Separate is NOT Equal...We Know This...Let's Move

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." 

United States Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)

19freaking54.  What on earth are we still talking about 59 (!) years later?

Why is there any question how children are educated and why children are educated this way?

Why??

Because old habits die hard and ignorance and preconceived notions die even harder...or maybe they never die.

We have students separated from each other. All sorts of students.  We have the students that are identified as "gifted" (based on their performance on an exam) separated in my town from the rest of the students.  This is a big controversy here.  Ironically, this spot is a fully inclusive district for students that have identified special needs.  Those students are included in the regular classroom, no questions asked.  

How refreshing.

In other districts, if you have a child with an identified disability you have to fight your way into the regular kindergarten. As if all of those other typical kids entering kindergarten spoke coherently, had well-developed social skills, knew all of their phonemes and were ready to read. Ask any kindergarten teacher about her typical class.  She (or he) will tell you of the wildly differing abilities of the students.   This, in fact, couldn't be a better time to allow students with special needs into the regular classroom...but often the parents of these kids feel cornered into a separate classroom known as an SDC class (special day class -- that sounds super equal to the typical kindergarten class, right?) 

Wrong.

Here's the deal...separate is not equal.

It was true in 1954 and it is still true in 2013.

Let's look at the data.  We have 30+ years worth now.

It's overwhelming.

"The largest study of educational outcomes of 11,000 students with disabilities, the National Longitudinal Transition Study, showed that when students with disabilities spent more time in a general education classroom they were more likely to score higher on standardized tests of reading and math; have fewer absences from school; experience fewer referrals for disruptive behavior; and achieve more positive post-school outcomes such as a paying job, not living in segregated housing, and with having a broad and supportive social network. These results were true regardless of students’ disability, severity of disability, gender or socioeconomic status."

Also, the data is substantial for non-disabled students within that same classroom -- they do better too.  Together, they also are learning how to live with each other in a positive way so the social implications are huge too.

(cited by Cheryl M. Jorgensen, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire)

In a nutshell, if a student with disabilities is in a fully inclusive school environment they have a better chance at:

1) finding work

2) making friends

3) living independently

4) having a serious and lasting relationship

In short, they get a real chance at freedom.

That is exactly what Brown vs. Board of Education was fighting for...freedom.  They were fighting for a real chance.  Fighting for some hope.  

Fighting for the opportunity to become the person they were meant to be.

We ALL deserve that chance.  Kids with disabilities are no exception.

At two different places, with two different groups of educators I was pleading my case this week. On my way to speech #2 in the car I was practicing my presentation out loud.  Out of annoyance and silliness at having to say that "separate is not equal" in another room of educators in 2013, I decided to call myself The Lorax.  

Only instead of speaking for trees, I'm speaking for something even more important: kids.

Who doesn't want to find work, make friends, live independently, or have a serious relationship?

Nobody.

All people want is a chance.

That's all anybody deserves.

It's a given.  We figured it out 59 years ago...

can we please follow through?

Imagine how amazing our world would be if we used the vast and amazing and exponentially growing technology to actually serve our students in inclusive classrooms.

Imagine not having to prove yourself just to get through the door?

Why should ANY kindergartener not be included?  

You tell me.

Why should any student be told you're not good enough?

Why should any student have a separate education?

We have a beautifully written law called the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).  It was ground-breaking legislation in 1972.  And it stated boldly:

 “Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society. Improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.”

WOW!!!

That right there is telling the students with disabilities to come out of the shadows. 

Get out there and "fully participate".

You are part of us.

You deserve every opportunity.

19freaking72. That's when that law was written. 

Why are we still talking about it?

Open the doors.

Let the students into the very same classroom as all of the others.

Use technology.

Use the best practices for teachers that we know work.

Give supports to the students who need it.

Use the internet to connect with educators who are doing it right this minute and doing it well.

Watch the magic.

Watch the typical students rise to the occasion.

Give them that chance.

Watch the students with disabilities rise to the occasion.

Get ready to smile and know joy and see social justice and educational equity in action.

Full inclusion's time is now.

