Great Expectations

I made it all the way through three weeks worth of school without exploding.  Sure, I would've liked to extend that time by just a bit.  However, when an innocent question leads to an unsatisfactory answer, my Mama hackles go up and I growl.  Loudly.  Let me explain.

The classrooms in Brandon's school are ungraded, but by age he would be in the 4th grade.  His school has an annual back to school night.  Due to a client event, I couldn't attend, and I arranged to meet his teacher on another morning, before school.  We met, I met the assistants and his new OT, I saw the classroom.  All was well.  Then I asked what literacy and math levels Brandon had been grouped into.  Silly me, I thought I knew the answer; I was just checking.  Good thing.  He had been placed in level three math (which I had expected)...and level three literacy.  Um, what? No.  No, no, no, no and no.

Brandon has been reading since he's three years old, and he has always been ahead of his peers in literacy.  His second grade year was a disaster, however, with Brandon struggling with as yet undiagnosed ADHD, and very little learning being accomplished.  He spent more time outside the classroom struggling to self-regulate than in it.  In order to work on his frustration tolerance and boost his self confidence, we made a group choice to have him repeat level two math and level three literacy last year, in a 1:1 setting.  It worked beautifully; Brandon actually accomplished a full year's worth of math, a subject that used to provoke a meltdown by it's mere mention.  Having been told how well he was doing in literacy, I assumed the same of that.  Yeah, I know what they say about assuming things.  What can I say, I had gotten a little too comfortable with my kid actually being happy about academics.  

I exploded.  No way should my boy have been assigned to level three literacy for the third year in a row.  

So, why the level three literacy then?  Well, apparently that was at least partially an oversight.  The group had actually almost completed the level over the summer, and until I got my hackles up, no one took note of this.  OK, even in good schools stuff happens.  I could have rolled with that one, albeit with a lot of grumbling and general pissed-off-ness on my part.  It was the part where they cited his behavioral protocol needs and inability to write that got to me.

Brandon's ability to work in a group is tenuous and newly emerging, but something he himself now desires.  To help foster that, he was introduced to a literacy group over the summer, with a behavioral protocol.  It works like this:  for every minute he is able to attend without off-topic interrupting, he gets a token (in his case, it's a penguin icon.)  After he earns three of them, he gets a brief break and reward, then goes back to the group.  This year, he's so far been able to increase the time to three minute intervals.  To be sure, this reward system takes up a not insignificant amount of adult time, and also causes a certain level of disruption. However, it has NOTHING to do with his level of academic functioning.  

Brandon also can't write.  He has had significant fine motor skill issues all his life, and it is apparent at this point that writing will never be his primary mode of communication.  By fourth grade though, literacy starts to involve a lot more writing.  Brandon's writing challenges are not new.  They have ALWAYS existed.  So...are we going to hold him back for that?  What happens when he still can't write next year?  The year after that?  Are we going to hold him back indefinitely until he can type fluently?  What if that doesn't happen for another year or two?

HELL NO!  I'm not unrealistic.  I know my baby has a long, long way to go.  He's not getting there with low expectations though.  I don't know if Brandon will be capable of college.  I don't even know if he will *want* to go to college.  What I want is the possibility of that for him.  My vision of the future includes one where Brandon has choices.  And he's certainly not getting there if we can't see past the behaviors and the sensory issues and the physical challenges to the very real, very bright boy underneath who will only go as far as we expect him to.  It's time to stop making excuses and doing what's easy.  IDEA says nothing about easy; it says "appropriate".  It's time to raise expectations, and stand back and give him wings to fly with.  It won't be easy, but I'm betting he finds a way to touch that sky.