Teachers DO Make a Difference!

Today when Caroline got home from school and started her homework she sat at the table by herself. She got out her math assignment from her special ed. teacher, Mrs. Nease, and she started. She's doing simple addition and subtraction, pattern completion and tally marks while the kids her age are learning to multiply. There were a few simple word problems and other basic math problems. I was close, but not sitting with her and I was so proud of what happened next. Since she can't really isolate her fingers very well to add and subtract she began to gather things from the table to help her find the numbers that she needed. A salt and pepper shaker, a pen, an eraser, a pencil... and she solved almost every problem by herself.

Then she had to take her spelling practice test. We numbered her paper and I called out the words. She missed 2 but wanted to know why she missed them and wanted to practice them again so that she could try to make 100 at school.

Next, she got out her journal and started writing. She wrote a title and then started writing sentences about the topic. There is not a period at the end of every sentence and everything is not spelled correctly.

Last year Caroline could not sit to do homework by herself. She could not come up with ways to solve math problems on her own and she could not write several sentences on a given topic without writing the same words over and over again. I know that this kid may not be the brightest kid at her school, but she is learning!! The patience of the teachers and staff are paying off. We do a LOT of work at home and have her involved in therapies. I know that all of it together is what is making a difference, but for the majority of her day she is not with me or at therapy.

She is at school.

So many times we only hear about the things that schools are NOT doing well. I just wanted to say that in our family the public school teachers care and they are making a difference. We are eternally grateful for their investment in our child and we want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts for loving our girl and helping her to be all that she can be!  

I could not be more proud of how she is growing and God has blessed us beyond measure!