Beach Novel While Not on the Beach

It's spring break and I'm reading a literary beach novel while not on the beach, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, a Year 10 Amblesideonline free read. Seven chapters into the book, my favorite, laugh-out-loud quote is,

Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not … and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person? ~ Gabriel Betteredge, former bailiff and current house steward who consults Robinson Crusoe as his lifetime companion.

He raises a good question — How does one train attention to a book, not a person, when years of schooling has trained students to focus on a teacher lecturing or prompting? When years of worksheets has taught them to skim for answers, instead of reading to know? How can this transformation happen in a classroom with students whose abilities range from barely able to make it through a large group setting without a meltdown to gifted learners who already long to know? How do we help them go from letting facts pass through them like a sieve to seeking knowledge and making connections?

What are signs of a classroom full of seekers? Here is a list made by Charlotte Mason to assess for yourself, whether you are a homeschooling parent, a teacher at a homeschooling co-operative, or a teacher in a classroom. (These statements are quoted from Leslie Laurio's modern paraphrase of Towards a Philosophy of Education.)

"It's appropriate for all ages — even Shakespeare's seven ages of man!" — When I'm pre-reading, I sometimes gasp at an exciting connection. The other day my mind turned to a literature book when reading about Tim Severin's brilliant solution that blocked ginormous waves from entering his medieval leather boat during a gale. He and his crew sewed together pieces of oxhide with thongs to make a shell based on an image of a Roman army testudo formation that flashed into his mind. The hard part letting students make discoveries. To my delight, one girl gasped; another said, "Wait a minute;" a boy blurted out the name of the book.

"It effectively educates brilliant children, and develops the intelligence of even the slower children." — The other day we did the classic test of acids and bases using red cabbage juice as suggested in The Mystery of the Periodic Table. First, we tested vinegar and it turned red; then, we tested a baking soda solution, and it turned blue. Excited chatter erupted. We put them together and purple foam brewed. Eman, who is learning to function in a large classroom, exclaimed, "I can't wait to tell my dad I did three experiments." Another student decided to do this at home with his little brothers. The seekers of the class pondered and shared their thoughts, "Wait a minute! So, when you mix the acid and base, it reacts and becomes neutral!" Living out living books means that persons with varying abilities can thrive together.

Children concentrate with focused attention and interest without any effort from them or their teachers. — Effort is required to get them to that point! Lots of patient smiles and awkward pauses and encouragement. Reading short sections. Scaffolding them in how to notebook. Reading fewer books. Skipping long, wordy nonessential passages. Once students learn this kind of concentration, it looks effortless.

All children taught this way express themselves in confident, well-spoken English, and use a large vocabulary. — The boy who came to us labeled non-verbal in August 2013 amazes us. Every morning he spends a half-hour outdoors on a scooter. When we came in, I asked what he was going to do during math and he said, "Work on lessons." For history, he said, "Narrate." Narrate! He is still such a slow processor that it's hard for him to narrate in class. Since he asked for it, the headmaster and I brainstormed how it could be done. Now, he leaves the class with his Kindle and notebook and finds one of us. Then, he narrates and we write what he says. The first day was rather amusing — for the record, he did not have his Kindle that day — he said that Lincoln "was a red car." However, a few days later, Angie took down what he said about their readings in ancient history, "Mesopotamia has rivers. Deserts with dark storms like Egypt." Even speech-delayed children can acquire a large vocabulary when surrounded by living books.

Children are calm and stable. — Last week, I substituted in the elementary class. Since Eman and the boy who narrated Mesopotamia are usually with me, they joined me for the reading, a chapter from Tom Sawyer. Thirteen students and I sat in a circle on the carpet while I read to them. Those with books had their eyes on the words. A prospective family with a spectrum child was meeting with Angie. They wanted to know how their child might fit in, so she said, "In the room next door are four special needs children. You'll be able to figure out one. Can you spot the other three who all have autism?" They quietly opened the door, watched, and listened. They were amazed at how calm and attentive the students were. Building trust, developing good habits, and helping students find joy in learning helps them find meaning their daily work.

