught over the course of the semester. Many students have done just as well in the virtual environment as they would have in the physical school building, and some have actually done better. Some have been able to be focused in class because they haven’t had to be around their peers, so they have not had the drama that often accompanies school, especially middle school. Students have also learned skills such as problem-solving, perseverance, compassion, resilience, and so many others.

Have some students not done well? Absolutely. Could things have been done in a better way for some of our students that are struggling due to being virtual? Sure. Has this highlighted the disparities in our educational system and all of the things that students and families depend on the schools to provide such as meals, counseling/mental health services, etc.? Yes.

Many articles, news reports, etc. have also talked about this idea of learning loss. While I agree that we have not been able to teach like we normally would have and students have not learned as much in the year as they may normally have, these arbitrary benchmarks or standards of what students are supposed to learn at a particular point in time are exactly that – arbitrary. We know when babies are born that there are certain milestones that they should be meeting by a certain age, and while not meeting those can be a sign of concern, we also know that some kids start doing those things “early” and some kids start doing those things “late” or later. The same is true in learning. Some kids start reading before they start kindergarten while some kids want nothing to do with reading until later. How do we know if a student is meeting the objectives or standards or benchmarks? Most people think of standardized testing as a way to determine this. But there are significant issues with standardized testing.

First, standardized testing takes enormous amounts of time away from actual instruction. In my school and state, the amount of testing we are expected to proctor takes at least 18 hours or more over the course of the year. This time could actually be spent providing meaningful instruction to students. In addition to the amount of time it takes to proctor these tests and for students to take them, standardized tests are also culturally stereotypical. The kinds of questions that these tests include are written from a perspective of a suburban white middle class student whereas students that are not from that background or have had different experiences or live in a different environment may not even understand the question being asked because they can’t connect their own life or experiences to what the passage or question is talking about. Yet, the Biden administration has said that despite being in a pandemic, schools across the country are expected to still give the standardized tests. I am highly critical of this decision because as a candidate during the presidential election of 2020, Biden claimed that he would reduce the amount of testing students were being required to complete/pass. His statement when asked if he would commit to reducing testing was – “Yes,” Biden said. “You are preaching to the choir.” He said that evaluating teachers by student test scores — a feature of President Barack Obama’s overhauls — was “a big mistake” and that “teaching to a test underestimates and discounts the things that are most important for students to know” (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/02/26/biden-angers-critics-of-standardized-testing/). I know that politicians make certain claims or promises while running for election and then change that promise once elected. But given the current situation of the pandemic and the virtual learning in some places and in person learning in other places, standardized testing seems unfair to students and teachers across the country. If supposedly the students have not learned the same information or content or concepts or skills that previous and future students in these grades would have, why are we going to force them to take the test. The scores wouldn’t be valid and would simply be used to justify the idea that students haven’t learned as much. Well, duh! They haven’t had the same amount of time in class, haven’t had the same activities, and the list goes on.

I absolutely do not agree with the Biden administration’s decision to have students take these tests. I am generally opposed to standardized testing as a general rule, but especially in the current situation we are in with the pandemic and schools.