Ben Franklin said it best:

"There are three types of people: the immovable, the movable and those that move."

Let's move.

It's Where's Waldo!  Can you spot the kid with a disability during PE?

They are all just having fun...they all deserve to...together.

Slip Sliding Away

"Darn the wheel of the world.  Why must it continually turn over?  

Where is the reverse gear?" 

-- Jack London

We negotiated.  She wanted a shower.  I wanted to give her a bath.  We compromised as we fortunately can often find our way to do: I'd wash her hair in the tub and chat for a minute.  I'd enjoy her hair, her little face wet with water, her closed eyes and lashes laden with dew drops. I'd notice her leaning her head way back, letting me rinse and rinse and rinse long after it was necessary.  I'd wash her face and touch those cheeks and suck up that smell of cleaning away the grime of the day and getting ready for the night.

After that, she'd get to have a shower on her own.  I'd set it up and hand her the soap and give her the freedom of water rushing down, time alone lost in her thoughts, the privacy and big-ness she is ready for and waiting for.  Darn.

I remember reading a long time ago that we make a big deal about the beginnings.  We take photos of the first day, the first time, the first class and we record them.  But no one gives us the memo on the last day, the last moment, the last time.  Hardly ever can we tell that it's ending.  It just slip slides away...morphs into something new and before we know it, it's over.

Because I've done this a few times, I'm more aware of the endings as they approach.  I'm on the look out now.  I know.
I can feel it and now I take the mental photograph.

I can't tell you how many baths I've given but I am my mother's daughter and she loves a clean child.  She scours the fingernails (I still remember my fingernails hurting from her own fingernail cleaning underneath mine), washes behind the ears and inside the corners of the eyes.  She gets in every nook and cranny and the result is a very clean child.  

I am the same. 

 I never minded giving baths.  I loved the forced opportunity of stopping and slowing down and cleaning and caring for my babies.  I cherished the smell of a fresh-from-the-the-tub child.  I snuggled in bath towels as long as possible, giggled at the naked adorableness, watched those bouncing booties...but now, twenty years into it, my time is running out.

I know.  I know.  Get over it.  

It's not that big a deal.  But for me, it's another reminder that the joy of babyhood, toddlerhood, preschoolerville and yes even early elementary school is on its way out.  My chickadee is turning seven in just a few weeks and her patient tolerance for my intensive mothering in the bath department is going down the drain...the final whirlpool is beautiful.  It's all very very good.  I'm just noticing.

So, today, I'm grateful for the few baths I have left.  Grateful that I have had the joy and chance of bathing four kids.  Grateful for the bounty of clean water that I so often use with the barest of acknowledgements, knowing there are millions of mothers who would love nothing more than to put their baby in a hot bath and scrub them clean.

Today I'm grateful for my baby and my ability to finally see the bend in the road and know that it's all changing...as it should be...

in all the right ways.

It's All Yours

"I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.  

I can choose which it shall be.  Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.  

I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."  

--Groucho Marx

Enjoy Shania Twain's song: Today is Your Day! :)

Sometimes I wake up and realize I get a fresh start.  A brand new day.  No old news.  No shadows.  No expectations.  Just a beautiful new day and it's all mine.  My one and only.

When I wake up like this, I view my world through a different lens.  Even the radio blaring away seems  new.  I contemplate the morning routines that I never think about.  I change it up.  Even if my regular daily obligations are still the same, when I am like this, it is all up for negotiation.  

I ask myself...do I want to spend my day this way?  Do I want to go through these same motions?  Do I enjoy the view?  The soundtrack?  The characters in my story? Who's the villain?  Who's the hero?  Who is the mysterious stranger in the background that I never noticed?  What is the action or reaction that might change the entire trajectory of the day?

It's heady to think this way.  It's transformational.  It's all yours.

Sometimes we are in a spiral, chasing our tails.  Whenever I watch Buddy doing this, I always smile.  I think of it as a movie preview that God has just whispered to me.  What am I chasing that is already within my grasp if I would only stop and notice or view from a different vantage point?  Why am I chasing anything?  How can I simply flow like the river...using the stones in my way to make larger ripples...more beauty...better sound?  How can I act like water...expanding and contracting as needed? 