Keeping the mind busy with things to think about seems to make children's minds and lives pure. — Our kids find neat things to do outside of class. Several want to do more chemistry experiments at home. Some girls are planning to make a video of The Brendan Voyage over the summer. At recess, the kids are fighting Civil War battles or fighting over who gets to be Robin Hood and Maid Marion. We have a couple of kids whose viewing choices have shifted to history documentaries and trivia shows. When they go to local Mexican restaurants, they speak Spanish and sing for their servers. One boy would rather go to North Dakota to see dinosaur bones instead of Disney.

Parents [and teachers] share their children's interest in their schoolwork and enjoy the company of their children. — Back to my morning substituting, we read the chapter on World War I from A Child's History of the World. First, they gave a lovely narration about the previous chapter on the Industrial Revolution. Then, we read the introductory section on Serbia and Austria, which they narrated well. "Those countries are so little!" We read how France and Russia joined the fray. They were indignant about Germany marching through poor Belgium. When I asked what they thought England would do, they were sure it would side with Germany. They based their reason upon the connection between British royalty and Germany in their biography about Queen Victoria. They were shocked and appalled to learn that the United Kingdom sided with France. "FRANCE?" "They always fight France!" "Have they forgotten Napoleon?" The teacher told me that, the next day, they were still shaking their heads and muttering about England's choice. Teaching is a pleasure when students are engaged!

Children enjoy their books, even when they aren't picture books, and they seem to really love learning. — We are reading a challenging, worthy book for junior high geography. We sample the most tantalizing excerpts, and they are hooked. Two gasped when Josef Fischer found the long-lost Waldseemüller map in a German castle. When each student got a print of one of the twelve pieces, they looked carefully to make one large map. "Hey! That's not big enough!" "Yeah, the book said it was four by eight feet." In drawing a medieval map of the cosmos, done in Latin, they applied Spanish and Aristotle's four elements. "Tierra — terra — it must be Earth!" "Aqua sounds like agua, which is water." "Aer looks like air." "So, ignis must be fire!" In narrating the imaginary races that medieval people believed existed, one girl said, "Those sound like the duffle pods in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader;" a boy decided the barking, dog-headed people were from Egyptian mythology; Eman added, "They're wearing a dog head skin like British wild people." Students love learning when we let them make connections.

Teachers don't have to work so hard making corrections. — One day, I filled in for the junior high teacher for literature. The class narrated their previous reading in an Alfred the Great biography. They were confused about why Alfred would marry when he was only a boy. I was confused because I didn't remember him having an arranged marriage as a child. I quickly realized their error and peeked at the next reading. I decided it contained enough information for them to correct themselves. After reading a section, I heard, "I'm confused." "Why did Alfred call Judith his sister?" "It said Judith married a man four times her age." "She's fifteen, so her husband must be sixty." "Wait, I think I got it! Judith married Alfred's father!" "And she's young enough to be his sister!" "Oh, now it makes sense!" Living books lend well to self-correction when students go astray.

Children taught this way do very well no matter what school they attend. — I suspect that children do very well in school, and, more importantly, do very well in life based upon what I know of CM-taught students who are now adults.

Students don't need grades, prizes, etc., to motivate them. — To scaffold parents in the transition, we assess habits as well as academics using a non-tradtional scale: novice, apprentice, practitioner, and expert. It removes the pressure of "getting all A's" because nobody can be an expert at everything. There is always room for growth! Having gotten over the hurdle of extrinsic motivation, the junior high is starting to learn for the sake of learning. When they drew a T-O map in their notebook, one said, "Hey, didn't we see one of those in a Fra Angelico painting?" When I pulled out Madonna and Child in Majesty, they asked, "Why is the globe upside down?" One is saving up for a copy for the Waldseemüller map for her bedroom. Another mappamundi sparked a lot of conversation. "Mappamundi must be a map!" "Mundi sounds like mundo which is Spanish for world." "I get it! Map of the world!" "Don't you see? Jesus is embracing the world. He's in it and in us!" "I can see why they were afraid to sail west. It wasn't just the end of the world; it was the end of time." "So, let me get this straight. What we're reading in geography is connected to chemistry, history, literature, and Spanish?" One student asked about the antichrist, and other students raised their hands to answer it! The teacher simply guided their conversation.

