Shine - by Shannon, Blue Sky parent

-
She tested in the 99th percentile. At parent-teacher conferences, her teachers spoke about her brilliance.
Her report cards were As and Bs.
The reality though was that she was coasting. She spent her days drawing and daydreaming.
She came home each day with naught a memory of what the day had held. Her teachers were honest
about the fact that she didn't complete classroom work and tests. She had both an IPRC and IEP, but
resources just weren't available, and truthfully, no one really knew what to do with this kid. She was
smart, yet the structure of the traditional school system just didn't work for her. It wasn't that she couldn't
do the classwork; it was that it didn't make sense to make her do it. She had mastered it already. It
wasn't that she couldn't do the tests; it was that she found them boring.
I dragged her to the information session for Blue Sky School. She was sullen and uncooperative. As if
school could be interesting. As if she could want to go.
She slumped in the chair. She did everything in her power to make it clear she wasn't interested. She
got up and moved to the bench at the back of the room and laid down.
“Kiara, would you like a pillow? Come get my keys. I have a pillow in the car.”
Huh? This teacher who had known her for all of twenty minutes was willing to trust her with her keys?
To her car? Confusion reigned. She went and got the pillow. She came back, laid down for a few
minutes, listening carefully with her eyes closed.
She came to me. “I want to draw,” she whispered. I responded that I had no paper, but that the teacher
seemed pretty understanding and I thought she should ask her for paper and a pen. She looked at me,
curious.
A few minutes later, she worked up the courage to ask. She came back, shyly smiling and holding a pen
and paper. She tucked herself in underneath the table to draw.
Still listening carefully.
About 70 minutes in, my kid who had spent eight years fading away in the public school system popped
out and up from under the table with shining wide eyes and mouthed to me “I want to go here.”
---
Kiara is now in her second year at Blue Sky School. She'll be fourteen in April. Next year, she will
officially enter Blue Sky School's high school program.
She still draws throughout the day at Blue Sky School. It is intentionally built into her daily plan, as she is
a gifted artist. She is currently working on a digital mural series, and has painted a number of pretty
cool custom shoes.
Her current customized learning plan has her finishing up grade ten math, developing her leadership
and mentorship skills and teaching peer mental health workshops, in addition to all the “regular” curricular
stuff.  Each quarter, we meet with her coach to update and fine-tune her learning plan to make sure
Kiara's growth is well supported.
Kiara's goals for adulthood change from week to week, but regardless of what she chooses, I am
confident that Blue Sky School is the right choice to get her there.


“Mom, I'm not sure what I want to be, but I'm thinking self-sustaining. Y'know, food in my stomach 'n all.”

“I agree with that goal Kiara. I think that's a wise goal.”


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought and Emotions are like Snowballs by Bella

-
Image
Thoughts and emotions are like snowballs; if you don’t stop them from rolling down a hill, they get bigger. If you’re upset, but you don’t find the cause or solution, and leave it lingering instead, then it will keep getting bigger and bigger until it smacks you in the face, hard. However, if you stop the snowball, you can stop the negative emotion or thought. But snowballs aren’t all bad. Sometimes they can be good, like when you’re with a really good friend, and you tell an inside joke and you both start laughing. You’re bouncing off of each other’s energy and happiness, and you can’t stop laughing. That’s also the snowball effect.   It might be hard at first, but one way to control your thoughts and emotions is by trying to become more self-aware of them. To really try to identify why you’re feeling a certain way, and really be in the mindset of ‘Okay, so I’m feeling this way, why am I feeling like this?’ Once you’ve answered that, you can move on to asking yourself ‘What can
Read more

What’s that Blob in my Skull? by Jaden

-
Image
What is your brain? How does it learn? Last year I was really interested in different types of brains and how they learn so I came up with a theory for 6 different types of brains and I made a quiz to see how different people’s brains learn (this is the quiz .) Then, this year we started learning more about how the brain works and what happens when you learn. My knowledge has come a long way in understanding the brain and I have learned about neurons, neuroplasticity, the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex, and the brain stem. The brain is split into four different “lobes”: the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobe. Each lobe is associated with something different. The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions (self-control, planning, and reasoning.) The occipital lobe controls vision. The human brain contains around 100 billion neurons (brain cells.) A neurons job is to pick up stimuli (something that can trigger a reaction such
Read more

My Learning Brain by Charlotte

-
Image
My Learning Brain   Over the past few weeks I had the opportunity to explore how I learn through this exploration which was Cognition. An exploration is a “subject” that we spend  couple months focusing on. Reflecting on how I learn, I there are  certain circumstances under which I learn best. I learn best independently with no distractions or sounds. I also learn best when I am organized, energized, actively engaged or taking notes.  Finally, I learn best in small groups.  There are a lot of ways that I learn best, but these are the ones I feel are most important. One of the things that we experimented with throughout this exploration was not listening to music during independent work time. In the previous exploration I listened to music when I was practicing French on Duolingo and doing math on IXL. Music helps me focus because it blocks off all the other sounds. I remember when I was writing a blog and there was instrumental music in the background, that helped me, but in
Read more