Taking the Scenic Route

Reading to look forward to

10th February 2009

Reading to look forward to

#39 “The Third Book in the Series” (rented the others again to refer back to them)

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29th January 2009

A Fan of Reading

#29 A Fan of Reading

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19th January 2009

A Wicked Good Read

#19 “A Wicked Good Read” I LOVE the genre where they have classic, well-known stories but flip the protaganist and antagonist. This is “The Wizard of Oz” from the witch’s perspective.

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2nd January 2009

Library Card

#2 “Library Card”

I finally decided that after a years or two MIA, my library card was not going to suddenly reappear, so I paid my $2 to get a new one. I also had to pay a cringe-worthy fine that was incurred when we suddenly went from a 2 car family to a 1 car family and gas prices dictated there was no “drop Zach off at work and use the car for the day”. Well, that and the fact I am notorious about returning library books on time.

I thought briefly about getting the Jenny McCarthy book, but my stomach still lurches just seeing the title, so it will need to wait until I don’t have a visceral reaction to seeing the book after seeing her interviews about the book.

I also am not holding out a lot of hope for the “Sneaky Chef” recipes, but I thought it might be worth at least trying some ideas out. I sure didn’t want to spend actual money on it unless it was really worth it. Zach had been wanting the Ray Kurzweil book for a while, and I also got him a book on reading body language that looked interesting. (both look like books I will pick up too). Of course, the requisite homeschooling books and cookbooks that I am always browsing through.

I did make myself pick out a non-fiction “fun” book for myself. My grandma gave me some Nicholas Sparks books a while ago, but since they were “non-essential reading”, they mostly just sat on my bookshelf. Then my best friend said she loved that author for a quick read and kept bugging me to read one, and so I did. (“Dear John”, btw). I read it in a few hours and remembered why I love reading again. I realized I need to let myself enjoy taking a bit of time for myself again, so I am going to make a point of always getting one “fluff” book every time I go to the library.

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21st July 2008

Reading Buddies

Caught this cuteness on the couch.  Rare moment of the kids not driving each other crazy.

Zane is actually reading.  Zora is “reading”.  (in this case, she is barking in various ways, imitating how I read the book to her)

posted in Books, The Kids | 2 Comments

13th May 2008

Anniversary Date

Twenty-nine days late, we celebrated our Anniversary.  My mom came up and played with the kids (mostly in the backyard) this afternoon.  We went out to eat, and then did what everyone does when they are celebrating…went to a used bookstore.  lol.  It was so nice to wander around without having to keep little hands from pulling things off of shelves and darting off while you try and browse. 

x2008-05-13 003.jpgYou would think that since we are away from the kids we would browse the grown-up literature.  nope.  I spent most of the time browsing through the children’s section.  I probably put back 10-15 books that I wanted for every one I purchased.  Most of the books were around $2, with a few at $5.  All but one were hardcover books.  Sweet!

Although I would have loved to browse the fiction, my reading list goes unread at this point anyway, and I need to thumb through some parenting books on my shelf as my kids suddenly hit new phases that I am not entirely sure how to deal with, so it isn’t like I would get to read fiction anytime soon.  Considering I read at least 10 kid’s books a day (on a light day), I have motivation to try and add some variety to that.

posted in Anniversary, Books, Shopping, Zach & Jennifer | 5 Comments

1st March 2008

A few videos

Zane reading, then hiding from the camera.

 

 

 

Zora, on the other hand, trying to catch the camera

 

 

 

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1st March 2008

Sunny Saturday

Hope your Saturday was as nice as ours.

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two videos coming either later tonight or tomorrow.

 

posted in Autistic Life, Books, Zane, Zora | 2 Comments

8th December 2007

Autism Stories

Snow Cakes is an awesome film.  Lots of subtleties in the writing, and Sigorney Weaver did a pretty decent job of acting too.  Although some of the film had me laughing outloud at some of the lines, I doubt most people would find the same humor in some of it, but the writing was just so spot on and, at points, funny.  Like the townie that claims that she knows all about autism because she saw “that movie” and other similar things.  Don’t let me mislead you though, it is certainly NOT a comedy and belongs firmly in the drama.  It is a film more about the characters than the plot. 

After watching the film I searched around the internet to see reviews (something I often do, just to see how others viewed it).  I could definitely tell that many people did not “get it”, or that their interpretation of Sigourney’s character (the autistic woman) and her motivations, ect, came from a different knowledge set than I have, but that is to be expected.  They saw the autistic character as an allegory to how Alan Rickman’s character sees the world, and although that might be true to a degree, I saw much more in Weaver’s portrayal. 

It was good.  I highly recommend it.

I am also in the middle of “Dragons of Autism“.  The title initially put me off, but I went ahead and looked at it and am glad I did.  It is a memoir book and the “dragons” are her son’s obsession.  It is funny and poignant and I could see a lot of our lives in the book.  Some of the details are different, but the flow of life had me chuckling and nodding my head in recognition.

posted in Autism, Books, TV & Movies | 2 Comments

11th November 2007

Homeschooling books

Last week when we went to the library, I was searching for the John Holt book “How Children Learn“.  I have a tattered paperback copy of “How Children Fail” that has been a part of my collection since my freshman year in college.  (not sure if it was for the intro to ed or the exceptional children class…both were taught by the same guy).  I remember when I first read the book being really confused by it.  It seemed like it was actually against public education, but I was nervous to present that view in the class because, surely, it couldn’t be what the point of it was supposed to be in a class meaning to educate teachers.  How ironic is that.  So afraid of giving the wrong answer I didn’t participate in the discussion.  I actually remember the book well, but don’t remember the discussion at all, which leads me to think that I might have skipped class that day, because it seems like something I would have remembered.  I understand now why it was required reading, especially in the context of the college I went to (small liberal arts college that really challenged students and was populated with professors that spent their college years as 60s radicals).  I wish I could have appreciated it at the time, but, alas, I wasn’t ready for it yet.