Since I don't believe in extrinsic motivation, I will offer a hilariously funny natural consequence for making it to the end of this very long post: another quote from The Moonstone, one of the 100 best novels in someone's eyes. It seems that Gabriel Betteredge may adore Robinson Crusoe, but he would not last long in a Charlotte Mason style of education.

You see my young master, or my young mistress, poring over one of their spiders' insides with a magnifying-glass; or you meet one of their frogs walking downstairs without his head — and when you wonder what this cruel nastiness means, you are told that it means a taste in my young master or my young mistress for natural history. Sometimes, again, you see them occupied for hours together in spoiling a pretty flower with pointed instruments, out of a stupid curiosity to know what the flower is made of. Is its colour any prettier, or its scent any sweeter, when you DO know? But there! the poor souls must get through the time, you see — they must get through the time. You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you dabble in nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up. In the one case and in the other, the secret of it is, that you have got nothing to think of in your poor empty head, and nothing to do with your poor idle hands. And so it ends in your spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the house; or in keeping tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty water, and turning everybody's stomach in the house; or in chipping off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and dropping grit into all the victuals in the house; or in staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and doing justice without mercy on everybody's face in the house.

Nature Walks: Building Dynamic Thinking for Our SPD Kids

We'd been looking forward to Island Quest, an exploration of South Carolina's barrier island, Bulls Island, for a month! Unfortunately, the day was overcoast, wet, rainy with temperatures in the 60s. Imagine taking children ranging in age five to fifteenish, some with autism, sensory processing disorders, or other reasons to struggle with resiliency. Did the overcast, cloudy skies forecast doom our nature walk?


No! Students, staff, and chaperones had a blast in spite of spending two-hours in a car full of kids, a half-hour on a ferry, walking three miles — half of the trek in rain showers — BEFORE eating lunch.

Yes, at dark moments when the sun had abandoned us, we felt doubt and discomfort. We were soaking wet. Hair dripping with water. Sea water giving us free facials. Chilled by wind gusts. We cycled through the five stages of grieving our dampened condition and let go! We embraced the quiet rain and enjoyed whatever the day gave us.


Wonder is what saved the day! Since the beginning of the school year, we had faithfully walked the nearby wildlife refuge every Friday. We'd walked it on hot days, cold days, wet days, muddy days, snowy days, icy days. Kids who hated going outside have fallen in love with the creation. Kids who couldn't stand the sight of squiggly things now see beauty in them. The habits of walking regularly and of lengthening attention spans have reaped a harvest. We'd progressed from that first disastrous trek in which chased down little ones darting here, there, and everywhere and seeing nothing to a group that impressed the naturalist who guided us (more on that in another post). They see wonder in animal tracks and bird songs; little things like snails, rocks, lichen, moss, fern, and fungi; big things like alligators, live oak trees, and rotten logs.

How do we scaffold wonder?

We walk every week, any weather, with rare exceptions. An outing lasts at least an hour and a half. Our trail is a mile long, but it's more like a mile and a half due to rabbit trails.


We assign children to one adult guide. We space the groups out on the trail so they learn to follow one person. We vary the guide and the group composition every week to promote flexibility for our static thinkers. This time, we all went together and we all followed one guide. Months of nature walks meant they could adjust to a different game plan.


At school, we spend time outdoors. We notebook outdoors. We eat outdoors. We play outdoors. We work outdoors. It feels natural to be outdoors for several hours.


We prepare without over-preparing. Even though there was only a thirty percent chance of rain, we came with boots, raincoats, cheap emergency ponchos, etc. We had bugspray, hats, and sunscreen in case the sun came out in full force. We didn't give too much information. Would you tell kids they had to walk almost three miles before they could eat lunch?


We adapt whether it's hanging out our clothes to dry or finding joy in broken things.


We overcome our own discomfort with things that disgust us.


We stop and study interesting things. Wonder thrives.


We treasure keepsakes.



We respect living things.


We respect our guides.


