This Happened Today.
Excerpt from Wednesday's Journal Entry from Dan's teacher:
...Dan became frustrated in Art today. They were doing a lot of fine motor. I've included his problem solving form, and apology letter...
The problem solving form indicated that the project on "Pentangles" was hard, and he was frustrated, pushed a stool over, hit his assistant and the art teacher, and was generally mad that it was so difficult.
His letter basically said: "Dear Mrs. H. (and Ms. J.) I'm sorry I hit you, it's not okay to hit. I will have nice hands in art class. Love, Dan."
My Reply: (edited)
"...It's hard when things are frustrating but it's not ok to hit. We talked about it...Can we adapt the art projects so that he doesn't feel so frustrated?...I know he sees the difference between himself and his peers...He tries to draw things at home but ends up handing me the marker because he knows it's not right...we are sorry..."
Thursday's Journal Entry:
10/24/13
"Dan was very proud of his new shoes! He showed everyone. :)
Yes, yesterday we were trying to adapt the pentangles, but he didn't like the adaptations to the task. He really wants it just like everyone else. How frustrating when your hand doesn't draw/write what you want it to...
(later)
Today's art class was much better! He enjoyed the adaptations much more. Jo Ann found texture plates for Dan to use on his pentangle. All the kids are creating black and white pentangles, but Dan wanted color on his. :) Dan loved the texture tiles. It was a lot of sensory input. At the end of art Mrs. Holterman put Dan's pentangle on the projector for all of the kids to see. Dan was very excited his pentangle was shown! Everyone clapped. :)
-Kathryn"
THIS is inclusion. This is community. This is love and art and going the extra mile for a student to be happy, successful and participate with his peers. This staff is crazy wonderful. All of his teachers involved could have totally kept him out of art for this project, deeming it too hard, especially since he struck out at them.
But they didn't.
"More Art" Indeed.
(last year, Dan wrote President Obama asking for "More Art in school" as part of a writing assignment.)
...Dan became frustrated in Art today. They were doing a lot of fine motor. I've included his problem solving form, and apology letter...
The problem solving form indicated that the project on "Pentangles" was hard, and he was frustrated, pushed a stool over, hit his assistant and the art teacher, and was generally mad that it was so difficult.
His letter basically said: "Dear Mrs. H. (and Ms. J.) I'm sorry I hit you, it's not okay to hit. I will have nice hands in art class. Love, Dan."
My Reply: (edited)
"...It's hard when things are frustrating but it's not ok to hit. We talked about it...Can we adapt the art projects so that he doesn't feel so frustrated?...I know he sees the difference between himself and his peers...He tries to draw things at home but ends up handing me the marker because he knows it's not right...we are sorry..."
Thursday's Journal Entry:
10/24/13
"Dan was very proud of his new shoes! He showed everyone. :)
Yes, yesterday we were trying to adapt the pentangles, but he didn't like the adaptations to the task. He really wants it just like everyone else. How frustrating when your hand doesn't draw/write what you want it to...
(later)
Today's art class was much better! He enjoyed the adaptations much more. Jo Ann found texture plates for Dan to use on his pentangle. All the kids are creating black and white pentangles, but Dan wanted color on his. :) Dan loved the texture tiles. It was a lot of sensory input. At the end of art Mrs. Holterman put Dan's pentangle on the projector for all of the kids to see. Dan was very excited his pentangle was shown! Everyone clapped. :)
-Kathryn"
THIS is inclusion. This is community. This is love and art and going the extra mile for a student to be happy, successful and participate with his peers. This staff is crazy wonderful. All of his teachers involved could have totally kept him out of art for this project, deeming it too hard, especially since he struck out at them.
But they didn't.
"More Art" Indeed.
(last year, Dan wrote President Obama asking for "More Art in school" as part of a writing assignment.)
kudos to those teachers and aides!
ReplyDeleteAWESOME!!! Makes me so happy! And he's not even my kid. :-):-) Just love it when people love each other.
ReplyDeleteI love this!! It is wonderful to work with amazing people who really care for their students and do what it takes to 'make it work'! Joanne is one of several assistants that work with Dan and I am lucky to work with each one of them, they truly are gems =) and our students are pretty great too!
ReplyDelete