Mom & Pop Home School

Two days of school left. One is today. The other may be tomorrow, may be Friday, heck I may wait a week and count next Wednesday when we go for our last Speech and Psych sessions. We’ve definitely been a bit lax around here the last little bit, but that’s “normal” for school, isn’t it? We’ve finished the math program up to the allotted goal, finished the history, we have a couple more things to do for science, but if we don’t get them done for school they’ll make fun summer day boredom-beating projects. So it’s all good.

I’m feeling really good about our first year of homeschool. I think a lot of progress was made for Cricket, and for all of us as a family. Good stuff! So now I’m thinking ahead to next year, and envisioning what’s next. Discussions with school personnel sound as though next year we’ll be able to incorporate some more social training, perhaps with a “friendship group” or something. Could be good. It’s unlikely we’ll be able to hash it out until after school starts in the fall. Why don’t they pay the key personnel to stay there, or come in part time during the summer and do the IEP meetings and whatnot BEFORE school starts so that it can all be in place when it’s time to get going instead of waiting until school is in session and problems are already occurring in classrooms because nobody’s bothering with the IEP until after the IEP meeting, and then take however many weeks at the beginning to get it all hashed out, just in time for winter break and….sigh. What a mess. Fortunately, we do have good, caring people to work with. And honestly I feel that I have been getting a lot more feedback from the people working with him since I pulled him out of school than I ever did while he was in school. They used to just expect him to tell me what they were working on (yeah, right–kid with a communication disorder will tell mother all about it…har). Now they come down to the school office when they’re done and give me a verbal report after each session. Maybe I’m just a control freak, but I think that it works a lot better when I know what they’re working on.

Anyway, Denise over at Let’s Play Math has posted about an online tool that I feel will be of tremendous help in preparing for next year’s meetings with the professional educators. The educational jargon generator will allow me to speak to them in their own language–whether anyone at the table will actually know what on earth anyone else is talking about is a whole other question. But we will all be able to smile and nod wisely while expounding sentences such as the following:

“As an IEP team, let us collaborate to envision site-based schemas to streamline process-based learning and target strategic curriculum integration while leveraging Cricket’s brain-compatible competencies. We must empower critical stakeholders to target dynamic strategies, empower peer-based paradigms and integrate strategic assessment.”

See? Fun and easy thanks to the jargon generator….ROFL!! Thanks Denise!