Now I needed to ask Kayla what she thought; I was talking about her, after all.
So I posed the question to Kayla, "When you are in middle school would you like to do laundry in your classroom?"
She was at the table having a snack and shook her head 'no' with a smile on her face that seemed to say, "are you silly? what kind of question is that?"
Me, "So you wouldn't want to do laundry, learn to do laundry, when you're in middle school?"
K, With her mouth closed she made that 'nu huh' kind of sound to indicate "no."
M, "Why not?"
K, "I don't want to."
M, "What do you want to do instead?" A shrug of the shoulders.
M, "Do you want to do your school work in middle school?"
K, "Yes."
M, "Where do you want to do laundry?" Silence from Kayla. "Where do you think you should do laundry?"
K, "One."
M, "One what?"
K, "One hour."
M, "No, not how long will it take to do laundry, but where do you think you do laundry?"
K, "At home!"
A few minutes later I asked again, "So Kayla, when you get to middle school what if your teacher asks about doing the laundry?"
K, "No!"
Me, "What do you want to do in school?"
K, "Keep learning math!"
M, "Whoa, Kayla! High five! That was a good answer!" (Because I truly was not expecting that response from her.)
K, "And science! And social studies!"
(Disclaimer: Yes I know this doesn't mean she would be doing laundry all day, every day. I realize she would still be doing school work. I realize it would be a small part of the school day. I don't even know how often the students do this laundry as I admitted in my post. But I still maintain my opinion that even doing the football team's laundry one time out of the school year is one time - that is not why I'm sending my child to school.)
7 comments:
Kayla gets it
Pretty sad when both Kayla and Lucas understand more about inclusion, fairness and what actually equates school work more than the administrators.
Kayla knows when she's in an unfair situation. Good for her. That's a crucial part of self-advocacy.
Michelle, I thought of you yesterday when a special education class (high school) visited the one library where I work. The kids took a tour of the library with our children's librarian, and asked tons of great questions; in fact I pegged a few of them as future librarians! I thought of what you posted regarding Kayla's class doing the laundry and it just broke my heart thinking about THESE kids doing that and how that is SO unfair! No differently abled kid should be brought down like that because they're ALL capable and smart in their own way!
See! She isn't the slow learner!!!
(For anyone taking offense to that--it's the title of a book I wrote when inclusion went to hell in jr high for my son)
This is the post I've been waiting for.
Time to do a little self-advocate training, Momma.
Dude, that is so not fair. That was my first response, I don't know why I said dude. Anyway, that is not fair to the students in the class. Inclusion does not include laundry time, it's learning time for the students at levels they can work at.
Post a Comment