Anyway, all the books by John Holt were checked out.  I was ready to leave, when another book on my “list” caught my eye “Homeschooling our Children, Unschooling Ourselves” by Alison McKee.  Even though I had wanted to wait to read John Holt before I read this one, since her philosophy is based on John Holt, I put it in my stack of books and it has been on my desk waiting for me to dig in.  In typical fashion, I read a few paragraphs yesterday, but it intrigued me enough to finish it off today.  I was really relating to it much more than I expected. 

She works in the school in a capacity similar to a Speech Therapist, except dealing with vision (low vision and blind kids) and was, therefore, immersed in several different types of public school environments.  She describes several frustrating instances where learning is curbed in schools.  My real frustration was that I saw that, and much more, in the few weeks I was with Zane.  I am really grateful that I did go with Zane those few weeks.  I would have always wondered if I was over exaggerating the possible problems if I hadn’t gone.  I discovered I was, instead, minimizing the problems.  They were much greater, and much more fundamental than I could have conceived.

Instead, I discovered that despite the best efforts of the people working there, the system itself was just too fundamentally flawed to be able to really nurture Zane’s learning differences.  There were major, insurmountable, obstacles that no amount of accommodations could address.  I remember, at one point, when I was working on the list of possible accommodations, that I almost felt lucky to have a bit more control over his education…that because they are required by law to follow an IEP, there was a lot better chance of getting a more appropriate education than was afforded regular education students.  His learning differences were diagnosed and categorized so that they had to be recognized.  I felt like it was unfair that only those whose differences were so notable got that luxury, and that it should be afforded to every student.  Every person should be taught in a way that best accommodates their learning style.  

I am only beginning to realize the challenges that are set before me as I begin to homeschool.  I struggle deeply with what experts say about autism and how to teach kids with autism and how that differs from my real life experience of it.  They say ROUTINE, ROUTINE, ROUTINE.  That people with autism thrive on extreme routine.  Now, I can agree to this to a point.  In an unfamiliar environment, where there are more complex, unknown social requirements, routine helps a great deal with his anxiety.  In a classroom, a group, or a more formal setting, routine helps give him scaffolding to be able to cope. 

However, in everyday life, routine bores the snot out of him.  In learning, rote learning is absolutely the worst thing you can do.  Once he has it, he has it, and he does not want to waste his time looking at it again.  If you try to push a bit to get him to “finish this page” or “finish this lesson” you will be confronted with a very angry kid who will not want to even START that subject for days on end because he doesn’t want to get stuck “finishing” after he already knows it.  He taught me the hard way that I need to just back off and let him learn at his own pace.  Until I read this book, it didn’t even occur to me that my need to “finish” has more to do with my own schooling because the stopping points are often very arbitrary if you look at them in the grand scheme of things.

She expressed in the book that one of the hardest things to deal with as an unschooling parent, is that we were raised with the drive to test, to see if the student knows the “appropriate” amount of information.  She talks about trying to sneak in assessing where they were in conversations and how it sometimes backfired on her.  Well, add another level to that…a person who can’t really talk about things.  Trying to figure out what he knows is a delicate balance between figuring out whether he is struggling to find the answer or if he already knows it and is bored with you asking and starting to make a game of it. 

It is also particularly difficult to let them follow their interests when it is so difficult for us to easily understand what his interests are with accuracy.  Sometimes it is pretty hit and miss to find things that hone in on exactly what part of something interests him.  For instance, he LOVED Tacky the Penguin.   So I thought that meant he liked penguins.  He liked looking at them in the zoo, he enjoyed looking at books about them, he enjoyed some of the other books in the Tacky series, but then some of them really didn’t hold his interest at all.  He was mildly interested in the other things we did to expand on “Tacky”, but nothing that just lit his love for learning.  After a while, he wasn’t as interested in Tacky either.  We let it set for a while and moved on to other things, and 6 months later, he was interested in reading Tacky again.  This time we didn’t mess with it, just let him enjoy Tacky just for fun. 

I am having a hard time with this.  He simply won’t allow me to just have a typical curriculum. (a school-in-a-box type approach) He just won’t do it.  He will allow himself to be pushed a bit, but there is no way we can follow a typical curriculum schedule with him.  He demands a more unschool type environment to learn.  He learned to read and do math basically with us just facilitating.  He took the lead and it worked the way it supposed to work.   A natural interest lead to genuine learning. 

However, he didn’t learn to talk the normal way.  You know…the one big argument most unschoolers use…that they learn to walk and talk on their own and parents just facilitate learning and unschooling is just an extension of that.  Well, it requires a huge amount more faith when they didn’t learn to talk on their own.  And he is still struggling with talking, both the mechanics (motor planning) and the language aspect of it.  He gets math and reading, but is still struggling with basic communication.  It is incredibly challenging to figure out how to help him learn when he can’t communicate what he is interested in and what he wants to learn more about with the ease most of us take for granted.  Even if he knows, it is hard for him to get the message to us.

I wish there was somebody I could go to who could give me advice on how to do all of this, but it is pretty clear that I am just going to have to figure this thing out, step by step, with a huge amount of patience and faith.  I hope I am up to the task.

btw..the book is fabulous.  I liked it so much I am hoping to add it to my collection because I can see myself referring to it again.

posted in Autistic Life, Books, Homeschool | 6 Comments

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