We enjoy being together.



We dance in the rain.




Pamela did have a moment in which she was quite miserable. We had just left the beach. It was a wee bit cold and rainy. She had figured out we'd have to walk over a mile before we could stop and eat. She fussed and wanted to stop. I told her that there were no roads and the only way we were getting back was by walking. Otherwise, we'd be stuck like The Swiss Family Robinson and we'd have to build a hut and survive on whatever lived on the island. She accepted my perspective, and that was her only moment of real complaining. The day offered enough wonder to make the discomfort and long trek worthwhile.

When we finally reached the boat for our return voyage, it began to rain again. God rewarded us for our perseverance and showed off his creation. We spotted dolphins following our wake far off in the distance. All manner of birds greeted us as we slipped into port. Even the drizzle cannot stop nature's beauty and bounty.

Gleaning Habits from Picture Study

People confuse classical education with Charlotte Mason's method for our materials are similar. What we do with books and things is quite different. The first four years of a classical education is the pouring in and spitting out of specific facts (the Grammar Stage). Connecting ideas is not expected until the next stage. Students in a Mason paradigm form relations early and remember what stirs the mind. Since I plan to blog art, I searched briefly for how a classical folks teach art, and most sites link to "Charlotte Mason style" lessons. Curious.

Mason educators aim for good habits. Mason wrote,

No intellectual habit is so valuable as that of attention; it is a mere habit but it is also the hall-mark of an educated person.... The habits of fitting and ready expression, of obedience, of good-will, and of an impersonal outlook are spontaneous bye-products of education in this sort. So, too, are the habits of right thinking and right judging; while physical habits of neatness and order attend upon the self-respect which follows an education which respects the personality of children.

The following video depicts order which Pamela learned from watching me. As discussed in my last post, she has taken order to a new level. For years, she saw me transition us from one task to another. When she seemed ready to take on these duties, I let her. Pamela is a bit slow in how she puts away a highlighter, retrieves the pencil, checks for lead, adds more lead to the pencil, grabs the highlighter, highlights the schedule to mark off a task, puts the highlighter back, grabs her language arts composition book, and turns to the right page. People with autism process more slowly. Some struggle with the level of executive function Pamela shows here.



The habit of order eases one's life. Mason wrote, "Consider how laborious life would be were its wheels not greased by habits of cleanliness, neatness, order, courtesy; had we to make the effort of decision about every detail of dressing and eating, coming and going, life would not be worth living." Where static thinking helps us most is in the execution of routine tasks. It frees up our working memory for higher-level thinking.

What is higher-level thinking? Dynamic thinking—which people in the spectrum find challenging. While picture study seems so simple—and it is—chances arise to think dynamically. My last picture study post recapped how we practice theory of mind, "fitting and ready expression," and attention, retrieve memory, and make historical connections. Picture study is how I scaffold Pamela in writing paragraphs, too.

Pamela knows what is expected of her. I have slightly altered how we do picture study to work on dynamic thinking. She picked one of the twenty-four Winslow Homer picture cards and studied carefully. She does the work of imprinting details from the picture into her memory and of describing it so clearly from her memory that I can pick it out of the stack. This is the "act of knowing" for a picture study. In the following video, you can see how fluently she narrates the picture which I have hidden from view. Although she has left gaps in her description, I do not interrupt her.

After she finished, I reflect upon her narration and ask her meaningful questions that help me construct an image in my mind. Rather than ask direct questions, I paraphrase her words. I tell her what I don't know. She spoke of something blue outside, and I told her I didn't know what was blue. Making a declarative statement about gaps in my understanding gives her a chance to listen more carefully and think. I do ask open-ended questions.

You can see how she enjoys our exchange of information. As you watch her listen, think, and respond, you can see how quickly she processes now. The pace of our conversation is much faster! Pamela illustrates what Mason said about listening with full attention, "We can all imagine how our work would be eased if our subordinates listened to instructions with the full attention which implies recollection."



