I miss my normal!

Why does something that you are expecting coming still feel like a kick in the gut?!?!  I believed in my heart of hearts that Governor Pritzker was going to close Illinois schools for the remainder of this acadmic school year and for good reason!  I 100% agree that this is what is best for our students, staff, and community.  Yet hearing him say this out loud today had me sobbing.  I mean UGLY crying people!

I MISS my students. I MISS my coworkers. 

In some ways, I miss my overwhelming "regular" workload...I miss my dumb commute and all the accompanying tolls (not really but kind of).  I miss hearing about the "I forgot table" which is something my buiding staff can completely relate to lol.  I miss bus duty.  I miss having to wear a walkie talkie and hearing or asking for somoeone to repeat themselves again and again.  I miss my 730 special ed meetings on Thursdays.  I miss the clutter of my shared office... (no I really don't but that's just because I'm type A) because I love my office mates.

What I really miss is hearing "Mrs. Edge!".  I miss finding two specific students who hide in the EXACT same spot before each session so that I can be "surprised". I miss the arm squeezes from one of my students who does that to show his love and excitement.  I miss all of the one liners that I always swear I'm going to write down but never do because I'm too busy.  I miss those firsts...the first requests, the first independent use of a coping strategy, the first spontaneous peer interaction....So many of these firsts which are WHY I love my job.

This is so different and SO MUCH harder!  I'm working 10-14 hours a day.  I really wish I was exageratting but I'm not. :(  Having to learn all the tech so that I can create individualized lessons for each of my students and then linking them in order to remain confidentiality.  ALL of the zooms...soooo many zooms lol.  All of the emails...sooo many emails.  Lastly documenting everything that I'm doing is just so time consuming.  I really wish it wasn't necessary but I get it...it is what it is.

This is all just so sad but I'm not going to allow myself to stay here for very long.  My students need me.

Becky

all the tech...

Hi All,
Just another stay at home Saturday here...;)  

I wanted to share one of the things I learned this week among the 100 other tech things I've had to figure out since beginning to teach virtually.  I've been trying to problem solve how to use my ipad with a split screen of my desktop when recording my lessons.  I made a quick video tutorial on how to screen cast your ios device when video recording.    If you have as well then this might be helpful to you. 

Let me know if you have any questions.  What important tech hack have you learned to teach via remote learning?  I'd love to hear about it!

Becky

YouTube

I have LOVED using YouTube during parts of my lessons in order to provide some explicit instruction, reinforce a skill, etc.  Unfortunately earlier this year YouTube had to change it's policies which has directly impacted a teacher's ability to create a playlist for students.  As I've been utilizing YouTube for quite some time and have compiled many, many, many playlists to target so many speech-language skills, I thought it might be helpful to share my channel but more importantly a sample of my playlists as this may be useful during this crisis for those who don't have have playlists already created.  

bedgeslp72/playlists

The skills I target include social skills/social thinking, functional life skills, classroom themes, speech-language targets and of course "core vocabulary".  As YouTube playlists can be frustrating to navigate I typically put my core vocabulary words in quotes so that I can more easily search them in my channel.  I apologize if that's cumbersome but as I created this for me...If I find people finding my channel helpful, I may change this but it's what has worked or me. 

One quick YouTube channel hack that I love and use daily is a google extension that you can add titled "Playlist Sorter for YouTube".  This extension will let you sort your playlist videos by title, in ascending or descending order. 

I really hope you find them helpful!  As I'm able, I'll continue to add new videos to the playlists and begin to create new playlists. :)

Becky

e-learning: sharing lessons and resources

E-Learning isn't easy for any of us!  Parents, students, teachers, and related service providers are finding it overwhelming.  In this post, I'll share from my perspective as a related service provider.  

