I had a nice long talk with one of Miss Kat's teachers for the summer. She told me what they would be working on for the 5 weeks and overall how they handle things like language and reading during the year. She threw out the bomb....
"Would you ever consider moving to another place for services for Miss Kat?"
Argh.
I don't know....maybe.
I have always promised myself that we would do whatever it took to get Miss Kat the education she needs. We even discussed, when she was solely an ASL user, moving to Fremont when she was older, but this is huge.
There are some great pros. She would get an education from people who truly understand her needs, from top professionals. She would have access to a really wonderful school that does what it does with excellence.
BUT
There are HUGE cons. Our entire family lives in a one block radius. Both mine and Hubby's parents, her cousins, even her great-grandparents are 10 minutes away. We actually have a village, who has that today?? (Plus, jobs, finding a place to live, blah, blah blah...I can deal with that)
So, what is more worthwhile? Literacy and language or love and family?
What's your vote?
12 comments:
I would say that family and love is important. Is Miss Kat and you happy where she is at the moment or do you wish for a better school? Either way, Miss Kat will always have language in form of ASL, and she already has good spoken language. It is up to you, do you want to move and have a better opportunity for Kat?
Love and family. But then again, we live in an area where there are NO services for children, lol!
We moved away from family for job reasons (as in, we needed one), and it can be very tough to be far from family. Grandparents and aunts and uncles are wonderful things in a child's life. We miss them every. single. day.
Sometimes I wish we were close to better services, but Nolan has a wonderful speech therapist where we are. We don't have AVT, but we do have a dedicated and caring professional to help him achieve.
If she is able to communicate with all the family members you mentioned on her own, I would say love and family come first, as English literacy is fairly easy to accomplish if you get her seriously into reading.
As for ASL literacy, I do not know if she has enough exposure to that in your area. Another question tho, is does this program you were asked to consider also allow ASL in the classroom?
I vote for family too. When I was a child, all my extended family members lived within an hour's drive of each other. My happiest memories of that time were of getting together with my 30+ cousins. There's no substitute for the family bond. My guess is that Miss Kat is the kind of child who will get the most out of any school she goes to.
I'm agreeing with family, too, but only on the condition that Miss Kat can communicate freely with a great number of her relatives.
If during family reunions she seems to distance herself and monopolize one of the children or none at all, it is not going to help her at the expense of community development and education.
As she grows into late childhood and early teens, like friends will become more important to her and peer groups at school will become her new "family". With Deaf people these become very long-term friendships.
Another thought: oral schools cherry-pick children who are likely to succeed with their methods. Most will tell you they do not do this, but it does happen. Actually these children would probably succeed no matter what the method.
I don't know if you should stay or go, but I DO believe that Dianres should write the new California brochure!
Perfect pitch for the pitfalls to watch out for!
I think about this a lot. I would probably move if I really thought it was going to make a huge difference, but not to Missouri. ;) I grew up in Kansas - put in my time in the Midwest already! Now if something could be arranged in Miami or Paris or Maui...
"Would you ever consider moving to another place for services ..."
Some of the schools around here say things like that. It usually seems to be a "polite" code for "We don't want your child here." In fact the local community college is much more blunt about it.
So... in addition to the family considerations, if the school does not *want* Miss Kat, then will they provide her with high quality services? I suspect not.
Around here, it is pretty common for the families of Deaf kids to move to where the schools provide better services. Sometimes, moving away from family for a time can offer some different perspectives, too. However, I say that as one who seldom lived within 300 miles of my grandparents.
I respect the difficulty of this decision.
David
Actually David, it is the exact opposite. Miss Kat is currently visiting another program, far from home and they were asking if we were willing to move HERE to stay in the program.
Oh - I misunderstood.
I can appreciate that this is a difficult decision with many factors to be weighed and balanced. You have my prayers.
David
Love and family are important, however if my child's education and welfare was at stake I would consider moving to get better access and services and a better education. You can always visit family, and they can always visit you. I currently live 8-12 hours from my family.
If Miss Kat is getting what she needs where she is there is no reason to move. Perhaps some day down the road you will but if she's fine where she is at I wouldn't worry about it. From the sounds of it, she is getting access to both languages through family, friends, school, and social gatherings. It would be an entirely different scenario if access and accessibility to one language or both was missing at school or in her social life.
I vote for family and love. Then again, I've been trying to get that all my life. We're finally being back in Ohio by family (well, still two hours away) and although we get great services for Aiden, it's still not close enough to family for me. I might as well live back in Texas where we had a family of friends and great services. It's hard doing it all on your own. I wish I had my family even closer, to understand Aiden's world that much more and be part of that "village" it takes to raise any child. I've been away all my life, and although I'd go through hell and high water for my boy, it's that much harder away from family, especially if they're your support system.
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