Call for submissions: My Baby Rides the Short Bus – an upcoming anthology to be published by PM Press (Winter, 2009)
We are seeking submissions from a diverse group of parents raising special needs kids who feel marginalized by their subculture status (economics, lifestyle, orientation, religion/atheism) and underrepresented in print.
Got tips on how to stay sane during the IEP process when you don’t believe in the system to begin with? Felt you had to hide you radical political books while the Early Intervention Folks come over? Found yourself stuck in a mainstream world of special needs parenting that you don’t fit into?
Submit your stories to a upcoming anthology that features writing from parents in the know about what it's like to raise "special needs" kids -- with no sugar coating or the 'you will dream new dreams' kind of crap we're subjected to by mainstream media. Unfortunately we can’t pay, but all contributors will receive two copies of the book.
Topics we would like to see covered include (but are not limited to):
Experiences with helpful or clueless doctors
· How not to leave your politics at the door and still work the system
· Care providers and how they help us (when they show up)
Community support or lack thereof
· The asinine things people say you
· Challenging people’s assumptions
Keeping yourself sane while caring for your kid’s needs
· The politics of inclusion
· Fighting city hall/demanding more access & services
· Kids with special needs growing older
Alternatives to group homes and institutions
· Politics behind professional care-giving
Alterative treatments: the good, the bad, or the rip-off
*Also, we’re seeking suggestions for good resources/services state-by-state or on the national level. Please send those to the email listed below.
Send 2,000 to 5,000 word submissions by May 15th 2008 or questions to: shortbusbook@yahoo.com Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page.
Editors: Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman and Sarah Talbot, who are parents of “special needs” kids.
www.shortbusbook.blogspot.com
Hello Friends,
Yesterday I went with a friend of mine on a city tour of Spokane (um…). My friend is a tour guide and is being trained along with two other people to be professional tour guides for the city. On this particular run-through of the tour, the trainees were supposed to bring two people to act as an audience and I had the privelige of tagging along.
On our way to meet the bus, I asked out of curiosity if, at any time in her training she and her classmates had been given any instruction as to how to facilitate individuals with disabilities on tour. They had not.
As it turns out, the only audience consisted of myself, one other adult and two children. One tour guide took her turn at the microphone for her portion of the tour and, in an attempt to make things interactive for the kids said there’s this tower,” (blab la bla) “Now, I want the first person who sees the tower to put their hand on their head. Well, almost everyone, someone is obviously excluded so we won’t worry about her…” Wow, I’ve lived for 20 years with humanity’s lack of respect for diversity etc. Somehow, though, this bothered me more than I expected.
These are tour guides in training. A tour guide can make or break a vacation experience for an entire family (or more). So, to take a proactive approach, I was wondering if anyone has stories or suggestions about tours and individuals with disabilities. What have your experiences been? What could have made it better? Was it a walking or a bus tour? I would like to combine any information received in to a hand-out for my friend and so that she may distribute the ideas to her colleagues. And, in case you’re looking for a career change, there is obviously a serious need for actual training on facilitating people with disabilities in this field.
Thank you all very much.
-Jess
(Cross-posted everywhere found even slightly relevant)
Hey, ya'll. I'm currently working with a student with autism and, after watching her on the safety bar of our classroom trampoline, have gotten the idea in my head that she could really benefit from an adaptive ballet class. See, we joke about her having rubberbands for bones for two reasons: one is her extreme flexibility and the other is her inability or unwillingness to stand straight (she loves to lean or twist herself or do almost anything but). Assuming it's an inability, the teacher in the classroom supposes she just might not have that centerline concept down. Assuming it's an unwillingness, she might not realize the benefits or the fun of standing up straight.
Of course, it's up to her whether or not she wants to change all that (oh, she's 7 by the way), but either way, I thought that adaptive ballet would be a good thing to try, see if she's interested.
Unfortunately, everything google is showing me is on the East Coast (Maine, Pennsylvania, New York, Boston) and we live out here on the Left Coast. San Jose, California, to be exact. Does anyone know of any resources out here that I might be able to take advantage of?
I finally got my hands on an accessibility study conducted on our school district a couple of years ago. Out of approximately 35 elementary schools, 15 of them are inaccessible. So it's just my luck that our new home school is inaccessible, just like the old one. The second closest school is also multiple stories without an elevator. These are two of the best schools in the district. The closest school that is accessible is mediocre. So while the district may believe that having 58% of their elementary schools accessible is laudable, they often end up removing kids from their neighborhoods and sending them to less desirable schools. School choice for kids with disabilities is further diminished by the practice of consolidating kids at schools that have segragated life skills classes.
With that in mind I have just cross-referenced every accessible elementary school within a four mile radius of our new house with their great schools ratings and state assessments and narrowed the list down to four schools I'd be willing to send H to. Now, getting H into a good school doesn't guarantee that he'll get a good education, especially if they are not supportive or are inexperienced with inclusion. However, you've got to start somewhere and I've decided I'm going to start with schools in reasonable proximity to our home, with philosophies I can get behind, and with an active and diverse community of parents.
Wish me luck! And yes, I know it's January and the new school year doesn't begin for 8 months, but the transfer application process begins in February and ends in March.
Hello Everybody,
We're up to 14 members, but only a few of you have posted introductions. I know this little community is barely alive, but I'm going to try to breath some life into again.
So, I'm developing training curriculum that will be presented to parents to use to advocate for inclusive child care. I have a few questions for parents about inclusive child care. You can either create a separate post or answer in the comments section.
1. Did your child attend a child care center or pre-school anytime between the ages of 0-5?
2. Did they attend an inclusive neighborhood program? An early childhood special education program? Headstart?
3. Describe some successful experiences and positive outcomes of your child's experience.
4. Describe any barriers or other issues you faced, either in finding an inclusive childcare program or being in one.
5. How important was/is access to an inclusive childcare program to your family?
Thanks for your time!
Chloe
did you get the zines from me?
I have a 12 year old daughter who is repeating 6th grade after failing last year. She's currently receiving Special Education services for Math and for reading and writing. Her reading is good, but she has a heck of a time with writing. Both her Special Ed classes are very small, close to one-on-one services. And we got some of her mid-quarter progress reports today -- she has a 98.4% in her Math class! She's passing all of her classes.
Last year, she wasn't able to graduate to the next belt in Karate, because she had to be doing well in school as well. This year, we think she'll get her deputy black belt!
The lowest grade we're aware of is a C in Science, and we talked about ways to improve that. I'm so much happier with her specialist this year, and the IEP was much less painful with this woman running it. We've fought hard to get her the assistance she needs to succeed, and I think the combination of being held back as a consequence of failing and a far better specialist that I don't need to fight with has really improved her attitude towards school. Her teacher says she even catches her smiling at school!
Incidentally, while I understand the need for abbreviations in community names, I really don't like the abbreviation "Sped" as a general term. What do you all think? It's an argument I'm losing with the school.
--Alia
