Differentiating Math Instruction in the Elementary Classroom with Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson
Young children have many different ability levels with math concepts. Understandably, kindergarten and elementary teachers need to reach every student where they are on their learning journey, but it isn't always easy. Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson, an expert on the topic, gives an overview of how to differentiate math instruction with younger students.
See notes and transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e793
Sponsor: Thank you, eSpark for sponsoring today’s show. eSpark is a differentiation and intervention tool that helps teachers of kindergarten through grade five save time by providing ready-to-go, standards-based reading and math activities that students love. eSpark is free for teachers. Each Quest includes a pre-quiz, framing videos, instructional videos, practice activities, critical thinking challenges, a post-quiz, and an optional student recording. I love that for activities to remain in the eSpark catalog that it must have a high student engagement rating based on a student-chosen thumbs-up or thumbs-down. You can even import NWEA or STAR data to give students a more differentiated experience from the first log on. Oh and did I say it is free for teachers! So, go to go.eSpark.app/coolcatteacher. You’ll be glad you did.
Carol Ann Tomlinson - Bio as Submitted
[caption id="attachment_28916" align="alignright" width="200"] Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson[/caption]
Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development where she served as Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy, and Co-Director of the University’s Institutes on Academic Diversity. Prior to joining the faculty at UVa, she was a teacher in public schools for 21 years, during which she taught students in high school, preschool, and middle school and also administered programs for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia’s Teacher of the Year in 1974. She was named Outstanding Professor at UVa’s School of Education and Human Development in 2004 and received an All-University Teaching Award in 2008. In 2022, she was ranked #12 in the Education Week Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of the 200 “University-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling,” and as the #4 voice in Curriculum & Instruction.
Carol is the author of over 300 books, book chapters, articles, and other educational materials. Her two latest books are So Each May Soar: The Principles & Practices of Learner-Centered Classrooms (2021) and Everybody’s Classroom: Differentiating for the Shared and Unique Needs of Diverse Learners (2022). Her books are available in 14 languages. She works throughout the United States and internationally with educators who seek to create classrooms that are effective in reaching diverse student populations.
Twitter @cat3y
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
I love this photo primarily because this little one appears to be thoroughly engaged in learning. Yes, I understand that photos give but an impression of a point in time, but I have the sense that this dear one is willing and ready to go joyfully into his elementary education.
But why is elementary school important to a child's development?
According to US News "The early elementary years – from kindergarten through third grade – are particularly important ones in children's schooling. Parents and teachers know that children acquire new skills and knowledge rapidly during these years. Research shows that average annual learning gains for children in grades K-2 are dramatically greater than those for subsequent years of school. Moreover, the outcomes of early elementary education, particularly whether or not a child can read proficiently by third grade, are a powerful predictor of later school and life outcomes. However (sic), by the time states look at how well schools are serving children, it's much too late. By third grade, low-performing schools have left many children so far behind they never catch up. (US News & World Report, October 6, 2016)
So why do so many kids drop out of school prior to completing their high school studies?
The National Education Association (NEA) conducted interviews of 50 dropout students and were surprised by the perspectives of those individuals: "What really surprised us was that the overwhelming majority of the youth we interviewed really liked elementary school. Another surprise was how many were willing to blame themselves and how much they deeply regretted their actions that led to dropping out. Finally, what surprised me personally was the lack of interventions. We never know the full story, only the kids’ perspective, but very few recalled having any official interventions for truancy, or interventions from parents or the school (bold print by the blogger for emphasis)."
"They seemed to be forgotten by the schools or consciously ignored. We don’t know, but we suspect that in some districts, if a kid isn’t doing well and is a problem, it’s easier to let them slip away. Around the country, districts are cash-strapped and don’t have the resources to follow up on kids with numerous absences."
"The through line in many of their stories was some kind of academic challenge that undermined their faith in themselves as learners, that then led to helplessness and hopelessness about their ability to be a student, which was their primary job in life." (NEA Today, Cindy Long, December 19, 2017)
(Photo courtesy of Northern Ontario Teachers' Association)
We, the Icebreakers, are the ones who work with a non-rofoit organization named Path To Shine®, an organization founded in 2010 by Rev. Leslie-Ann Drake, a deacon of the Episcopal Church in Georgia. Though not a religious organization per se, the organization's goal is to help carry elementary school school children in need such that they complete thier high school stidies. The method? Simple: by building strong relationships with developing human beings in their formative years. We intervene in the student's education path in ways that the school systems are not budgeted to do.
My research thus far has been enlightening and has engendered a higher level of pride over what we have accomplished in my three years experience with this organization. Additionally, I am moved by the dedication and love that Leslie-Anne has applied to this effort.