YOWZA!  This has been a challenging process for SLPs and other related service providers as we are not only responsible to provide services and resources,  we are expected to do this while continuing to be HIPAA compliant.  I have no problem with either of these expectations but I do feel it's important that administrators, general education staff, and parents be aware of how much extra time this is requiring above and beyond an upload of a single lesson. Any lesson developed is individualized to each student's needs.  Additionally these lessons must also be uploaded individually as well as any of the links within the lesson to maintain student confidentiality.  This takes time...so much precious time.

Here are a few hacks I've learned as we move forward with remote learning.  

1. Whenever possible materials should be tured into a pdf and then linked as this requires less individualized linking.  
2. Create a google doc with a table to share with your team for "team times scheduling with parents".   Students, parents, and team members really appreciate the connected time with one another.  Additionally this allows for greater collaboration in finding ways to support the student and family in his or her elearning plans
3. Use signup genius to create your teleconferencing schedule for individual times.  This significantly reduces the amount of time needed to reach out to your caseload and find a time that works for them.
4. Create a choice board with linked materials to work toward their goals with their parents assistance.   Materials may be youtube links, boom cards, pdfs of graphic organizers, materials in their boardmaker players, video of read alouds, or videos of yourself explaining and coaching on any number of skills.  Many of these choice boards can be repeated with some simple tweaks or changes which will make it more manageable for all involved.

AAC Speech-Language Board

As my team moves from e-learning to remote learning, there will undoubtedly be many new changes and challenges.  What I have learned over the last few weeks is how grateful I am for health, family, friends, food, employment, my team, and my students.  We can overcome anything as long as we continue to extend grace, compassion, and kindness to one another.  

Be well!

Becky

I'm back...a vent

It's been a long time since I've posted...This school year has been a TOUGH one.   My caseload and workload are at all time highs.  Behavior support calls are also frequent and intense.   There just always seems to much to do and never enough time.   I've really been struggling with all of it.

and then this week happened...

Oh how I'd rather be back to my crazy typical work week with too many meetings, behavior support calls, no plan time, eating lunch at my desk as I respond to my emails, and bringing way too much work home.  To be honest the only thing difference this week is that I'm not responding to behavior support calls.  Of course this was replaced by trying to figure out how to teach students with complex communication needs via e-learning.  Anyone else in the same boat?  

In all honesty I think I've worked more this week then ever but on the plus side I "think" I have a framework in place to provide my students with lessons and support.  I'm feeling a bit better but still have quite the to do list.

The challenge of trying to support students and parents with individualized lessons while maintaining confidentiality has been challenging and time consuming but I think it looks good and functional.  What do you all think?  How are you sharing your lessons and resources?  

I'll share some of the resources and links in my next post.  Stay tuned!

P.S. I realize my vent is a first world problem.  Just needed a place to let it out. ;)  Please forgive me.  I generally do my best to be positive.

SO grateful for all of those on the front line: nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, grocery store employees, restaurant employees.  I"m sending lots of prayers and postive thoughts to all of them.  I realize I'm also blessed to still have a source of income with the ability to work from home.  

Religious Literacy Final Post

The Religious Literacy and Cultural bus tour was absolutely amazing!  Prior to the start of this course if I had to give myself a score from 1-10 on my religious literacy, I would probably have given myself a 6.  By the end of Day 1 though I would have probably changed my pretest score to a 2.  Wow!  You don't know what you don't know until you know it, right?

What I had hoped to gain by taking this course is that I would become more knowledgeable about various religions, their history, traditions, etc. so that when people engage in hate or discriminate because someone has a different religion, I can use that knowledge to stop it. I think people often fear what they don't know which results in hatred and discrimination.  In my opinion, knowledge is the key to stopping that.  I feel like I have a much better understanding of Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Islam than I did prior to taking this course.  Of course, I could spend years learning about each and still not know it all but I certainly have a better idea than I did.  The opportunities to listen to students of the various faiths, going to the various places of worship and of course meeting with those of different faiths were probably the most powerful and helpful to me.   

