The Line in the Sand.

I woke up this morning at 3:45 in the morning and proceeded to have an anxiety attack about an impending snow storm. I live in a very hilly neighborhood where traveling in the snow is often very difficult and dangerous at times. I am a teacher, yet my school has refused to allow us to work from home except during a COVID-19 emergency. They claim it is because they support in person learning over remote, but we know that is not the entire story because we have far more students continuing to choose remote rather than come to in person these days. Two out of four of our classrooms continue to offer only remote learning, so this is all a farce. In fact, when they are forced to close, they cancel all classes including the remote, so how are they supporting continuity in educational services? I have spent 32 years as an educator. I just reached the magical age of 55 and I have had enough. I cannot retire, nor do I wish to stop working, but I am done with being micromanaged and having my health and well being in the hands of those who honestly do not care.

A friend recently spoke to me about reaching that line that would separate her from what was wrong and what was right for her life. Reaching the line. For each and every person there is a moment where you do, indeed, reach that feeling of having enough. The realization of having not achieved all that you could be achieving. The end of being treated in a manner less than what you deserve. I have reached that place.

Last February, I was not feeling well, I went to urgent care and received medication for a respiratory infection. I was home resting and my employer was not happy that I was out of work for more than one day. I returned while still under the weather. This resulted in my getting sick again in March. I did not return to work quickly after that. I was sick from March 9 until the end of March. My doctor suggested that my husband and I get tested for COVID-19. At this time, our part of the country had limited tests and only gave the test if a person met a certain criteria. My part of the city only had 2 people who had tested positive. We were afraid, but we headed to the emergency room to be evaluated. We were treated and testing was not deemed necessary at this time. However, we had enough symptoms to quarantine. I proceeded to go home and spend much of the next three weeks in bed, with a fever and many other symptoms, which in March were not considered COVID 19 symptoms. I kept in contact with my doctor because he wanted me to return to the emergency room if I had trouble breathing. During this time, I was the mother and wife my family had never seen before. I really could not get out of bed easily. I was running fevers daily, I was shivering under several blankets, my body was a mass of pain, and inflammation. I have rheumatoid arthritis, therefore the pain in my joints was very intense. I could not eat and what I could eat, I did not keep much of it down. It was too taxing for me to raise my arm to get a bottle of water or Gatorade to drink, but my husband checked on me regularly to force me to drink something. I have a C-PAP machine, so my husband had me sit up, propped on pillows and using the machine all day to help my cough and regulate my breathing. In addition to that, he forced me to get out of bed and walk up and down the hallway and even the staircase, which I cried about because my joints ached so badly. I normally have a terrible time losing weight, but I dropped 15 pounds in two weeks. I was extremely pale, and my cheeks had a sunken look to them. Standing was difficult, I felt like at any time, my legs would just give out. My husband was recovering from illness as well, but he was a week ahead of me and had run a fever for only three days to my total of 17 days of fever before it finally broke. As someone with a 96-97 degree normal body temperature, and had run a fever so rarely that we could count it using two hands, this was a very difficult time for me. On the final day I ran a fever, I awoke at 5:00 in the morning to use the bathroom. I practically crawled to the bathroom because I felt so weak, and I looked at the face in the mirror and almost did not recognize myself. The world around me was cloudy, I could barely see. I dragged myself back to bed, looked at my pillow and somehow I knew that if I laid down, I was going to die. I just felt it. I felt like I was floating over myself, like in a dream. I reached for my C-PAP mask and it was a struggle for my hands to put it on. Somehow I got it on, I sat on the edge of my bed, I kept putting my head between my knees, breathing was difficult. I saw my husband sleeping on his side of the bed, I had no voice to call him, my arms would not work to reach out to him. I started to talk to God in my head. I said ‘God, my father is very sick, he said once that he could not survive losing a child.” His heart was broken for a friend who had lost his daughter and often said he did not know how this friend got through it. I continued to speak to God silently, ” it is your will to do with me what you want, but I know that I am needed here with my family. I know I have more to do in this world. I pray you give me more time.” I sat there for an hour. All of the sudden, I felt like a huge weight was lifted from me, I could move again. My arms worked again. I stood up and my legs did not crumble. I sat back down and woke up my husband. I told him what happened. I took my temperature and I had no fever. After more than two weeks of fever, it was finally gone. Some of my energy returned. I felt awake. I was grateful, I was happy.