I marvel at the opportunity a new day brings.  Strangers crossing my path, old friends, family, and the regulars.  You know them.  They're the dry cleaning the lady, the mailman, the neighbor who always walks her dog the same time you do, the guy who always checks out your groceries at the market.  These are the background notes to your symphony.  How quiet it would seem without them there...but do I ever stop to truly see them? To cherish our paths crossing? To hear their unique and vibrant notes that they bring to my daily song? I do, on days like this.

So...today is all yours.  Your one and only 4.6.13.  My one and only one too.  I'm going to cherish it.  Savor it.  Listen to great music. Dance. Love. Get curious and snuggle.  Those are my priorities.

I can change them up tomorrow -- add a few, subtract a few.

That's the beauty of today and I'm grateful for it.

Sweet Husbands

"There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage."  -- Martin Luther

I watched my pregnant friend's husband rub her shoulders last Friday night.  It was tender but nonchalant...perfectly normal.  I saw an elderly man cradle the hand of his wife on his way into church.  I watched a father with a brutal work schedule smile happily as he had the rare joy of dropping his daughter off at school.  

My own dear husband texted me a note of support as I went off to San Francisco at dinner time headed to a meeting about saving ice-skating in Yosemite.  It would be hours away...through the rigamarole of homework and bedtime and little kids.  He went with it.

No sigh.

No wishing it weren't so.

Just support.

I'd like to give a shout out to sweet husbands.

They are often ignored, taken for granted and relegated to the status of ho hum.

Sit-coms like to make them look dumb.

Women's magazines like to make them seem extinct.

Plenty of commercials sell them as nerdy or inept.

It just isn't so.

They are hard working, tireless, considerate and most of all, there.

Day in -- day out -- they show up.

They are the ones with the baby in the front pack at the grocery store muddling their way through.

They are the ones who clean up the dishes, fold the laundry, hug the momma who just found lice in their daughter's hair, again, and clean up the puke.

They hold their wife's hand as they deal with a cancer diagnosis, a job loss or a phone call that makes a nightmare real.

They work hard and worry.

They are the backbone of so many families -- unnoticed and unappreciated.

Today, I am grateful for my gentle, fun-loving, encouraging husband.

He makes me a better person.

He helps me to reach for my dreams.

He tolerates my sassy weirdness and best of all, he likes it.

He makes me laugh.

His loving acceptance and encouragement have been a saving grace for me for years, 

twenty three to be exact -- but who's counting?

I don't know how to explain the supreme comfort in being loved that way but I hope for it, and pray for it, for my own children.

Here is my prayer:

Lord, please help the person they love to be generous, kind, warm-hearted and loving.

Help them to be accepting and forgiving.

Help them to find the good and hold their tongues with the criticism.  

Help them to be honest and fun.

Help them to find real love, enduring love, hopeful love.

Please...

Thank you to the husbands who love their wives and cherish their families.

Thank you to the husbands who man up and do the dirty work...whatever that may be.

Thank you to the husbands who work and work and work and then come home to work some more.

Thank you to the husbands who don't hold back...who encourage and laugh and dance and cheer.

Thank you.

You are a blessing and most definitely the definition of Grace-in-the-Ordinary. :)

Land's End, San Francisco -- March 2013

It's 3/21...do you know what that means?

It's World Down Syndrome Day!!!


It's time to celebrate!
Turn on the music, dance and show a little enthusiasm.
Three copies on the 21st chromosome and look what happens.
You got sparkle.
You got style.
You got living out loud.

If only the world would stop and notice.

This post is for people holding tiny babies, staring at a karyotype and wondering how on earth their child, their family, their world will ever be normal again.

Oh friend, your world will most definitely not be what the doom-sayers tell you.  
It most definitely will not be tragic.
And it surely won't be boring.
In fact, it will be a whole lot of fun...just look at that picture. :)

People with Down Syndrome LOVE to be part of the mix.
The are social animals.
That's why the idea of excluding and isolating these people makes my heart break.