                                     

One of my favorite phrases taken from Brene Brown is to "dare greatly".  While I can only speak for myself, I think all of this on this bus tour probably had multiple opportunities to "dare greatly".  I know I had to allow myself to be vulnerable in order to ask some of the questions of those of other faiths.  At the mosque, I was particularly worried that my question asking for an explanation on "why the women and men are separated during prayer service?" would be misunderstood.   I also dared greatly by trying many different foods, accepting the flame in one of the Hindu temples, accepting that I along with the other women were asked to sit in the back while the men were invited to the front, at one of the Hindu temples, attempting to meditate at the Buddhist meditation center,  going barefoot in many of these places of worship...what can I say, I'm a germaphobe, lol.  There were times that it may have been easier to just allow myself to be fearful and decline these experiences.  But declining these experiences would have allowed me to stay in the fear rather than to be vulnerable and to learn.  Fear often leads to ignorance, intolerance, hatred, etc.  I'm pretty proud of myself for "daring greatly" throughout this week so that I could let go of the fear. 

So did I answer my essential question?  Yes and no. I think now that when negative comments are made about people of different cultures or religions, I will be much more likely to know how to respond in order to educate them about their ignorance. The next time I overhear someone making fun of a Sikh wearing a turban, a Muslim woman wearing a hi jab, someone making false claims about Islam or Jewish beliefs, etc. I will have more knowledge to correct their false statements.   As I've said, I firmly believe that many of our differences shouldn't be feared but rather understood. If I want to stop hate and the discrimination, I will need to continue to "dare greatly".  But... I am only one. While one is certainly better than none, we need more people to stand up to hatred and discrimination.  In order to do that more people need to be educated on various religions.  If fear is what breeds hate and discrimination than learning about other religions should be a requirement of all of our citizens.  

                                 

It's exciting to hear that more high schools are offering comparative religions courses as electives but I'm hopeful that some day this will be a requirement.  In the meantime, I will continue on this religious literacy journey.  I will accept invitations from others to attend their churches, not necessarily to practice a new religion but to continue to understand others and their beliefs, behaviors, and their community.  If the Religious Literacy Bus Tour 2.0 is offered next year, I will certainly take that as well.

As an educator, I now have a much better understanding of the various religious holidays and will certainly be more understanding when my students miss or come to school tired.  I can support students in finding a space to pray or "just be" during their lunch period when fasting.  I will certainly look for more literature that involves characters of different faiths as an avenue to educate students about various religions and their customs.  One additional thought I've had is to find ways to integrate religious and cultural literacy into our SEL curriculum as this could be easily integrated into understanding others differences, empathy, respect, etc.

Thank you Seth Brady for offering such an amazing opportunity to us!  While I'm pretty sure my family and friends may want me to stop talking about it, I just can't.  This experience changed me in a wonderful way.  Thank you!

Becky

Day 6: Christianity

Day 6's assignment was to attend a Christian house of worship that I was unfamiliar with.  As I had never attended an Orthodox church service, I was curious to what this might look like.  I did a quick google church and found an Orthodox church in my hometown of New Lenox.  I have driven past Saint John of Chicago many times and marveled at the church with the beautiful stained glass windows but didn't know that it was an Orthodox church.  I emailed the church and received a quick response from Father Andrew welcoming me to a service and offered to meet with me after to answer any of my questions.