That day, I went outside for the first time in weeks. I sat in a chair in my back yard with a mask on. My mother, who lives next door, looked out of her window and gasped. I was very pale and she was not expecting that. I felt better, but weak and beat up. I know that I am a survivor, that I was very close to not making it to the next day.

Two weeks later, my father took a turn for the worst. He suffered another stroke and passed away the next day. It has been a very sobering experience to lose someone during COVID-19. It was April 2020 in New York City. Therefore there was no funeral. A simple graveside service with just my family and my brother’s family, and two of my father’s caretakers. My oldest brother was not allowed to leave his state and come to us. My Aunt was not allowed to travel and say good bye to her brother. None of the members of our large extended family were permitted. The many people whose lives were touched by my father were not able to see us, or to pay tribute to a man who meant a great deal to them. He deserved so much more than a 15 minute speech and prayer at the cemetery. Afterwards, we were not permitted to be together, to eat together at a repast. It was a sad and lonely time. I do not feel recovered from that. It is a very hard way to say goodbye to a loved one.

In May, I took an antibodies test and it confirmed that I had indeed had COVID -19. I truly feel that I barely scraped through that illness.

That is why I now hate to waste time. I want to be happy. I want to do what I am supposed to do, to leave my mark on this world. Life is way too short and we are all here for a specific reason. I do not believe I am here to be sitting at a job where I feel as though every move I make is micromanaged. Every idea I have is shut down by someone who has a great need to be the one who controls all that happens in every aspect. I am too old to be where adults are punished for advocating for their rights and sharing their opinions.

The line has always been there, and the day arrives when you are finally standing with your toes right next to that line. You either cross that line and lose yourself or you walk away and do what makes you happy. We all deserve to be happy. Happiness is not what you have to hold in your hands. It is not expensive cars, clothes, jewelry or accessories. It is getting up each day motivated and energized to do what makes you feel alive. Life is not counting the days on a calendar until you get to the weekend or to a vacation. It is celebrating each moment, it is being so comfortable where you are, that a vacation is simply being happy in new surroundings, rather than an escape from your everyday world. Happiness is who you share your life with. Whether it is your spouse, your friends or your pets, or even if you are comfortable being alone, it is where you should be content, and calm.

One day, we wake up and realize that we do not live forever. That our family and friends will not always be there. At any given time, we can leave this earth. There is simply no time to waste being miserable. I have reached the line and I know that it is time to walk away and do what is best for me. I have worked hard raising my children, doing what is best for others. This is for me.

I have great plans to use the gifts I have been given to make other people’s lives better. What better way is there to live, than to make others happy?

My Legacy

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ― Ernest Hemingway

This quote appeared in my feed, in fact on this very site today. I have been struggling with writing a blog and have now shelved it in order to “bleed” a little right now.

Tonight was not an easy night. Tonight was a night when autism showed up and it showed it’s ugly side. We are fortunate in my house, autism has been relatively controllable, as our son has gotten older, but is will never disappear.

Although he arrived two months before he was supposed to, our oldest child has always exhibited brilliance beyond his age. His beautiful blue-green eyes constantly look to see what he can learn about the world around him. He is “better than google” according to his younger brother in reference to his ever growing knowledge of all things. At his sister’s sweet sixteen, she called her brother up to light a candle and stated, ” everyday you push past the boundaries and exceed the expectations society has laid out for you.”

He began to show signs of being “different” in his early toddler days. He began to speak full sentences prior to age 1, even being able to spell out words and read them aloud to us using the magnetic letters we had on our refrigerator.

Many people accused us of working on a “super genius”, because at the time, both my husband and I were teachers. We were not, we simply provided our child with what interested him, and that was letters, numbers and trains. At the time, we had no idea that these were signs of autism spectrum disorder.

While in college, studying education, my professors barely touched on the subject of autism. Autism was ONE paragraph in my graduate level special education textbook. Today, that autism and spectrum disorders are covered in entire semesters. But not then. My son could speak, therefore he was not autistic by definition.