My obstacles at this point are better categorized as challenges: though I am beginning to capture the basis and need for our relationships-based effort with elementary school children, I only broached the human aspects of my personal experiences in implementing this program on a local level. As writer I lean toward verbosity: "I have so much to tell you and so little space to do so." Economy of communication is my challenge.
The one true obstacle is my relative ignorance in employing the applicable technology needed in creating a video essay (especially given my instinctive senior-driven reluctance to embrace new technology in areas that I somewhat consider the exclusive domain of the printing press or word processor!). Lord help the aging mind!!
Age: 12 years old (When she appeared in "Lost Small World", 19 years old at the beginning of the second season.)
[APPEARANCE]
Physique: 1.40 cm in height. Small in class.
Face, hair: She has a childish face that even elementary school students can understand, but there are some parts of the face that are similar to Fushimi. Twin tails are tied with a hair clip made from an oyster.
Attire: Hinata Junior High School uniform.
Personal effects: A backpack with rabbit ears, a PDA with a hanging rabbit mascot.
[HABITS, SKILLS]
· Speak in a characteristic tone like "Aya is...".
· It's easy to point people's fingers and make claims.
When she was in the third year of high school, she appeared with glasses similar to Fushimi's. The gesture of wearing glasses is conscious.
[IMPRESSION, OTHER NOTES]
· Often uses "rabbit" and "shellfish" motifs.
· Another "Jungle" avatar. The identifier name for "Jungle" is "Oyster".
[POSITION, OBJECTIVES]
A high school student who attends the same school as Fushimi and Yata. Like Fushimi and Yata, she feels dissatisfied with her current location and is depressed.
Her surroundings look stupid due to her intelligence. She only sympathizes with Fushimi, whom she admits as equal to herself, and she believes that she should sympathize with Fushimi.
[PERSONALITY, CONDUCT]
She hates losing and has great pride. She doesn't like to belittle people who look down on her, but she also has a strong side because she can't make friends.
[FATE, ENDING]
After Fushimi and Yata entered the "Homura", only Aya would enter the depth of "Jungle". Nagare, the "King of "Jungle" gave her a mission, and she worked to get Fushimi out of "Homura", but failed due to Fushimi's counterattack and Munakata's intervention. Her "Jungle" account was stripped. After Fushimi told her "Don't get involved in this world anymore.", she washed her feet, graduated from high school and, in due course, went to a famous university.
She lived an excellent student life with a feeling of emptiness.
Aya is also a resident of "Small World" and was one of the leads who became an adult after experiencing "Lost Small World."
[ABILITIES, TACTICS]
Normal person.
[POWER]
Normal person.
[LIKES]
Be recognized for her ability. Macaroni.
[DISLIKE]
To lose. Stupid man. Niki.
[HOBBIES]
Capture of computer games, programming, reasoning from mystery novels.
Secretly reading love manga.
[FASHION]
Simple clothing like knee-high socks with a border pattern and denim jumper skirts, typical of elementary school students. She thinks it is ridiculous to indulge in fashion that is popular with girls of the same age.
[BODY]
Small and childish.
[INTELLIGENCE]
High. A level that comes in at 30th place in the national exam.
[BELIEFS]
She believes that it is better to get out of a good school with good grades and be socially successful.
[RELATIONSHIPS]
[EARLY YEARS]
Born as Fushimi Saruhiko's second cousin (her father is Niki's cousin, and her grandmother is Saruhiko's grandfather's sister). As the only child of the same age in her relatives, she was compared to Fushimi since she was born.
Her mother was a full-time homemaker and she was jealous of Kisa, who is a wife of the same Fushimi clan, but who is financially independent.
[TIMELINE]
· 1994, Ogai Aya is born.
· 2006, she entered Hyuga Junior High School with Fushimi and Yata.
· 2009, Enrolled in Tsubakigahara Gakuen High School.
· 2010, her "Jungle" account is stripped.
[ATTITUDE AND THOUGHTS TOWARDS OTHERS]
[TERMS OF THE ADDRESS FOR HIMSELF]
The first person is "Aya".
She uses fluttering tones like "...is" and "is what", but intentionally makes characters. She has a normal tone for parents.
[TOWARDS FUSHIMI SARUHIKO]
She calls him "Saruhiko" or "Omae".
This is because she wants to show her rivalry, but she wants Fushimi to acknowledge and see her. However, Fushimi is indifferent to Aya, and only Aya's demeanor is spinning.
[TOWARDS YATA MISAKI]
She calls him "Michakyun" → "Misaki-chan" → finally called "Misaki-kun".
