Education

Why Didn't Someone Tell Us?

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Jane Boswell
President, Homeschool Support Network

From the book, “GOD’S SPECIAL CHILD—Lessons from Nathan and other Children with Special Needs” by Donna & Ellis Adee with Tom Hunsberger (a learning disorder teacher and home schooling father)

Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Parents Have the Responsibility for Educating Their Children
When he was five, Nathan, our youngest son born with Prader Willi Syndrome, had more learning problems than we realized. We depended on the professionals in the educational field to show us what to do. With the knowledge that we have learned in the last few years, we would have educated Nathan completely differently. Hopefully, our mistakes will help other parents of special-needs children.

We thought Nathan could handle first grade at the age of six especially in our local village school, the last country school in the county. Since Lawrence Pacey, who had 13 children of his own, was an excellent teacher for our older son and daughter, we knew he would be patient with Nathan. With 21 children in grades 1-6, they were one big family. The village school at Wells, Kansas was almost like a large home school. The whole community revolved around the school events. The two room school was packed for the annual Christmas program and the last day of school potluck dinners.

Mr. Pacey made learning fun. Math was practiced by ciphering on the blackboard, English was put into practical work by writing letters to any student who was sick, thanking anyone who helped the school or spoke to the students. Crafts were learned as a reward for school work finished. Students could choose from many assorted wood working projects from making bowling pin lamps, wooden turtle shaped foot stools to sanding boards. Recesses were special events for making rope from binding twine or playing softball with Mr. Pacey actively involved.

Nathan would have been accepted even though he couldn’t do all that a first grade child should do in handwork and he would have learned by listening, his special talent. Nathan loved to visit school with his brother and sister. We didn’t know until this year that the school principal, in town, told Mr. Pacey not to allow Nathan to visit. Mr. Pacey not only let him visit but had the older girls read to him. He was part of the “family.” The kids accepted him because he was the little brother of Eric and Chrissy.

We regret that we chose to send Nathan to the kindergarten in town. There was no kindergarten at Wells. The testing that Phyllis, my teaching sister-in-law, did convinced her and in turn us, that he couldn’t do the writing required of first graders. Nathan’s entrance to the school in town brought as many problems as it did help. The stress of hurrying him to leave on the bus each morning was just one of the problems.

Once at school they didn’t know how to work with him and insisted that we start testing by the educational psychologist. The testing didn’t give much help so that was the time they encouraged us to find the medical reason for Nathan’s learning problems. We took him to the Kansas University Medical Center in Kansas City as soon as we could obtain an appointment.

Somehow he made it through kindergarten, but the teacher recommended that he stay in kindergarten for another year while the educational psychologist wanted him in the L.D. (Learning Disabilities) classroom. We were sure the professionals knew more about helping Nathan than we did so we signed the papers. Most of the class of ten were mentally retarded or had behavior problems. Nathan soon began to pick up their negative attitudes and actions. The teacher tried to teach the class, but with such varied educational problems and only one teacher, it was impossible. Educationally Nathan did almost nothing that year. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, she tried.

At the end of Nathan’s year in L.D., the educational psychologist told us that they were moving the class to Salina, twenty-five miles from our home. They wanted us to sign papers for this plan. We could see no benefit from the class or from Nathan riding the bus an extra 30 minutes each way, so we refused. They were quick to tell us that we were making a bad mistake. (A few years ago we learned that schools receive extra funding for each special-education student.) Ellis had to strongly insist, even to the point of saying we would go to court, to keep Nathan in Minneapolis.

We mainstreamed Nathan through the first and second grade with some remedial classes. He didn’t do much in class but through the help of one special-education teacher, himself handicapped with cerebral palsy, Nathan learned to read. Another special-education teacher wasn’t as helpful. The first grade teacher assumed he was receiving his lessons from the special education teacher so she didn’t work much in the regular classroom with him. It was several months before Nathan told us that the special education teacher was not well focused in class. Upon checking, we found that she had a night job along with her special-education classes. Even though Nathan wasn’t being taught, we still left him in her class.

At the end of second grade, it became obvious that Nathan was not learning his subjects. Before school started the next fall, we met with his teacher, a young energetic lady. After explaining all of Nathan’s problems, we assured her that anything Nathan did not accomplish in the classroom, we wanted him to bring home. With her help and our tutoring he did learn that year for probably three reasons: 1) His parents became involved, 2) His maturity level had developed to where he was ready to learn, 3) He had a teacher who spent much time and effort working with him.

Neither my husband nor I have college degrees but in order for Nathan to accomplish anything in the public school, we started tutoring him every morning, evening, weekend and summer. Since the school day was very tiring for Nathan he slept on the bus traveling home. Traveling on the bus was another aggravation for Nathan. The kids teased him unmercifully. I’m sure his sleeping prevented him from hearing some of it.

