Here are some quotes from the recent The Art of Advocacy show.
We need to really look at the challenging behaviors our kid is showing either at school or at home and we
need to look at what are the skills that the child is lacking in order for them to do well.
Charmaine
Thaner
When your child is having difficulty meeting the specific expectations at school, the expectations at home, the expectations at Church or in the grocery store when your child has difficulty meeting those expectations, that's what we call the unsolved problems.
Charmaine Thaner
Sometimes we will see
staff because of their training and their experience, use more of that behavior management kind of lens and they'll talk about work avoidance without really looking at what are those underlying skills that the student doesn't have yet.
Charmaine Thaner
As an advocate, I always suggest to families that before you can sit for assessment, you talk about what tools the school is planning on using. You
have a conversation because you're part of the evaluation team and if you don't think it's going to be an assessment that's going to give you valid results, that are going to be really helpful for your child, then don't give consent for that.
Charmaine Thaner
We always want to keep in mind the lens that we're wearing because that's going to influence every step of this model as far as the collaborative and the proactive kinds of
solutions that we can bring.
Charmaine
Thaner
The other question I would have as a parent and as a teacher is when you're discussing lagging skills and unsolved problems, think about is it really a lagging skill of the child or is it some skill that the teacher needs to develop as far as giving kids permission and allowing for different ways of showing the work or showing what they've
learned?
Charmaine Thaner