He had some deficits. They were not noticeable until he reached age 2 and a half. By then he had a younger sibling and his regression was chalked up to having a new baby in the house.

I tried putting him in preschool programs but emotionally, he struggled. He could not get anyone to understand what he wanted, although he had good language skills. He became frustrated easily and my beautiful, quiet and intelligent child began to have massive tantrums, which I later found out were meltdowns.

I now know how to handle them, but at the time, I was devastated. He was always so sweet and happy and now he was miserable and screaming. Hurling his long, thin body to the ground no matter where we were.

Of course, I was to blame. I was blamed for all of it. It was my fault. I could not control my toddler and care for a baby at the same time. I over indulged my oldest and now he was a problem child.

When my pediatrician noted the regression in behavior and milestones, he suggested we take him for evaluations. He believed that it was behavioral but because of a developmental concern, not my mishandling of my child. I was grateful that he spoke to me kindly and honestly. He did not blame me, he did not treat me as a bad mother, he gave me possibilities of why this was happening.

Of course, it was still MY fault. I was creating a drama, creating a problem. My father helped me find a proper specialist in Manhattan, New York City. New York University Hospital was our next stop.

My father took my son and I for a ride into Manhattan to meet the neurologist that would diagnose my son. She did not take my medical coverage. We paid outright for her evaluation which lasted all of 45 minutes and cost over $500. She spoke to my pediatrician and they discussed him sending my son for more testing so that it would be covered under my coverage. My pediatrician agreed that these medical test were necessary and complied.

The outcome of all the evaluation was that my son was “on the spectrum”. 21 years ago this term was not as widely used as it is today. What she meant was that he had some form of autism but not the type that the general public was used to seeing. Today, there is no stereotype of a person with autism anymore, but in the days of “Rain Man” being the biggest reference, we were struggling to find answers and help.

I was blessed to work at a Christian school that allowed my son to sit in on classes with the Preschool teacher who was also my best friend. She and her assistant worked with him to gain more social skills and be more comfortable around other children. When he was old enough he remained in that class for another year. My father in-law was retired and he took my son out to see trains, and played games with him to keep him talking because his language skills were starting to spiral down, which can happen when a child on the spectrum is not stimulated properly.

We were renting from the mother in-law of my husband’s sister, and she also took my son, read to him, and spoke with him at great length about anything and everything that he loved. She studied and read books about children like him and offered him some at home early intervention that we had been denied because he did not fit the profile back in 1998. We are forever grateful to these wonderful people who took time to learn and to accept him instead of shunning him and saying that there was something ‘wrong” with him. Our parents, his grandparent’s support was priceless and we are very lucky.

There was no “special education magic room” for him, so many people stated that he should go to special education classes. In those days there were not many options for him. He would not have excelled in the classes they had in those days. In fact, he was not even accepted to them. He had excellent language skills. He could tell you about all the planets and name all of the Great Lakes by age 3. He knew so much about trains that he could give you information about the train by looking at it’s wheels. He sang beautifully, he had comprehension of the books that we read to him. He was not silent, he flapped his arms but was able to complete mathematics equations correctly in his head.

He needed Occupational and Physical therapy. He was denied so many services due to his high intellect. But he could not keep up with children in regular classes because he could not write as fast as they could. He also has O.C.D. which comes with the diagnosis, we found out later, and would continually erase his work because it was not perfect. He would fall behind the class and then meltdown, causing disruptions and disapproval by some teachers.

Through all of this, we did nothing but fight the system. The system that is supposed to help your child become successful but is actually designed to steal your tax dollars and deny your child appropriate services. I have spent 22 years fighting this system for my child. I did nothing but hear that he cannot get everything. Our reply was watch us. Why can’t he get everything? We pay taxes, he is a citizen, a student in our city who needs helps to be successful? Every child deserves to have what they need. Every child. I studied public law and learned that every child IS indeed entitled to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.

We appealed decisions. We took the Department of Education to court. I personally sat with teachers and read his Individualized Education Plan with them because they did not read it and did not understand why he was acting the way he was at times. We fought for and won, the right for a crisis management paraprofessional to be with him at all times. We fought for, and won, speech therapy because even though he could speak, he needed oral motor therapy and language. He needed social skills and group speech afforded him some of that as well.

