I FINALLY got an iPod Nano. The new generation 3 that has video. I’ve never had an MP3 player of any sort, so this is a whole new world to me. I find myself getting excited to use my iPod, daydreaming about what songs I’m going to download, etc. I think I have a crush!!
Many of you who read this are already aware that autism is a passion of mine, as in helping the people diagnosed as austistic and to help their families and of course to promote research for a cause/cure and understanding in society. As a teacher, I feel even more passionate about making sure fellow educators understand austism if they will be working with children who’ve been diagnosed. I get easily frustrated when teacher’s, who I know are trying their very best, clump austistic kids into a the bunch with their cerebral palsy, downs syndrome, and mentally retarded students. A special need is titled quite accurately - each one has SPECIAL, NEEDS. Many austistic children are mislabelled as MR (mentally retarded) because the test that are given in a school district are not designed for autistic children, or any other special need for that matter. The same test is given to each child in a special needs situation. It’s frustrating.
What’s even more upsetting is that doctors are still at a loss about why this happens to some people and not others. There is, of course, the vaccine argument - that toddler vaccines are to blame. I’ve worked with some parents who swear it wasn’t but a few hours after their child was innoculated that they started to show symtoms. And I’ve worked with families who say that looking back they realize now their child was always like that, but as an infant the symptoms wouldn’t be much different than a typical baby. I’m undecided. In all honesty, I haven’t researched it enough. A source who has (Aaron Blocher-Rubin) convinced me that it is NOT vaccines that cause autism. Still, when I have children, it will be something I consider a great deal. I don’t plan to just do it because the dr says so. I will vaccinate my children, but maybe not all in one trip. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I try to make sure to check in with the following sites often. And I watch the news for clips about new information. And I read what I can. And I talk about it with as many people as will listen.
What is your cause? What do you support?
Driving to work I was listening to my morning talk radio. The question of the day was “Which 4 women would you like to see on Mt. Rushmore?” I thought it was an interesting idea to ponder - if America carved another mountain to honor great people, this time WOMEN who made did great things for our country, who would they pick?
Now, to play along and brainstorm deserving women, I have to completely ignore the fact that I reeeeally don’t like Mt. Rushmore. I took some classes in college that taught me so much more about the Native American history in our country and the truth behind that mountain we took as Mt. Rushmore. So, I ignore that in order to be able to answer this interesting question about great women in American history.
Initially, as soon as I heard the question the following 4 people came to mind: Oprah, Jane Addams, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc. I picked these women because I think they are strong and ambitious and I admire that. After a quick second though, Joan of Arc was dropped as was Mother Theresa. I feel like if we were to make another Mt. Rushmore, it should be filled with 4 women who did great things for America. And I think Mother Theresa did more good for lots of other countries. Joan of Arc? I don’t know. It just came to me. Maybe because she was brave to say what was on her mind in a time when women couldn’t do that. Either way, she’s no longer on my list.
Once I got to school, I was intrigued by what my amazing 7th grade minds would come up with. I posed the question to them as they entered and we shared. They were awesome! They came up with loads of women who hadn’t even crossed my mind yet. I mean, after my initial 4, I went back and thought of some of the other women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman. But my students….they came up with Helen Keller, Amelia Earhardt, Marie Curie (seriously? they are so awesomely smart and wonderful - that is a FABULOUS answer), and they came up to me and said things like “What was that ladies name who gave women the right to vote?” Oh, how I love my students this year - I wonder if I can loop every year until they graduate high school? Back to my blog…. they came up with Sacajawea (though one boy called her Sack-a-ja-we-Wa. hehehe) and “JFK’s wife” and Hilary Clinton all on their own. I gave little to no guidance for this and it seemed like they enjoyed racking their brains for an impressive answer. And impressed I was.
After three class periods of doing this with my students and thinking it through myself. I settled on the following four inspiring, ambitious, and good-hearted women who deserve a special honor in our country:
Oprah
Harriet Tubman
Susan B. Anthony (or Jane Addams)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Who would you pick?
The month of march was busy one! We had company one weekend and then took off for Arizona the following week. We spent our spring break in AZ. We got to visit with my closest girlfriends, attend Jen & Kelsay’s wedding reception, visit with my family, and see a few baseball games. Below are some pictures from my cousin’s family visit and the adventures of our trip.
