Transition to life for high school students

Filed Under Lesson Plans, practical life skills for teens, Special Education, special needs students, underachieving students, Useful Handouts | 1 Comment

For most of my teaching career, I’ve been teaching my special needs high school students strategies to enable them to help themselves to graduate from high school. I’m always extra proud of my special needs students when they walk across the stage at graduation and receive their high school diploma. They’ve made it. They’re ready for the next phase of their lives. But are they? Are they really ready for the next phase of their lives as start up adults simply because they’ve earned a high school diploma?

Susan Traugh a mom of a special needs student and an advocate for special needs teens and their teachers recognized from personal experience simply because students graduate from high school they aren’t necessarily well prepared for life after school. Susan wrote Transition 2 Life to help teachers help their students better prepare themselves for life after high school. I think Transition 2 Life is an excellent resource because it helps students develop the practical skills they need in an engaging way to successfully navigate their way through their daily lives.

I invited Susan to tell us about herself because I think Transition 2 Life is an excellent resource to help students better prepare themselves for life.

Susan Traugh- author of Transition 2 Life

Like so many parents of special needs teens, I was frantically fighting to help my son get through his high school classes so he could graduate and get a diploma. Matt was really struggling to pass his math and science classes and my husband and I spent many hours every night trying to eek out those last few test points that might put him over the top. Housework was secondary to homework, and we didn’t push him to get a job or do much community service as we put all our energy into class work.

When he graduated, we were ecstatic and felt like a major hurdle had been crossed. And it had. But as the weeks and months passed after high school, we realized that, while Algebra was important to get that diploma, balancing a check book or being able to read a map in order to drive to the bank were much more important in life. And, we found that we’d been so focused ON graduation that we hadn’t supplied him with the life skills he’d need AFTER graduation.

Matt’s special education teacher also had a son Matt’s age and realized she, too, had focused on class work to the exclusion of life work. So, we set out together to find a life skills program to help our boys. As we looked, we found that programs were either written for teachers with lots of theory and educational jargon, or they were written for “children” without respect for a teen’s maturity and sensibilities. The more we looked, the more dissatisfied we became.

But, the real impetus for action came with one frantic phone call. I picked up the phone to hear Matt’s panicked voice. His brain injury had destroyed the spatial skills center of his brain and made it hard for him to keep “a map” in his head. We’d gotten him a GPS and he’d agreed to only drive within our city. We thought we were covered.

But, on this night his GPS had failed. Matt had tried to find his way home and, when he got turned around, panicked and ended up making a left-hand turn into oncoming traffic. When he called, he was stopped in the middle of the street, facing the wrong way. He knew he was close to home (less than one-half mile away) but didn’t know how to get there. I had him pull into a parking lot to calm down then talked him all the way home.

I called Matt’s teacher the next day and began writing my own curriculum.

Transition 2 Life was developed to give mild-to-moderately affected special needs teens a program that they can work on independently, modify to their own needs and then walk away with a portfolio that they can use during the first few years of their young adult life to navigate that transition. Written on a third-grade reading level, it has light, airy pages with lots of bullet points and a font and pictures selected by the students who piloted the program. And because I know how hard Matt’s teacher works each day, the program is teacher-friendly, with built-in grading sheets, federally mandated goals tied to the lesson plans and pre-printed parent letters so she can let folks know how they can help their teens at home.

Units include lessons on understanding their own Individual Education Plan (IEP), learning styles and career aptitude, writing resumes and business letters, using an ATM machine and balancing a budget, filling out job and college applications, advocating for themselves, and answering the phone.

And, yes, there’s a unit on transportation and how to get around in your home town…or around the country.

The program has been enthusiastically accepted here in California and, in fact, teacher requests have prompted us to write another series, called Daily Living Skills, which creates more in-depth units on basic adult skills such as grocery shopping, house cleaning or meal planning. All books are sold at: www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Susan-Traugh.

It’s hard keeping all the plates spinning when you’re the parent (or teacher) of a special needs student. Things that other parents can take for granted must be taught, and taught thoroughly, to our kids. But, there are rewards.

Matt just took a 600 mile road trip with his sister to Utah. Before he left, he came to go over the map and verify he knew the directions. But, after reassuring himself, they got into the car, full of smiles and self-confidence, and went on their way. Now, that’s a life skill.

For most of my teaching career, I’ve been teaching my special needs high school students strategies to enable them to help themselves to graduate from high school. I’m always extra proud of them when they walk across the stage at graduation and receive their high school diploma. They’ve made it. They’re ready for the next phase of their life. But are they? Are they really ready for the next stage of life simply because they’ve earned a high school diploma?

Susan Traugh a mom of a special needs student and an advocate for special needs teens and their teachers recognized from personal experience simply because students graduate from high school they aren’t necessarily well prepared for life after school. To help teachers help students better prepare themselves for life after high school, Susan wrote Transition 2 Life. I think it is an excellent resource because it helps students develop the practical skills they need to successfully navigate their way through their daily lives

I invited Susan to tell us about herself because I think Transition 2 Life is an excellent resource to help students better prepare themselves for life after high school.

Susan Traugh- author of Transition 2 Life

I called Matt’s teacher the next day and began writing my own curriculum.