Upon entering the small church, I found myself among less than a dozen people who certainly noticed me as someone new to the church.  They offered smiles and then one of the members brought me a book so that I could follow along with the service.  Shortly after opening the book, the churchgoers stood and then service began with chanting in prayers immediately followed by the ringing of church bells.  Father Andrew began releasing incense across the altar, the clergy, the congregation and then around the entire church.  He then went back to the altar but facing away from the parishioners.  Almost all of the service was conducted through chanting but the tones of the chants changed at different points.  Father Andrew then began releasing incense throughout the church and then began reading from the Gospel in the center of the church while facing the parishioners.  We remained standing until he began his homily. At this time, Father Andrew brought out a stool to sit at the very front of the parishioners and began discussing the holiday being celebrated, "All Saints Day" which in the Orthodox church happens after Pentecost.  I really appreciated his homily about All Day saints, modern day saints, and what it means to be a "witness" to one's faith.  While he certainly shared a message, he also used his homily as a time to interact with his parishioners to better understand their needs and questions.  After the homily, we returned to standing and the churchgoers began chanting the various prayers including the Nicene Creed.  They then began to prepare for Communion.  As the members went to the altar to receive communion, I noted that they went up to the altar with their arms crossed across their chest with their hands resting on their shoulders.  After one of the churchgoers took communion, she offered me a piece of bread that wasn't communion as a gift.  Father Andrew then joined his congregation to share upcoming events and news.  He then led them through a prayer "to go in peace".  What I found interesting was that Father Andrew even though the service was over, none of the parishioners left.  Instead they sat down on their pews and then Father Andrew joined them on a stool to offer a lesson to anyone who wanted to stay.  He then turned to me and thanked me for coming to the service.  In turn, all of the church goers verbally welcomed me as well.  Father Andrew then asked what questions I might want to ask.  I asked why the prayer was done through chanting and if he could explain the different tones.  He explained that the Orthodox church used Byzantine chanting and that it was initially done because many people were unable to read.  Chanting was used as a technique to help them memorize the various prayers.  I also asked why they took communion with their arms crossed and he explained that this is so no one accidentally spills the communion.  As I didn't want to monopolize the informal time with his congregation, I asked if he could explain why the Nicene creed that they recited continued to have the line "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church".  Father Andrew explained that the Orthodox church could actually be titled "Orthodox Catholic" church.   The Nicene creed was written prior to the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Christian churches splitting up but is continued to their belief.

Throughout the church service, I couldn't help but stare at all of the stained glass windows.  The images of Jesus were just beautiful.  At one point, Father Andrew referred to them as "windows into the Kingdom of Heaven" during his homily.  I've included some of them for you to appreciate as well. 

I found my experience at Saint John of Chicago to be a very positive one.  The church building and service were beautiful.  Father Andrew and his parishioners were extremely welcoming and open to any and all of my questions.  While I love my current church, I certainly wouldn't hesitate to attend another service at Saint John's. 

Becky

Day 5: Islam

Truly grateful for today's experiences...Our agenda today included a talk with Wali Khan, a
panel of students, attending a prayer service at a mosque, a talk with two Muslim women
educators, and a Turkish meal.  Wow! As I have everyday so far, I left inspired, educated, and
exhausted.

Wali Khan's talk was not only educational but also inspiring.  He shared his experience of
growing up Muslim. Wali shared that while he understood the Islam faith, attended a mosque
with his family, and completed obligatory prayers five times daily, it wasn't until the summer
before leaving for college that he began to embrace being a Muslim.  Wali shared his personal
awakening to his faith that led to him following the 5 pillars of Muslim faith: Shada, Sala,
Sawm, Zakah, and Hajj. He broke the 5 pillars down in this way:

• Shada: God +belief that Muhammad is the last prophet

• Salah (Prayer): pray 5 times a day
• Sawm (Fasting): required to fast in the month of Ramadan from dawn to sunset; not

drinking/eating/sex with spouse

• Zakah (Charity/Alms): 2.5% of savings, give to those in your family, then community,

then world

• Hajj (Pilgrimage) This is a major pilgrimage to Mecca, the place of Muhammad's birth,

which every Muslim must do it once in a lifetime assuming you have the financial means,

have a sane mind (can’t understand), aren't imprisoned, and are mature.  

As Wali shared the story of his life, it was clear how his work as a trauma nurse was intertwined with his faith.  He shared his belief that he doesn'’t control life but is rather doing the work of God. Wali shared “prayer is soul food” which allows him to have honest conversations with God. During these conversations he talks with God about the things he can’t control, expresses his gratitude, and also allows himself to escape the monotony of this world.  Wali shared that Sawm allows Muslims to give something up for God which allows them a closer proximity to him.  Muslims belief that wealth is not ours to begin with so one shouldn't be stingy.  Zakah is believed to actually be a test from God.