They know how to party.  They know how to celebrate -- big time.
No one likes a birthday, a wedding, a graduation or a sporting event (with someone he loves playing) more than Patrick.
No one.

Learning to read, or tie your shoes or even walk might take longer --
but it happens.
Dreams come true.
Passions ignite.
In our house, it's Broadway musicals.
But for others I know, their child loves baseball or pop music or skiing.

The universal truths about life are right here for all to see.
Don't judge a book by its cover.
Give people a chance.
Open your heart to new ideas.

We all want the same things: love, friendship, connection.
We cry in the same language; laugh in the same language; bleed in the same language and
love in the same language.

We are more alike than different.
So...today, celebrate those people with an extra chromosome.
If you don't know anybody...sorry to say, you are missing out.
Maybe you want to check out the Special Olympics and offer to volunteer.  Or look into your local city's services.
There's a whole world of great people out there just dying to meet you.

If you do know somebody...give them a high five.
Better yet, turn on some music and dance.
They are worth knowing and most definitely worth celebrating.

Patrick, you make me laugh.
You've made my world wider.
You give me strength, hope and so much joy.
Here's to you -- and all of your friends with designer genes!

Now is Now

"But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods.  She looked at Pa on the bench by the hearth, the firelight gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle.  She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, "This is now."

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now.  They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now.  

It can never be a long time ago."

--Laura Ingalls Wilder

This is now: Patrick playing the bass drum with his school band.

Snuggling during a drive-through car wash = now.

Bike riding on a gorgeous spring day...also now.

So many beautiful moments.  Breath-taking.  Ordinary.  Little tiny gifts wrapped in a bow that changes every single day.  I try to be just like darling Laura Ingalls Wilder and notice, listen, savor and freeze them.  They are passing and fluid.  Moving and changing and morphing and growing and adjusting and then in a whisper...gone.

When I read those words out loud to Caroline the other night, tears were streaming down my face.  Oh to hold that moment of lying in bed next to her, smelling her just clean hair, feeling her body right against mine, listening to the words sprinkle out and create the now.  

I held my breath.  

I tried to squeeze that feeling in my heart into a corner that had never been 

and make a sacred spot for it.

I kissed my girl and tucked her in and soaked it all up.

Now is now.

How grateful I am for the myriad little pockets of time that make each day a grace-filled gift.

What does your now look like?

How do you savor it?

If you tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.

End It Now

See this guy:

He's a guy with Down Syndrome. 

Does that diminish his light?

Is he worth less?

Does he deserve an education? Medical treatment? Access to his own money?

All of those basic rights are denied people like Patrick everyday.

Some people believe he should be separated...in school, in sports, in the world.

Why???

Because they have lived in our world.  

They have heard the words.

They have had those ideas of separation and difference work their way into their view of humanity
and into their bloodstream of personhood.

Words like: retard and idiot.

I know you don't want to think it or get all PC, but words hurt.

Heck, words kill.

Words that diminish and dismiss make it easier to keep people outside. 

Words like that make it easier to separate and hate.

Words like that make it easier to disregard someone worthy of knowing.

They keep us apart.

They divide.

Using words like retard perpetuate MISunderstanding and DISability.

Can you just stop?

Stop using the words.

Stop leaving people out.

Stop feeling better about yourself by cutting someone else down.

Stop thinking it's funny.

Every single time you use that word -- or stand by while someone else uses that word -- you allow bigotry to continue.

You vote with your mouth for separateness and distance...exclusion and excuses.

Today I vote for inclusion.

Today I vote for flying my freak flag.

Today I vote for enjoying diversity,

cherishing every single hue, 

genuinely acknowledging the priceless gift of every human on the planet.

Everyone is worthy of dignity and respect.

Everyone deserves to be honored for their unique beauty and grace.

Today make a choice to change your language. 

By changing your language, you make the choice to open your mind. 

 You make the choice to open your heart.

 You make the choice to open your world to more love, more light, and more beauty.

People like Patrick will be a little less lonely and isolated.

Imagine the day when our children have never heard of such a word.  

Where we have to explain the bigotry and the separateness that no longer exist.

That makes me smile.  It's worth the work.