I Don't Miss It {Ellen Stumbo Writing Prompt}

{from Ellen Stumbo's beautiful blog's writing prompt for this week}

Not one bit I don’t. Miss, that is, advocating and struggling with the school system to fully include Jessie and educate her. While we have other struggles and challenges now that Jessie is out of the public school system and dancing her way through life, I can say that I do not look back in fondness on those years, or at least those moments, marked by the sheer frustration of battling what felt like an immoveable, illogical, uncaring, unresponsive, patronizing monolithic establishment.

Jessie was usually the first student with an intellectual disability to be fully included in regular classes. The early years, I will admit, were often fun. God’s jocular inoculation of my drive and will to the brute force of a system bent on not bending. Those early elementary years were when the team worked best—we all (teachers, parents, school community) had a sense of humour and delighted in the unfolding adventure that was inclusion. We all knew that we really didn’t know what we were doing, but would share the best of our experience, knowledge, and creativity to figure it out. We did know that inclusion was the only thing that made sense and that its difficulties offered myriad opportunities for growth. We figured out what each of us did best, and then did it. We recognized and honoured each other’s intentions and always brought homemade muffins, and the good kind of coffee, to meetings. There were, of course, challenges. As teachers, administrators, and the curriculum changed, we had good and bad years. But it was not until high school that I really needed to work some prunes into the baked goods.

We should have known when, even after the elementary-high school transition meeting—where Jessie’s grade 6 teacher promised to bodily harm the resource teacher (God, I loved that grade 6 teacher) if they did not have the accommodations in place when Jessie started school so that she could continue to learn and grow and blossom into the creative compassionate Jessie she knew she was—the high school had not one single accommodation in place when she crossed the threshold with her friends. But should have known would not have changed our decision to send to Jessie a regular class at the local high school. We quickly rallied allies, friends, and resources to support the school and lead them into supporting Jessie so she could continue to learn and grow alongside her peers. Did it work? Perhaps. In most cases, when we pushed and moved up the ladder of responsibility, we “won.” Principals and teachers were dragged from above to do what was right (in all senses of the word), what was required.   

I think Jessie struggled with finding her place, but in the struggling grew strong and carved a place for herself, identifying her belonging and contribution in a way that convinced her of her own strength and meaning in a broader community. She’s a sucker for a cause, wants to fight for her and anybody else’s rights. Perhaps all the struggling with the school convinced her that even if you don’t win, the struggle is worth it.

Worth it. Yes. But I do not miss it. I do not miss being asked to make a choice between having the curriculum adapted and having an aid. I do not miss a teacher questioning the value of teaching someone like Jessie about cell structure. I do not miss fighting with a school that defends mounting a community play with vigourous use of the word r#tard. I do not miss a point-blank refusal to adapt the curriculum or to follow a written plan (“But if we write it down we will have to follow it!”). I do not miss being yelled at for taking notes during meetings. I do not miss hours spent learning how to write a letter, making sure I take every emotion out of recounting a challenge and stick clearly to only the facts. I do not miss coming home and (WASP ice princess that I normally am) throwing a Cuisinart bowl across the room into the wall and collapsing on the floor with tears and snot and bubbly body fluids cascading out of every facial orifice in sheer frustration at a system so bent on not making inclusion, or learning, possible for my daughter.    

That part I do not miss. I will confess though, that I do miss wearing the Mothers from Hell biker jacket that I have stashed away in my closet. It represents the best part of that journey: coming together with other hellions to battle for the rights of all children—to be educated, respected, and beloved.  

To see what others don't miss, go to http://www.ellenstumbo.com/i-dont-miss-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-dont-miss-it

Jessie Flips: Over at the Propeller Blog

Propeller Dance's big show is May 31 and June 1st at Centrepointe Theatre, and as they prepare and create and rehearse Jessie will be blogging over at Propeller's Blog. She writes:

Propeller is now in rehearsal for our end of year show in May and June at CentrepointeTheatre. Some of us are rehearsing and creating at Arts Court [. . . click here to go to the blog]

Nothing Beats the Chicken Defense

I haven’t blogged since Christmas and will not even try, here, to come up with a reasonable explanation. I will just dive right back in and re-introduce you to our family. Whose mornings, whose BETTER mornings mind you, go something like this:

Jessie’s iPod alarm, which she ignores, goes off at 6:30am with a rousing rendition of the “Good Morning, Good Morning” song from Singin’ in the Rain. We all have to be up early and out of the house by 7:30 because Jess is speaking at a business breakfast to help develop corporate support for Propeller Dance. I’m going, ostensibly to schmooze and network, but mostly just to make sure that Jessie gets there on time.

I push myself out of bed, get a fresh cup of coffee, and descend to my office, where I also have a small corner set up for meditation—leaving Dan to make sure that Jessie gets up and ready. I close the door, light a candle, lower myself down into a comfortable position on my cushion, roll a psalm across my lips and heart, and start meditating with the gong that draws me into silence.

Fifteen minutes later, in the supposed middle of meditation, which everyone in the house, including the cat, knows not to interrupt on pain of eternal damnation (or, my ire, which is pretty much the same thing), there is an insistent whisper outside the door: “Mom. Mom.” I meditate through.

“Mom”; gentle knock. “Mom”; gentle knock.

I think this will not go away.

“Mom. I really need to tell you something.”

“Open the door,” I say. I’m thinking that this could be Christ-like, maybe, if I remember to breath and speak gently. Knock, and the door shall be opened, right?

I turn the meditation timer off. (Yes, I have a meditation timer. On my phone. It starts and ends with a gong and I can choose any length of silence I want. This makes my husband laugh. “You actually have silence recorded on your phone?” Actually, I have a choice of three different singing prayer bowls to call me in and out of meditation. But I digress.

“So this is an emergency, right?” I say. “Like really important that you tell ME, not your Dad, and so important that you need to interrupt right now, not in 10 or 15 minutes. Right?”

“Yes!” says Jessie. “I need to tell you that I ate TWO nutrigrain bars instead of just one.”

She looks at me. I look at her and raise an eyebrow.

“I ate TWO, not one, not the rule of one, like we talked about—because we are going to have breakfast at the meeting.”

I raise my eyebrow further. “And this was something SO important that you had to tell me now? Right now?”

“Well, I told Dad, and told him that I was NOT going to tell you. And he said ‘Boc! Boc! Boc!’ making chicken noises,” she is incensed, “So I HAD to come down and tell you.”

Ah, yes. The boc boc boc defense.

And my husband is upstairs shaving, clueless, while I am putting away my meditation cushion. I think this may be one of the reasons why I love him. Go figure.