misunderstood minds

I don’t have an answer, but I feel so badly for you and your daughter!

Personally, I think the “keep your enemies close ” approach works better than yelling your head off. I’d keep educating her, stroking her ego with good feedback for anything she does that is working (if there is anything!?!) , and asking for her help. Because the bottom line is that you do need her help..
Good luck!!

How old is your daughter? At some point in school, 4-6th grade, I think kids need to “own” their disabilities and learn to speak up for themselves…I have worked with many students with severe disabilities, including blindness and mental retardation who have been taught to “stick up for themselves”, and got on with their lives, despite what others said.

What kind of things can your child not do in the classroom? If she reads well, that usually helps a lot. Why does she think she is spoiled and looking for attention?
Does she simply ask for directions to be repeated or is there a lot more going on?

Beth

Can you get her out of this class? Is your child unhappy? My son was very unhappy in his previous class. I asked that he be moved.

For me part of the problem was yelling. The other was that I thought she was actually fostering learned helplessness by reteaching everything he got wrong. I asked that she stop doing that and just give him a chance to self correct his work when he did it wrong. The work was very low and when he did things wrong they just made the work lower. He was bored and tuning out so this was counterproductive.
I just felt this woman and no idea on how to help my son. The things she did that I guess she thought were meant to help did more harm than good. I put him in a one teacher regular class without the support of sped. I think he is struggling a bit but at least he is free from all the pressure of the last class. It takes him a long time to do the homework but at least when he is done he has learned something rather than struggling through busy work. He is much happier.

It is kind of like the doctor’s oath: First do no harm.

Is there a simulation that you could come up with that could give the teacher a better understanding of your daughter’s CAPD. Have the teacher wear ear muffs or ear plugs during a conversation with her with a lot of noise in the background. I have been on this scenic open car train ride where they do a commentary over the loudspeaker. It is so hard to make out the words that are being spoken that after awhile I gave up and stopped listening. I was glad to hear afterwards that others had the same experience but it sure gavel me an understanding of how it must be for someone with CAPD.

Helen.

Aren’t there simulations on the schwablearning web site, and maybe also the PBS site about Mel Levine’s special? (titled misunderstood minds if I remember correctly)

Try checking out ncapd.org this site is all about CAPD.

Get a copy of the FAT (Frustration, Anxiety and Tension)City workshop video, available on this web site (LD Store) or check out your local LD association. Ask the teacher to view it, it is the best video I have seen on understanding learning disabilities.

Been there. Although we did so much at home, paid for the remediation outside of school, sweated through eternities of homework, and did most of the teaching at home - it was just our spoiled brat problem. No ownership of the teacher in structuring the learning so that the child could learn. A losing battle and daily damage to your child. Get your child out of there with the minimum waves. Good luck.
This teacher knows better and does not want to step up to the plate to do the individualization req’d. If she was simply ignorant, she would have scouted resources for herself-there are plenty available. She has choosen not to because she doesn’t want to do the necessary. By the time you teach her about the disability it will be June and she will still be pointing to your child.

I agree.

Had very similar experiences. There is no excuse for a teacher not finding info (at least the basics) on their students disabilities. It is readily available and parents are able to find it. Some teachers just do not want to.

You would think they (teachers) would, if for no other reason, but to make their own lives easier.

Teachers are not required (for a teaching certificate) to be qualified to teach disabled children (2 general classes on sped). Yet with inclusion, these kids are put in their class. Some are bitter about that or just don’t know what to do with them. So blame the kid cuz their not changing how they teach their class for a kid who “won’t even try.”

I’ve had several teachers (art, music, band, gym) teachers tell me that they didn’t even know my son had LDs. Last year his teacher tells me that my son reminds her of her lazy son who could succeed “if he wanted to.” Nice huh?

MMM,

I agree with you. We are on the same path. You can’t get water from a stone! If the teacher doesn’t get it you won’t be able to change that and it really isn’t your job to change that.

Linda

Stephanie,

GET YOUR DAUGHTER AWAY FROM THAT NASTY WITCH!!!

Like the previous posters I agree as well that your child needs a different teacher. An unfortunate aspect to some teachers are that some feel that if they can’t see the disability it really doesn’t exist. As a special education teacher I see this all too often. Many times I feel as though teaching teachers is much harder than teaching children. I and all the other teachers on this site certainly appreciate your comments. Sometimes we get flammed for the actions of a relatively few uninformed teachers. Best of luck to you and your child.

Laurie

Sorry this is a bit late in coming but if you want a site for the teacher to “hear” what it “sounds” like to deal with CAPD this link will help…. it is Little Red Riding Hood read in the way some of the kids “hear” Hope this is of help…it worked for me! http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/ladle/index.html

Folks:

The possible solution is to do like they do in Florida: make these educators “at will employees”… I figure most people in America are “at will employees” no civil service protection. Why should these people be any different ? Maybe this teacher would get off their fat lazy ass or pussy and actually pay attention to this parent’s description of the disability… My two cents are finished.

… make this teacher understand CAPD and how it manifests in the learning environment. In that case, you might consider switching your child out of her classroom. My schoolteacher husband and I feel that every primary school year is CRUCIAL to ongoing learning success, and one “bad year” can make or break the child.

We found ourselves in this position last year, although it kind of manifested itself in the opposite way. Since our then-second-grade son had had hearing difficulties and we suspected CAPD (although it had not yet been formally diagnosed), the teacher seemed to assume that she couldn’t really do anything for him. Since he was in no way a behavior problem, she just put him in the back of the room (the worst place for such a child) and just ignored him.

Since he is quite bright, he quickly became bored, and for the first time, began to complain about school, although he never “acted out”. What made it worse was that his twin brother was in another classroom, where the very able teacher there was introducing challenging curriculum to her second graders. By Christmastime, when the twin brother was getting to do “place value” and “subtracting with borrowing”, our other poor little guy was bringing home papers for homework which directed him to “color the fourth ball yellow”. This particular child has always been recognized as having the brightest “math mind” in our entire family (including my husband and myself), so this was especially difficult.

Because we had addressed our concerns with the teacher during parent/teacher conferences during November of that school year, we just said, “ENOUGH”. We didn’t schedule yet another conference, but went directly to the principal and asked that our son be moved into the classroom with his twin brother by the start of the second semester.

We were told that this was “never done” in elementary school (bologny! my husband taught elementary school for several years during his career, and while it wasn’t an everyday event, it also wasn’t unheard of). Then we were told that this was “unfair” to the teacher, and that “she deserved another chance”. At this point, we conveyed that while we held no ill will towards the teacher personally, that this was not a constructive environment for our son, and then we basically demanded that he be moved.

Obviously, we lost our “favored, popular parent” status, but our boy was moved and IMMEDIATELY began to catch up, and was enthusiastic about school again. He made great gains in a short amount of time, and it was that teacher who was caring enough to document his unique struggles in class, which led us to seek a full evaluation which produced an accurate evaluation of Kevin’s learning differences.

We give thanks daily that we did not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the principal (who is generally a good guy) or the system. Our position was, and remains, that while it is always our responsibility to be polite and civil, it is not our responsibility to make mediocre teachers feel great about the job they’re doing. The bottom line is that our only concern is what’s best for our son, and the adults involved can be damned!