After listening to Wali's inspirational speech, a panel of students from Naperville Central
shared their experiences on growing up Muslim in Naperville.   Some of their insightful
statements included being Muslim means: "one who submits to the will of God", "a man can’t
have two hearts in his chest", and that actions are based on intentions, "whatever he intends
is, he will be rewarded as such".  They shared that being a Muslim is both religious/cultural,
part of their identify, and means representing themselves as a good person. When asked to
expand upon what being a good person/Muslim meant, the students shared that to them it
meant having a moral compass by contributing to the community by serving.  When asked
"what do you want teachers to know?", they shared a better understanding/awareness of
Muslim hoilidays, particularly Ramadan and the behavior of fasting which occurs from
predawn to after the sun sets and includes no water or food for students mature enough
(ie. puberty). They also shared that it's important to know that Islam follows a lunar calendar.
One of the students shared how she wore a hijab during her elementary and junior high years
but that once entering highschool, felt like didn't want to come to school any more because
of being singled out because of her wearing a hijab. This same student also shared that
wearing a hijab doesn't necessarily mean one is more religious or devout. For this student,
she became more religious later in her high school years during a time she was no longer
wearing her hijab. The students shared experiencing negative comments in both middle and
high school by other students. Fortunately, it never escalated beyond comments.

After the student panel shared their experiences, we headed to the Turkish American Center
of Chicago in Mount Prospect. We were immediately welcomed by member of their
community with Turkish delights, Turkish coffee, and a beautiful demonstration of water
marbling.

Shortly after that, we were invited to observe the prayer service in the mosque. We took off
our shoes and covered our heads in respect and then were led through the womans section
into the main prayer hall where we were given seats. The prayer service was captivating to
watch. Men crowded into the prayer hall and quick welcomes to one another, they began to
pray engaging in various postures. Prayer moved from standing with bowed heads to kneeling
with hands on knees to placing their forheads to the floor. What I found most impressive was
that as the men engaged in their prayers, some of the young children climbed on their father's
back and over their heads. These men were so focused on prayer that they never visibly
acknowledged it. In between the prayers, passages of the Qur'an were recited. Throughout
the entire service, the men worshipped in the main prayer hall and the women worshipped in a screened off area in the back of the prayer hall.

After the prayer service, the members of the community offered us an an amazing meal to share with them. After the meal, two Muslim women who are also educators shared how we as fellow educators could help some of our Muslim students. They suggested identifying a space for the student to pray if requested as well as the impact of fasting and the change to the sleep cycle that we might notice during Ramadan.

After their presentation, we were offered an opportunity to ask questions about the Mosque and the Muslim faith. As a woman, I was particularly curious about hi jab and the reason for the separation of the women from the men. One of the Muslim women who was wearing a hi jab explained that the reason for the hi jab was of modesty so as not to distract one from worshipping God. She stated that it was generally up to the woman to decide if she wanted to wear a hi jab and if so to what level. When I asked about the separation from the men, she explained that during prayer some of the postures put women into compromising positions. Being in the back and/or screened off from the men provided one another more modesty and allowed one to be focused solely on worshiping God.

I left the Turkish American Center with a much better understanding of the Muslim faith and practices. I am so appreciative for the opportunity to have learned more. It is difficult to determine whether it's the Muslim faith, their behavior, or their sense of belonging is most prominent as they are clearly so intertwined. I guess I'd say their behavior stood out to me as being the most prominent as well as appeared to have the largest impact on their identity.
I can only imagine the amount of will power and dedication, it must take to fast during Ramadan, say their prayers five times daily, and well as to wear a hi jab.

Thank you to all who helped me to become more literate on what being a Muslim means.

Becky