When he began middle school, the job of fighting for his rights became so overwhelming, that I left my full time job and worked part time. This caused major financial stress for our family, but in the end, gave us a stronger, grateful and more resilient family. There are so many chapters and components to our family story, I will not tell them all now. I will say, as hard as those times were to go through, we are better for living through them.

All of our children are in college now. Our oldest, who is on the spectrum, graduated High School with Honors. His beautiful voice was showcased at his graduation with a solo performance which remains one of the best moments of our lives. He attends college part time, taking one class each semester. He normally does very well and requires little help from anyone in our family. He is part of a program that he helped designed which offers support for students on the autism spectrum. He completes his work on his own, and up until now has maintained a grade point average of 3.67 or better.

But this semester, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his classes are remote only. He has been struggling with a lab that he needs to complete that does not have a true hands on component that he needs. He was very upset and I could not reason with him. I could not get him to discuss any solutions or options other than dropping the class, which at this late date would be costly. I also feel he can succeed at this class, but his mind was made up. He simply would not budge and had a terrible night. He had outbursts that I have not heard, nor seen in a long time. At this stage of life, he is 6’5″ and a grown man. He is not violent, but it is harder to deal with a man than a child. He was relentless in not discussing any solutions other than quitting.

Later on in the night, he finally relented and tried what I asked. Today he is happy and calmer, all set to try what I set up. However, it was not easy. No one outgrows autism, we accept it as part of our lives,we move forward, but it is there. It needs to be understood, it needs to worked with, but it does not disappear because they are no longer children. Most of the world forgets this. Children grow up to be adults. ALL CHILDREN. Autism grows with them.

I am currently on family leave to help set him up with some sort of live schedule in addition to his remote schedule. Things have changed due to the pandemic as far as his care. I will not leave just anyone with him. I certainly cannot and will not. Any worker who stays with him must be trained plus pass mandatory back ground checks and the like. This is life long. It grows with your child. I am not looking for sympathy. I am extremely proud at how far our son has gone in his life and how much he continues to grow as a man, as a person. I am proud of who I am , because of him.

My plan is to work with parents. To empower them. To educate them on how to find what they need for their children and get it no matter what those in charge claim. I could easily do the work for the parents but then what next? You will never stop advocating for your children, nor should you. A parent is the number one advocate, their biggest fan, and the greatest supporter a child will ever have. That does not end at 18, or 21, or 30. It does not end. This is your legacy, your statement you leave for the rest of the world.

My father passed away on April 2, 2020. He believed that we should leave every place you go to better than when you found it. My father was a long time Boy Scout Leader who followed the 12 points of the Scout law faithfully and lived by that and Lord Baden Powell’s words:

“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in the feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.”

I hope that our struggle, our fight, and our triumphs have made a difference. There is much more to do.

My father indeed left this world better than he found it, and so shall I.

Back to School 2020

Social media and our news has been flooded with stories about how teachers are “afraid” to return to their classrooms. The general public has either been incredibly sympathetic or cruel and judgmental. Calls to dock their pay or calling teachers “chickens” and comparing them nurses in a way to shame them has been a regular occurrence on Facebook, Twitter, and other means of mass communication.

I have been an educator for 31 years. I love my students. I have former students who are old enough to have children who could be my current students. I love reading about what they are doing, I love seeing photographs of their children and seeing what they are doing with their lives.

I have always loved the start of the school year. The newness, the expectations, how refreshed we all are after taking time out to breathe and regroup over the summer. I excitedly plan my welcome back bulletin boards. I think of new ways to set up the classroom and ideas to make the year more successful.

Teachers WANT to be in their classrooms. They are NOT lazy. They are NOT weak. In fact, they are far from weak. How many of you who are standing in judgment deal with 30+ people in the various stages of development, hormones raging if they are pre-teens and teenagers, humans filled with anxiety or perhaps crying due to separation from their parents if they are younger, many who have zero interest in being in your presence, of sitting down and hearing what you have to say. How many of you are spending 7 hours with those same people trying to motivate and guide them through materials and protocol that often you have nothing to do with deciding upon?