Now, we come to the moment of truth! Can Pamela's efforts guide me to the correct picture? This process illustrates how differently we do things. When a teacher creates a worksheet, the teacher robs the opportunity to think from students. Some teachers explained to me not long ago that open-ended questions create anxiety in students of today. They are afraid of saying the wrong thing. They don't know what details teachers want. They fear low grades. While they are adept at static thinking (direct questions with only one right answer), they have difficulty with dynamic thinking. When we do picture study, Pamela does most of the work for she has to know how much information is good enough. I am more of a guide in our journey to a shared understanding.

In the next video, I go through each card and explain my decision to accept or reject it. You can see Pamela's anticipation until I find the right one. Then, interest wanes because the element of surprise is gone. I persist through the entire stack since two or more pictures might fit her description. In this case, I narrowed it down to two: Snap the Whip and School Time.



Below are the two pictures. They have so much in common that they almost look the same.



I use this opportunity to explain why I choose the top picture. Upon further reflection, I think I could have spotlighted "same but different" thinking instead. Then, I would have given Pamela another chance to think dynamically. Next time we have a close call, I will do that! I also spotlighted errors to help her refine her observation before doing a written narration. I asked her what season she thought it was to give her a chance to infer. At around minute 1:20, Pamela shifts her gaze and studies her schedule. I kept talking to see if she would turn to me on her own. She did not, so I cleared my throat. She inferred that I had noticed her lack of attention. (Note to self: slow down and talk less!)



When I ask Pamela to write the title of the painting, I see an opportunity to work on gray thinking. Winslow Homer named it Snap the Whip, and yet no whips are in sight. I am thrilled when Pamela immediately realizes the boys were the whip! To encourage her to lengthen her descriptions, I first ask her how many sentences she can write. After she said, "Six," I apply "Edge Plus One" (an RDI term) and suggest seven. Pamela balks vociferously, so I back off and leave the matter unresolved.



Pamela has written three narrations for picture study so far: Girl with Laurel, Fog Warning, and, of course, Snap the Whip. While she writes, I say absolutely nothing. I don't even peek over her shoulder. I try to find something else to do. She has to do the work.



Originally, Snap the Whip had six sentences. I scaffold her into writing a seventh by suggesting she had forgotten to mention the season. She comes up with "It's fall" and I prompt "because" to encourage her to write a longer sentence. And, she does!

On the Inevitability of Change

Someone posted a link to an article about education at the Ambleside Online forum, and this quote resonated with me: Change is in the nature of things; it is inevitable. Human societies either adapt to change or die. Marion Brady elaborated on each sentence from a much longer quote in relation to the usual content of core curriculum. I intend to ponder the relationship between autism and change in the little things in life.

Change is in the nature of things; it is inevitable. The earth heats and cools. Seasons come and go. Water tables rise and fall. Human populations increase, decrease, migrate. New tools change the ways societies function. People multiply, resources diminish, and waste builds. Civilizations appear and disappear. ~ Marion Brady

• Hardees stops giving out toys.
• Parents may not tell you where you are going to eat lunch.
• Moms grow tired of their children nagging them about doing Wii Fit.
• Wii Fit trainers change.
• Bricks fall off the sidewalk.
• Some seeds never sprout.
• Sometimes it rains when you want to walk.

The hardest thing about autism is not language delays or poor social skills. It is rigid thinking. Ten years ago, Pamela would have a meltdown if we left the drive-thru without a toy. She would have cried at not being told what we were having for the next three meals. Many parents feel trapped between the Scylla of giving in and the Charybdis of dealing with a meltdown. Children in the autism spectrum have a hard time with change, so they try to instill sameness by having control. However, if we deal with language without addressing static thinking, we have someone who seeks control through longer words and better reasoned arguments. If we deal with social skills without seeking dynamic thinking, we have someone who is better at manipulating our behavior as we have modeled manipulating theirs.

The other day, the lady at Hardees told us they were no longer offering toys with their kids' meals. At first, Pamela cried—only for about a minute. I told Pamela that I was just as surprised as she was. Then, she asked about other fast food places in our town. I replied that they were still offering toys as far I as knew. Drawing upon the vocabulary she has gleaned from her personal study of the history of television—debut, episode, finale, etc.—Pamela stopped crying and announced, "Hardees is rebranding." Her reflection helped her put the situation into perspective.