Once convinced that he had to do his home work, Nathan would fall asleep in the middle of a problem. If a birthday had been celebrated at school with cookies and Koolaid, he would be so hyper from the sugar that he couldn’t do his studies that evening. Ellis, my husband, spent hours every evening convincing Nathan that he had to do his school work. After three years of doing almost nothing in school, he didn’t want to work. Nathan could do most of the work orally but not the writing or at the speed required at school.

We wish someone had told us about home education at that time. It would have been many times easier than sending him to public school and tutoring him. It also would have allowed us to better prepare Nathan for the special job that God had for him. It also would have relieved much of the stress on the whole family. Not only could we have chosen the curriculum to fit Nathan’s specific needs but we could have adapted it to his type of learning and physical stamina. Nathan was an auditory learner while the public school is set up for visual and writing skills. There was no way Nathan could handle all the writing required even when the teachers cut the amount drastically. Our local teachers really tried to meet Nathan’s educational needs but they were limited by the system. They were as frustrated as we were.

The reading problem appears to reflect a developmentally delayed learner. Nathan is limited in mental maturity and has difficulty in accepting and/or completing an assignment without considerable supervision. Since his previous teachers have realized Nathan’s physical problems, they have been kind and helpful to his academic performances. It is natural that he is protected at school, at home, perhaps over-protected.

As a result, Nathan is slow, sometimes unwilling, to take much initiative with his written work and reading assignments. He does not follow directions unless given one-on-one teacher help. His writing is difficult to decipher.

Home schooling allows the parents to capitalize on what the child can do and patiently await the skills he has yet to master. This could never happen in a public school environment. People still have such strong stereotypes of special needs children. Doctors and educators actually frighten parents by indicating that they must have special knowledge (to educate their children), but parents know the best and really are the best teachers. That’s what the Bible teaches too.

Some of the thirty parents I interviewed for the book have kept their children in public school. But we can see that it would have been so much easier on us and Nathan to have home schooled him because he could do the work, but at a much slower speed.

Does Home Schooling Require That Parents Have a Teaching Degree?
I know if we had considered educating Nathan at home full time, we probably would have felt we were not qualified. Why do we parents think we need an educational degree to teach our children? Since we had to tutor Nathan so that he could make it through public school, I worked with him on English and literature while Ellis did the math and science. History would have been so much easier with one of the home education history books which include our Christian heritage. History is a subject our whole family loves so we were always reading books outside the text book with Nathan.

The decision on where your special-needs child will be educated must be thought through very carefully. Even when our Nathan was in public school in the ‘70s and ‘80s, we could not leave the decisions up to the educational experts. We had to be involved in every area. If a parent doesn’t want their child labeled (which will probably be his lot for the rest of his school life) and would rather be told than asked how to best teach your child, be very cautious about placing your child in public school. The ridicule by his peers along with the labeling by the educational psychologists left Nathan with unhappy memories all his life.

Labeling by either the doctors or professional educators can be detrimental to your child. Sometimes the child uses his label as an excuse to not behave or do his work. But how others use it can be far worse. Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum said, “Hanging derogatory labels on children has become big business in the public schools. The public schools get much more money if the child is labeled as having some defect.”2

Dr. Thomas Sowell who has written the excellent book, “Inside American Education.”3 wrote an article in the August 1, 1994 Forbes Magazine,4 page 55, about his son and other children who were slow maturing. His complete article was very helpful, and one area that he mentioned in particular was about the preschool testing that is done for three and four year olds. He said that the testing for hours by strangers in a strange setting can get any child upset, yet the results of that testing can result in lifelong decisions for that child.

Tom Hunsberger, who has taught special education in Maryland public schools for twenty years, told me that it was humanly impossible for him to meet the educational needs of the forty child caseload that he has. This is what I hear over and over again from good teachers who work in special education. They do not have the time or staff to meet the varied needs of the special-needs children.

Why We Wish We Had Home Educated our son with Special Needs?
Here are the reasons I feel that home education is absolutely the best option for special-needs children (and all children).

1. Parents know their children better than anyone.

2. Parents can teach Biblical principles daily and implement them into the learning process. Proverbs 6:20-22

3. Parents can build a close relationship with their children so that they respect parental authority. Ellis could see that when he was in school fifty years ago, they were encouraging the children to question their parents’ authority.

4. The only way a parent is going to know what their child is taught, is to do the teaching.

5. With home education you can adapt the amount and speed to the needs and health of your child.

6. Home education allows time to teach life skills along with academics. There is time for apprenticeships etc.

7. God has given parents the wisdom, knowledge and responsibility to educate our children. No one else will care for or understand our child as well as we, the parents, even if we don’t have a degree in education. There is a wealth of home school education materials based on Biblical principles and there are home school support groups to encourage and inform parents.

NOTES:

1 Home School Legal Defense Association

2 Phyllis Schlafly Report 1994

3 Inside American Education by Thomas Sowell 1993.

4 “Autistic…or just shy?” Dr. Thomas Sowell, Forbes, August 1

The 145 page book can be ordered from Harvest Publications 1928 Oxbow, Minneapolis, Kansas 67467 for $8.95.