In 2006 when my son Brian was 11 and still in grade school, I watched a video of a speech on an amazing new website I stumbled upon which forever changed the way I looked at Brian’s APD and the way he learns.
It also changed the way I viewed my life and what I was doing for a living.
Brian was just beginning 6th grade and his teacher didn’t like boys who didn’t sit still and weren’t 100% focused on the tasks at had. I was tired of educating teachers on how Brian learns. He had a handful of great teachers who understood – the rest hated teaching kids.
Really.
But Sir Robinsens lecture about kids and creativity was like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir chiming in to sing back up to my “Brian is smart, he just learns a little differently, and when he looks like he is day-dreaming he is actually looking at the problem in pictures” solo gospel.
And it made me look at school in a completely new way.
Last week I received my regular TED newsletter and was excited to see that Sir Ken Robinson was back at TED doing what he does best: being a champion for the children in schools with his new lecture Bring on the learning revolution!
I am happy to say that middle school and high school have been a completely different experience for my son Brian and the teachers are amazing.
Especially his math teacher Mr. Barnum and his science teacher Mr. Benenson.
They should be invited to speak at TED.
And Brian?
He’d just like to go to college on a football scholarship to study astronomy and math.
And for any of you parents out there with kids who are struggling in school: your child will turn out fine – but you must never give up!
I never made my son feel like he wasn’t smart or treated him like he wasn’t doing his best. He was. But sitting all day in the same class with the same teacher is like a death sentence to kids with APD (and most boys).
These special kids need our help . . . and teachers like Mr Benenson and Mr Barnum . . . and people like Sir Ken Robinson lecturing on their behalf .
Posted by Catherine, the redhead mom blogger on Feb 28, 2010 in Brian, Videos
Years back some of you may remember when I finally got my answer as to what was going on with my son Brian’s learning. He was diagnosed with APD. When the Dr. read to me the common characteristics of these kids, I felt like she knew my son almost as well as I did.
Finally I had answers, and set forth a plan which allowed my son to thrive in school. Kids like my son with APD do not have a loss of hearing sensitivity, but have a hearing problem in the sense that they do not process auditory information normally.
This meant that everyone was now a tutor Brian, from my mother, my ex-husband to me. As I worked with Brian to help him come up with modifications to assist his learning (like always sitting at the front of class) I felt his APD was also more of a way he looked at the world, and a way in which he thought about how the world around him works.
He hates to write, but can tell stories. He loves Math and excels at it. He loves Honors Science and is fascinated by space. Reading bores him, but he can win a new video game in 24 hours. He likes computers, music, weight lifting, building stacks of things and drawing. He loves to work on comedy and is always trying to twist comebacks into something that gets a belly laugh. He has an amazing ability to memorize entire movies right down to quoting what was said. He likes anything that is new that challenges the way he thinks.
Sometimes his thoughts move faster than he can get them out of his mouth. His father and I have to remind him to take a breath so that is lips can catch up to the story he is sharing.
He is always in his head. It must be an amazing place.
Through all these years I have tried to understand why his mind works the way it does, and the other night I began to watch the new TED video releases from TED2010. By happenstance I clicked on one called, Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds.
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. She talks about how her mind works in this video. She shares her ability to “think in pictures,” which helps her solve problems that neuro-typical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.
HBO has produced a full-length film on telling her story. She fascinates me, and gave me the answer to how my son’s brain works. After watching her video, I asked Brian how he sees problems and solves them. He casually answered, “I see them as images projected side by side or as random patterns I pull together into a clear picture.”
Oh.
My son thinks in patterns and pictures. No wonder he hates to write. He is not a bad writer, he just hates it.
This week instead of my usual parenting humor, I am sharing the TED video, because the world needs to understand how different minds work, especially those of our emerging children. And if you are struggling with your child in school, maybe this video will help you open up a conversation about how they view the world, and you may be lucky enough to gain an understanding of how their mind works. Trust me, you are in for a fun ride.
She is brilliant.
It gives us hope for the future. How I love TED videos.
Posted by Catherine, the redhead mom blogger on Oct 7, 2007 in Videos
Many of you have been reading my writings since my early days on AOL Journals, when I used writing as a way to change my life. Over the years you read of my frustration with the school system with its attempts to make all kids learn the same way.
I have never worked, lived, ate, talked, laughed, and cried with any person who approached ideas in the same way. Yet our school system often tries to place all the children in the same square peg, or encourage parents to drug the kids who don’t fit into the square hole.
It really bothers me.
My son Brian day dreams. He day dreams a lot. It’s a hobby he has taken to an art form.
I can always tell when he is deep in it. He will shake his head like he is in a trance. If I call his name he doesn’t answer. After a while he will look at me and finally acknowledge that he hears me.
Sometimes he will tell me his day-dream adventures. I love his stories and want to go there too. His imaginary scenes are lush with forest vegetation, small creatures and purple caveman aliens who live high upon a rock.
I noticed if Brian does his math homework after one of these day-dream sessions he will ace all the problems. It is like day dreaming stimulated the math part of his brain. He will go deep into his algebra equations and whip out the correct answers in lightning time. If he builds something with Legos or blocks after day dreaming, then they become complex engineering designs.
Imagination fuels Brian’s thought process.
Many of you know the great lengths that I went to for testing and arguing against drugs for Brian. Eventually it was discovered that Brian has CAPD.
His father and I (with the help of a great doctor) worked with teaching Brian modifications to help him learn within our type of school system. Last year Brian became an honor student for the first time. Although reading is still not his favorite past-time he fights every day to stay in the game.
This weekend we received a call from Brian’s math teacher informing us that Brian scored the top score of all his students in their most recent math quiz.
I have always believed that Brian (and many kids like him) are extremely creative and learn differently. I believe there are many kids who only learn BY MOVING, thus making it impossible to sit still to learn. I think it is the way they process information.
Then there are the other kids who are always looking to build something, and what exactly are you building when you read? Now don’t get me wrong, reading is very important. But it seems like Brian needs to read short bursts of information, rather then long drawn-out reading assignments. Maybe these kids read in short blocks of information. It’s not the reading, it’s how much reading that can get in the way.
This weekend I stumbled across the blog, Purple Goddess in Frog Pyjamas. She has a post with a video asking the question, Do Schools Kill Creativity? Well bite me, this blog belongs to another redhead, of course I had to read the post with an embedded video of the same name by Sir Ken Robinson.
He eloquently states what I have been thinking all this time, but couldn’t put into words -
We parents who fight for the educating of our children with specific needs are often treated like we are nuts.
OK, maybe I am nuts. Blame the red hair. But I am a nut who understands kids.
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