Encouraging dynamic thinking (which we learned to do through Relationship Development Intervention) goes beyond avoiding unpleasant scenes. Because the weather for our walk was so gloomy, my friend and I decided to head to Cracker Barrel for lunch instead of having our usual picnic. Since Pamela has been thinking so flexibly lately, I did not alert her in advance. On the drive to the wildlife refuge, Pamela asked, "What's for lunch?" I playfully told her, "It's a surprise," and glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She smiled and said, "Is it a hamburger?" I replied, "Probably." Then, she asked, "Is it McDonald's?" "Nope!" Then, she asked, "What's Tammy eating?" I answered, "I'm thinking about soup." She giggled and added, "It's a mystery!" Pamela knew enough that she did not press me for more information. She was content to learn the location of our meal later.

Pamela still tries to control me. I had intended to work out on Wii Fit Thursday night. Pamela knew about my plans and came close to stalking me. She watches my every move and gets angry when I fail to take steps toward getting ready to exercise. I gave her a couple of warnings about her nagging me, and then I told her that I did not like to be controlled and I was not going to work out. She was not happy but the tears eventually subsided. The next day, she left me alone. Even though I did not exercise until nine in the evening, she let go of her need to control me.

More dynamic thinking is emerging during her Wii Fit routine. To begin with, it is not a routine. While she likes getting her program done early in the day, she sets up a routine that randomly picks exercises. She turns away from the television and wonders aloud, "Is it trainer [yoga or strength] or Mii character [aerobic or mind and body]?" and giggles when she sees the result. She usually sticks with the female trainer. Occasionally, Wii Fit has the male trainer show up and Pamela finds the switch absolutely hilarious. She is clearly learning to appreciate surprises.

How do you foster embracing change? One critical step is to slow down and let your child think at their own pace. The other day Pamela came bounding into the house with excitement. She announced with glee, "I fixed the brick!" She probably chose electrical tape because we have it sitting on the kitchen table next to materials we are using to explore batteries. [Don't let the white stuff fool you: it's not glue! We've had a lot of birds visiting lately.] Right now, giving Pamela time means that I am not going to point out any potential issues with her solution. I will let nature take its course and give her time to observe what happens, refine her theory about fixing the brick, and, if necessary, come up with another solution.

Another example is from our work in botany. We finally finished repotting all of our plants. Again, we checked the sunflower seed and saw no progress. On her own, Pamela concluded that it had failed and decided to try a new seed. I could have offered her that solution two weeks ago. I'm glad I showed restraint because she figured it out on her own.



When we first started walking our beloved trail, I had wondered if I could stick to our plan of going, even on the most dreary days. We love being out with the sun basking on our face. We have noticed new things in fog, mist, and wind. We have tolerated even cold days. Yesterday, I wondered about walking it in the rain—wondered if we would be chilled to the bone because of our soggy sneakers. As always, we enjoyed another lovely day, albeit wet.

I noticed something intriguing about Pamela yesterday. Sometimes, she gets ahead of us and walks to her "sit spots" along the way. She waits patiently for us to catch up to her. Yesterday, I often saw her turn around and watch what we were doing. I caught her observing us in several pictures. Just as I have learned to adjust my pace to her, she is adjusting her pace to me. Part of learning the dynamics of change is adjusting one's pace to match that of another.







Human societies either adapt to change or die... If we value our way of life, we need to understand the dynamics of change. ~ Marion Brady

"I Have Never Let School Interfere with My Education"

We are not big on pricey Christmas gifts. Steve gave me a cover for my Nook with the most perfect quote, and I plan to buy a camera since I finally killed my last one. I gave Steve his own boxed set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for the ones the kids and I read are worn out. While he read The Hobbit in college, he never got into three books that followed. Not even the Peter Jackson movies inspired him until he saw The Hobbit in the theater. He began to see enough connections between Bilbo's adventures and those of Frodo that LOTR finally caught his attention. We spent the next few evenings watching a marathon of special extended edition DVDs, and Steve now appreciates my wealth of trivial knowledge about Middle Earth. He just asked me if you can order lembas bread on e-Bay. If you don't know what that is—well, nevermind....