Teachers today are extremely micromanaged by others who in most cases, have either not been inside a classroom for years or have, in fact, never been inside a classroom. How many of you are told how to do your job by people who have not put in the time to earn the degree? Have worked hard and experienced what you experience on a daily basis? Not as many as there were years ago. Years ago, administrators had to have a great deal of classroom experience. That is not the case anymore. The loudest screams, the toughest criticism comes most often from parents who are struggling at home to handle 1-3 children of their own, yet they are the experts on how you should be doing YOUR job.

Teachers deal with this. They look past it, they do yoga and meditation and have a glass of wine or laugh with colleagues, they rise above. But this time. Many cannot. They cannot because they do not TRUST those who are in charge of preparing how this year and perhaps the future of their lives will look like. They cannot trust corrupt systems who have repeatedly put their own personal interests ahead of the children of their city, or their state, of their town, of their own communities.

In addition to being a teacher, I have been a parent for almost 25 years. I have sent in cleaning supplies every single year that I have had a child in school. Every single year, and I have three children. As a teacher, I have collected these supplies, kept track of who sent in what, so that I did not ask the same parent to send in more over and over. I have replenished out of my own pocket every single year, the same as countless other teachers, all while supplying my own children’s classrooms. After all of these years of supplying out our own pockets, how are we to trust that supplies will be readily available for us to use when we are told that we are to ward off germs in addition to the work we are already responsible for? We are put in the position to be sure the children in our care are safe every day. Safe from injury, safe from intruders, safe from possible armed attacks while in school, safe from bullies, and now safe from viruses that we know little about. Yes, we will do that. We will continue to put our children’s well being first. However, will YOU supply us with the tools we need? Will you be honest with us when there are problems? Will you be honest with us about the true safety issues facing us? Will you be honest with us about where the money that is supposed to be used to help us and our students have a better year? The answer is a resounding NO.

The answer is NO. It is no in the New York City Department of Education although, they will tell you that the answer is YES. It has been NO for many years now. They simply do not put the needs of our city’s children first in any situation. If they did, we probably would not have been hit with as many reported illnesses or deaths in the school system as we were. We would not have had to make as many changes as we have to now. Our children should ALWAYS be learning in classrooms with smaller class sizes. They deserve the attention a teacher is able to give them in a class of 15 rather than a class of 32 or more. Studies show that smaller class sizes are 100% more beneficial and conducive for learning. It is a no brainer.

But instead. they take our money, they hire their friends. Friends who are not qualified to be a part of your child’s education. Have no business being involved because they are clueless about the process and the appropriate needs of students. they hire themselves, Yoga gurus. They hire outside vendors at high prices to do jobs that they themselves should be doing.

They have had since March to take action. But they have not. They have tossed things together and left principals standing there holding a half-empty bag of ideas most of which are unusable in the schools that principals are trying to get up and running again.

In addition to all of this, we have the media reporting stories to rile up the masses rather than inform them. To either anger people or frighten them, it depends upon the day. No one truly has any idea how dangerous this virus is because of the stories and the number change depending upon what is happening in the news that day.

Make no mistake. People WANT some normalcy. Anyone who believes that the average person wants to sit in their house day after day with no contact with anyone, no hugs, no restaurants, sports with no fans, no indoor dining, no big weddings or concerts is wrong. The average person likes to the freedom to come and go as he or she pleases, without worrying about whether they brought their mask, without concern of whether they break a new rule. Teachers want to teach IN their classrooms with children in front of them, Please stop ridiculing them. Please stop vilifying them.

Are some teachers afraid? Yes, of course, this is the case. Many have some health issues, have a family member with health issues, have known someone who has died from the virus, or perhaps simply, like me, have been in the field long enough to truly feel overwhelmed and exhausted by all of the new training and rules that will ultimately distract us from learning. I am over 50, I have an autoimmune disease and a disabled son, whose world has been tossed and turned as well. So I am on leave at this moment trying to make some sense of things for him before I look to return to “normal”. But what is my new normal? I do not know yet. In fact, very few people know what they will be doing tomorrow, never mind a new normal for the school year.