And, yes, there’s a unit on transportation and how to get around in your home town…or around the country.

Dec

22

Attention deficit trait- oh, that explains it!

Filed Under Dealing With Stress, positive climate, Special Education, The way I see it | 2 Comments

Schools are often hyperkinetic environments. Teachers are busy in the classroom, supervising hallways and lunchrooms, and busy supporting students’ extra curricular activities. When extra curricular activities coincide with exam and report card times, teachers’ lives can be crazy. It seems to me during those extra frenetic times when I was super busy in and out of the classroom, I got to the point where I feel a constant low level of panic and guilt. While at work I felt as if I wasn’t spending enough time with family; while at home I felt I wasn’t spending enough time with work. I’m certain I’m not the only teacher to feel this way. I could hardly wait for the extra crazy times at school to be over. I’d swear the extra crazy times at school affected my brain so I couldn’t function normally. Well, it appears I was correct thinking my brain wasn’t functioning well during those hyperkinetic times during the school year.

Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist, says there’s a newly recognized neurological phenomenon called Attention Deficit Trait that explains the brain’s response to the craziness of a hyerkinetic workplace. When people are trying to deal with more input than they possibly can, they have difficulty setting proprieties, staying organized, and managing time and feel low levels of panic guilt. Gee, I thought I was just overwhelmed and couldn’t cope.

Hallowell suggests we can help control ADTs by getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, and getting adequate exercise. He maintains we need to have a “human moment”- a face-to-face exchange with someone you like every few hours. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it’s not always possible to find the time for that “human moment” at work. I guess I should make the time. Taking the time for a pleasant face-to-face exchange with someone at work when the environment gets more and more crazed would fall into the category of working smarter, not harder. Of course doing things such as breaking large tasks down into smaller, more manageable tasks and keeping your desk organized and free from clutter (my greatest challenge) will help control ADT.

I’ve found after I’ve been in hyperkinetic environment for a while, I begin to long for silence and solitude and head. My favourite place to find silence and solitude is along the banks of the Credit River. A walk along the Credit River is so restorative and helps put things into perspective. What do you do when you want to stop the world and get off for an hour or so?

Dec

4

What does student success actually mean?

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Bullying, Dealing With Stress, maintaining a safe, motivating students, positive climate, Special Education, underachieving students | 2 Comments

Of course I want my students to be successful. All teachers do. But, I think the Ministry of Education and I have different ideas about what student success means. I don’t think students are successful if they only develop intellectual skills. Earning a high school diploma may be a necessary condition for student success, but it is not a sufficient condition for achieving student success. Students aren’t just one dimensional beings. Students, like everyone else, are multidimensional. We all have an intellectual, emotional and spiritual dimension that needs nurturing. Students need help developing intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually (not in a religious sense but in the sense of dealing with alienation, with sense of identity, ) . So Ministry of Education, what are you going to do to help meet the spiritual needs of students?

Nov

24

Barriers to good teaching

Filed Under "At-risk" students, motivating students, positive climate, Special Education, underachieving students | 2 Comments

I don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself and anyone else who was within earshot of me why weren’t my academically at-risk students more successful. I was doing everything I could except stand on my head and yet some of my student’s still weren’t getting it. I’ve got professional development coming out of my ears. I’ve tried to keep my student-centered teaching practice fresh and up to date by including things such as problem based learning, differentiated instruction, assessment for, of and as learning , computers and other digital technology, student created rubrics etc., etc., etc. What is preventing students from doing their best?

The conventional wisdom is that students’ lack of engagement or distractability in class is due to such things as poor preparation, the break down of society, too much TV, too much time spent on the WWW, etc. Students seem to be “brain-dead” and need teaching strategies that are like IV systems that would give students the information they need because they can’t to do it themselves (Parker, 1993 ). Spoon feeding is the metaphor that comes to mind when I think about the problem. But, Parker (1993) argues conventional wisdom is mistaken.

Parker notes poor preparation, the break down of society, too much TV, etc. are not the most significant causes for students lack of engagement or distraction in class. Student fear is responsible for student underachievement. Students believe their lives have no meaning, the future has little to offer, and that adults don’t really care about their problems. Young people ” have been thoroughly marginalized by the elders of this society, and their deepest response is not an angry rejection of us but a fearful internalization of our rejection of them”(Parker, p.11). This fear causes students to hide behind masks of silence and indifference. Parker suggests educators aren’t even aware that students have this fear. Educators can’t recognize the fear in students because they don’t recognize the fear in themselves. This fear is the fear of rejection by students. Parker admits he doesn’t know any techniques to overcome the fear of rejection, but he says whenever he sees past his students silence and fear and tries to understand the inner lives of his students, his students learn more.

I have to agree with Parker when he says when we try to know and understand the inner lives of students, students learn more. In order to get to know the inner lives of students, we need to build authentic relationships with students. The bonds of trust that develop between teachers and students within a positive relationship leads to a more positive classroom climate and more student success. It’s been my experience that when students feel more accepted for who they are by their teachers, the fear of rejection no longer exists to thwart student success.

Resource

The Courage to Teach by Parker J. Palmer

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