Mark Twain never spoke truer words when he said, "I have never let school interfere with my education." In this day of the state standards, I suspect students will find it even harder to get an education. I told my son about the requirement that only thirty percent of material read by high school seniors will be literary: everything else is supposed to be "informational texts." His knee-jerk reaction was, "They don't want us to think!" The Washington Post opinion page summarizes my concerns well,

The major problem with the new Common Core State Standards is that they further diminish something that is greatly undermined from the moment we enter school: our creativity.

School essentially limits innovation. The best way to succeed in school is to repeat exactly what the teacher says. But the most effective way to express one’s creativity in school has always been through the reading of fiction.

Through novels, we can let our imaginations run wild, assign meaning to complex passages and have a chance to attack certain situations and moral dilemmas without living them. Reading fiction is an active, involved process.

Information is easily standardized and testable. It is static, predictable, and consistent. We can break information down into pieces that are right or wrong. Either you know a given factoid or you don't. We can put it into multiple guess format for scanners to score. Students have a hard time cajoling a few points from the teacher because information is so cut and dry.

While so many in the autism world seek to pump our kids full of information, my aim is to see what Pamela does with it. Although language is flowing more readily now, Pamela has such a hard time expressing what she thinks. I often find myself in the role of observer, pondering what she does and says to elicit what she knows and understands.

Scene I. A conversation. Tammy checking Facebook. Pamela watching television.

Me: Wow!
Pamela: What?
Me: Stormin' Norman is dead.
Pamela: Is he an actor?
Me: No, he was a general.

We were both together, but doing separate things. When I left out vital information, Pamela grew curious. When I shared the news about Norman Schwarzkopf, Pamela assumed he was an actor. In the past, she has asked me about famous people who died. They are usually actors or musicians. Her knowledge of the latter is wider, so she assumed he was an actor. Even more important, Pamela took an active role in seeking out information. Instead of passively receiving information, she searches for it herself.

Scene II. The four of us are at the movie theater watching terrible trailers. The green preview screen appeared for an R-rated movie.

Pamela: I cover my eyes! [Puts her hands to her face.]

Pamela did not have to tell us what she was doing. In fact, we probably would not have even noticed had she remained silent. She wanted to share her thoughts with us. Pamela knows that R-rated movies are recommended for people over seventeen. Although we avoid those movies for the most part, we have never made any "rules" about it. She has probably figured this out based on her own research. She also has an accurate sense of her age. She sees herself as a big girl because she does not have many interest in common with her peers. She resists the idea of having to buy adult movie tickets. She enjoys having dolls and was quite thrilled that Queen Victoria had a large doll collection as well as Pamela's great grandmother. She even tells people, "I'm not [in a] grade. I'm Charlotte Mason." She seeks reassurance that she is not in elementary, middle, or high school. Now that her brother attends college, she declares she is not in college either. She has a strong sense of her true emotional age.

Scene III. We are enjoying a two-week vacation from school.

Pamela: I can't wait for the last week!
Me: It's almost time for exams.
Pamela: Term finale!
Me: We will say farewell to some books.
Pamela: Happy ending!

Pamela enjoys how we learn together. Unlike most styles of education, we spend a long time on some books. We would rather spend two years reading two years reading Oliver Twist together than zip through something abridged over a term. The end of a term means the beginning of new books. We are finally closing the door to the Civil War and opening the one leading to World War I. Pamela is intrigued to enter a new phase of history through our literary readings. She created her own analogy to television shows: a season has a finale and, therefore, her term has a finale as well: exam week! She finds our exams delightful because we record her telling everything she knows about what we read. She does not feel pressured because we avoid impertinent "gotcha" questions that focus only on information. Pamela is getting clever in choosing the right words to express her thoughts and she is eager to transition to make friends in far away lands of another time.

I think Mark Twain would approve.

Checkers!

