Day Thirty-One of Get it Down–Are We Making the Best Educational Choices?
I have a confession to make. I am part of an online community of moms who have kids with Down syndrome. And to be honest, sometimes I am envious. DS17 is one of the oldest kids represented on there. These moms of younger kids often discuss their educational choices, and I wish my son was younger than theirs so I could learn from them.
Over the course of DS17’s life, we have done it all. We have homeschooled him. We have sent him (part time) to a Christian school. We have had him in public school in both a regular and a self-contained classroom. When DS17 was little, he was in a fully contained classroom, meaning he had very little “typical” interaction during the school day. I have often regretted that and wished that I had been more aware, more educated, so I could have pushed to have him in a regular classroom at that stage of his life. In the younger years, the differences and delays are less noticeable, and I think spending the day with high expectations in a regular classroom would have pushed DS17 academically. Socially there was never much concern. DS17 had brothers, he was in a regular Sunday school class at church, and we treated him like our other kids. He was right on par in that regard. But academically, could we have done more??
Eventually we attempted to homeschool DS17 in an attempt to give him time at the Christian school where his brothers attended. It went great at first–we did a ton with life-skills development, and at the age of eight DS17 could do a full load of laundry from start to finish. He became a great helper around the house, and he was learning some academics as well, but not as much as we had hoped. We rejoined the public school system, only this time around we insisted on some time in the regular classroom. It was only a small bit, but he was able to even attend a five-day trip to Dauphin Island with the typical fifth grade class. And he absolutely thrived. We decided to never again force him into complete isolation in a special ed class. In middle school, there was no “special ed” at his school, so he was either fully included in regular classes or at the least in “learning disabled” classes. It was a rough three years in many ways. Hormones raged, and DS17 became frustrated academically. He acted out, and the school administration seemed unsure how to handle him.
Fast forward to today–he spends about half of his day in regular ed classes and half in what is known here as the Developmental Program. It seems to be a good fit. He has time with typical friends and time with kids who are at the same or lower level than him developmentally. Yet sometimes I wonder….I hear about young people with Down sydrome who are in regular ed classes in high school, who receive a regular diploma, and who go on to attend college classes. Could DS17 do that if we had pushed to include him fully in the early years? Would he be a better reader? Would his speech be more intelligible?
When I really sit back and try to imagine DS17’s life in about five years, after he is finished being served by our school system, I relax a little bit. In the grand scheme of how he lives the rest of his life, I suspect that those decisions that seem so major year in and year out, about how to educate him, what classes to choose, how much time to spend in which end of the building, will all kind of mesh together and seem a lot less significant than they do at the present and than they have over the course of his education. Even if he may have been “shortchanged” by not being challenged as much as he could have in the early years, he has lived most of his life in a stimulating environment, and he has developed the main thing that will carry him far in this world–a great personality. Even with our typical kids, in the grand scheme of who they become, does it really make a difference who was their third-grade teacher, or whether they were in math club for extra stimulation? Probably not as much as we’d like to think, as we’re pouring our time and energy into all sorts of extra activities.
So to answer my initial question–Are we making the best educational choices–I don’t know! I second-guess myself all the time. And yet, when I really look at who DS17 is, I don’t know that I would change anything, because all of that meshed together has contributed to who he is today. And strengths and weaknesses and all, he is a great person, and I have no doubt at all that he will have a successful and rewarding life and will hold down whatever kind of job he wants. Well, maybe with the exception of being a rock star or president.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:13 am
I worry about this, too. And Sarah’s only 3. But, I worry about this with my oldest, too. I wonder if I’d pushed for ear tubes when she was a baby if she wouldn’t have the speech issues she has now, which in turn are affecting her ability to read. Sarah’s in a Special Ed preschool right now, and I think it’s a good fit for her, but when do I put her in a “typical” classroom? Or do I? I can expect her to fully included, but what if she just can’t handle it? I don’t want to set her up to fail. I’m sometimes envious, too. I feel so out of the loop, in so many areas, that I feel like I’m letting all of my kids down. So just know, you aren’t alone in feeling the way you do. You are doing what’s best for your son, as you are for all your kids.