Let’s support one another. Let us recognize that no one can trust what we are hearing or being told right now. We all need to keep open minds. We all need to care for each other. We need to not judge. We, as humans first, need to stand together.

Dropping Crayons: the beginning

My mother sat across from my first grade teacher and looked at her. “Dropped her crayons?” my mother incredulously asked. “Yes” replied my teacher with a snarky look on her face. ” I cannot allow her to go ahead in reading group because she drops her crayons quite often.” My mother is the daughter of my grandmother, so therefore this matter did not go well for my teacher and I was placed in the appropriate reading group by the following morning.

My life has been a series of me dropping crayons. Falling up stairs, unceremoniously dumping my pocketbook out on a regular basis to find my wallet which is lost to the many items that I acquire throughout each day. I struggled through school, not because I was not bright enough, but because I simply dropped my crayons over and over literally and figuratively, even while attending graduate school.

As an educator, I have encountered many students, who simply encounter Murphy’s Law. Never allowing myself to openly favor students, I chose instead to give them the patience and encouragement that was rarely afforded to me. I would think back on how long and hard my days in school were prior to college and want to make it better for every child, even those who could not find their homework because the papers were all over their backpack no matter how many time we had organized them in folders.

It was not until my youngest child entered High School that I discovered why the crayons had scattered so often for me. My daughter was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. My daughter has tested as “Gifted and Talented” and was able to manage rather well until she became a middle school student. Middle school was an incredible nightmare for her. She absolutely understood the work taught, in fact, she was often ahead of the class as far as comprehension. However, she simply could no longer focus since her class size had ballooned to over 32 students who never stopped chattering. In addition, she could not calm her mind down to give appropriate written responses when she had a time limit. Needless to say, many of her teachers met this with annoyance, only saw that she was inconsistent and unorganized. She scored well on standardized tests not requiring essays and was at the top of her class. During her final year, she missed Honor Society by an 8th of a point basically and a teacher who did not have the patience to work with her decided that she should be excluded. This child with very high intellect stood by and watched others walk around with medals on graduation day, while she stood bare, save for her white graduation robe over her beautiful dress.

I saw the repeat of my dropping crayons incident in her. I did not know how to handle this. She is a far better student than I ever was, inheriting her father’s ability to manage any mathematical issue placed in front of her, loving and devouring every part of environmental science, and having ability in art and music as well. But she was not part of the Honor Society even with perfect and near perfect state exam scores. Simply because she could not organize herself. Like me, dropping my crayons among other things.

Her freshman English teacher suggested that we work towards getting her exam modifications that would permit her additional time on tests and even a separate location with less distractions. We needed to have some evaluations done and low and behold, she fit the criteria for ADD. In addition to my child fitting the mold, I found that I had a very high score in the area of Adult ADD.

There it was. The open door of understanding. I am a person who always ran to the library to find the answers. Now I live on the internet whenever I am asking questions. WHY? HOW?

After years of thinking I simply was not smart enough. I was not as good as everyone else. I did not have the gift and so on and so forth….I knew. A light went on for me in so many ways. I allowed myself to be me.

As a student, I would lose entire class periods. One minute I was sitting in class, and next, the class was over and I had no idea what had just happened. In my mind, in my thoughts, there had been roses, princes and princesses, beautiful sunset, and flowing rivers. My imagination guided me through the day. I seemed to only “be awake’ during English, Social Studies and Music classes. Almost everything else, I survived through by daydreaming, doodling, reading and writing. I wrote entire novels starting at age 8 continuing through High School. I have no idea what was taught in the classes while I was writing them, I lived vicariously in worlds that I had created instead.

I no longer feel embarrassed that in a room with many people speaking at once, I cannot focus on what any person is saying. Instead, I enjoy the decor, check out fashion and study the architecture of the building I happen to be in at the moment. I manage. I accept me and I love those who join in my acceptance.

I know that when I set myself to clean my house, I must write lists, stick to them and not go to more than one room at a time to work. A person with ADD will go from room to room rarely completely a task because other issues pop up instead.

There are still many moments where I am dropping crayons, this blog is dedicated to sharing those times, in hopes that I will reach another crayon dropper and encourage them to stop and enjoy the colors, rather than scramble to pick them up.