In last Friday's post about fruit smoothies (recipe included), you might have thought it odd that my mother was following us around taking pictures. We had a reason. A week or so ago, a reporter from our countywide paper, who had been reading my blog, asked if she could do a human interest story about us. We live in the county seat across the street from the owner of the newspaper and are Facebook pals with some of the staff. The article appeared in today's paper ("Glasers Bring Quality of Life to Autistic Daughter") and I think Cathy Gilbert did a phenomenal job capturing the essence of RDI and how it has improved our quality of life while giving information to families in the area with autistic children.

I think autism awareness is pretty high in our county for we have an early childhood development center which had over twenty Applied Behavior Analysis therapists the last time I checked. In case anyone familiar with ABA views my blog, I am going to cover the biggest difference I see between ABA and RDI in a way that makes sense to people well-versed in ABA (which I am not). If you are unfamiliar with ABA, here's a crash course!

The basic working principle of ABA requires that the adult provides a stimulus (usually a verbal command) and provides a reinforcement (praise, toy, or piece of candy) immediately after the child makes the targeted response. Since eye contact is such a big issue for children with autism, a classic discrete trial training (DTT) session would include multiple rounds of the following interaction pattern:

Adult: "Look at me" (while holding a piece of candy at her eye).
Child: Looks at the candy and glances at the adult's eye.
Adult: "Excellent looking" and gives the child the candy immediately.

When we first started doing RDI two years ago, we worked on something broader than eye contact: Pamela discovering that she can read our facial expressions and gestures to know more about what is going on around her. I changed the way I interacted with her: (1) declarative language as opposed to imperative language, (2) making my words important by slowing down and speaking fewer words ala the "My Words are Important" and "Unexpected Sounds and Actions" exercises from the manual, and (3) trying some lifestyle activities in which I nearly cut out words and exaggerate my facial expressions as depicted in videos of RDI families you can find online. (Newsflash: The new RDI book is out and it incorporates the emphasis on lifestyle not found in the lab manual, which is no longer needed.) I framed these changes in my communication style in a wide variety of activities like baking brownies, storing salad fixings in the refrigerator, getting out her shampoo and stowing it, etc. I was so excited about Pamela's immediate change in paying attention to my face (you can see the awesome before and after video here), that I shifted to a face-reading card game that Pamela found hilarious because of all the weird contortions my face made and a complete overhaul of how I guided Pamela in our interactions.

A fellow homeschooler and RDI friend compared the interaction style to checkers. The adult and child take turns (reciprocal actions), each one basing their move on what the other person does (contingent responses). Today, we hung laundry: Pamela's role was telling me where to put the laundry and my role was to act predictably sometimes and unpredictably at other times. We worked on applying her speaking vocabulary (a struggle since she has aphasia too) real time: rack, railing, rocking chair, bricks, and multiple prepositions and positional words. Sometimes, I counted the socks with the wrong numbers and she corrected me so that we would have a shared understanding of counting systems. Sometimes, I would do something weird like put a shirt on my head or throw it at her. I would often act confused and look at her for help. We worked on using very specific language for where I ought to hang each item.

In the last round of our interaction, I held six socks and looked at Pamela for suggestions. She could clearly see the front of the rack (on the left) while I was looking at the back of the rack (on the right), which still had two empty rods. She told me, "In the back." So, I asked, "The top, middle, or bottom?" She told me, "The bottom." So, I said, "But the bottom is full." I expected her to tell me to hang them on the top or the middle. But, she surprised me with, "On the bricks." Since I often run out of room on the rack and hang clothes on the railing, rocking chairs, and brick, I agreed with her suggestion and laid the rest of the socks out on the bricks.



The following two videos show a dramatic difference between how responsive Pamela is to my nonverbal interactions. I recorded the first clip of us baking a cake when we first started rdi. The second clip of us making noodles was ten months later.




Compressed into one long soundbite, in ABA, the adult gives the child a very specific, discrete stimulus and expects a very specific, discrete response, setting up a scripted, predictable, patterned interaction. RDI has the exact opposite situation occurring: the adult gives the child a very broad, multiple channel stimulus and responds to a very broad, multiple channel action, setting up an unique, unpredictable dance.

In short, ABA focuses on a static system, while RDI focuses on a dynamic system.