She approaches him kindly, but looks down on him as a person with "normal or subnormal" abilities. It is difficult for her to understand why Fushimi accepted only Yata as an egalitarian friend.
I hate when people are like if only we taught kids interesting things they would love school. Because first of all the reason you like school is because you were good at it. Or you like learning. Or you just had the opportunity to go to school everyday and prioritize your education over other things. Because let me tell you as someone who's been in and out of urban schools for years now one of the biggest problems I see in the schools is attendance. And because these kids have low attendance (because of reasons outside our control like we literally can't get them in the building), they don't learn the skills that they need to keep going with school. So like I can put the best most interesting book in front of them they don't have the reading skills to actually read it. And a lot of people talk about like deficit thinking and how we're not supposed to say that kids can't do something. But what makes me sad is that these kids are smart they're not stupid. Like when you actually have a conversation with them especially like a real-life conversation you see how smart some of these kids are. right now I do intervention and you see how smart some of these kids are who are placed in a lower-level intervention class because they're struggling with reading and writing. I can give them the most engaging the most exciting lesson in the universe and they're not going to engage and they're not going to be excited because they know that they're behind where they should be because they are smart. And that just leads to frustration and feeling like you're not good enough. And yeah as a teacher you try to combat that but it's not like the kids are still coming to school everyday. Like I'm in a middle school I'm sure if you tallied it up some of the kids I work with maybe missed 30 40% of elementary school. And now they're missing 30 or 40% of Middle School. And so even if I do my best I literally just don't have the time with them to teach them. And that ends up being the biggest problem and by the way that's not a problem that education can solve that's a problem of poverty. That's a problem of both my parents worked 10 hours a day so that we can afford an apartment and both of them really care about my education but they care more that I get to eat everyday. And honestly if I was in that position I would do the same thing. Like this is the problem of exploiting people. This is why we need to talk about Equity not just in schools but outside the school. Because let me tell you every single day out of school we talked about how to improve our attendance and how to get things better and how to reach out to the community more and support parents and families more. But every program every dollar we scraped by to be able to do something to up attendance is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. There needs to be a fundamental change. And when we talked about engagement it really pisses me off when people are like "well if you just picked the right book every single kid would want to read it". That's only true in the schools where every kid was going to read it anyway.
Hobbies: solving crosswords, playing board games or video games, reading books [mostly science fiction / realistic space novels], listening to music [mostly rock music], acting [musicals and theatre]
Likes: Space, Aerospace, Musicals and Theatres, Science Fiction, tea and tea biscuits/cookies.
Dislikes: Rushed work, go fever, coffee, deadlines, unforeseen/unexpected change of plans, Eccentrics, Hospitals, medical equipment.
Appearance:
Given that Conjune is a Norwegian Forest Cat he has long haired fur with a striped pattern that is mostly light brown and grey with the exception around his chest, eyes, and nose where it is mostly white and a bit crème coloured.
Being a Janus Cat Conjune has two faces on his head, both noses and mouths, one left, one right are on the same level (his left face is a bit lower although it needs some time and direct observation to notice that). All three of his eyes are green, his middle eye which is also bigger than the one on the left and right side appears to be staring given that it is non-functional.
His left mouth is completely developed but is not connected to the oesophagus/gullet, the trachea/windpipe, and the vocal cords, when Connor and June talk with their right mouth, the left one moves as well, given the impression that he talks with both mouths at the same time. (The right mouth is the dominant mouth for talking, breathing eating and drinking)
History/Bio:
Born as a child with Diprosopus Connor and June was given a slim chance of survival on the first hours and days when he was born. Thankfully to a dedicated senior staff member of the delivery suite and a nurse, Connor and June survived the struggles that have been his birth and the complications afterwards. Raised by the chief physician and the nurse the forest cat spends his early days for many weeks of the years in the hospital which contributed to the Janus cat growing a dislike for medical equipment and hospitals.
Growing up in the suburbs of Empire city Connor and June would often go with his parents for a walk exploring the suburban town of the great city. It was also the old telescope from his mother’s grandfather that would spark the cat’s interest for the vast and mysterious space that holds so many unexplored secrets and unanswered questions.
When coming to the age to enrol for elementary school it was his father who at first was undecided whether to register his son for a public school or to home-school him, fearing that his son might be the victim of bullying and harassment given Connor and Junes appearance.
It was after a long talk and conversation with his wife and colleagues from the hospital that his father accepted to enrol Connor and June into an elementary school, but not before promising him to be there for him and make sure that people who would make fun of him or prank him to make sure there would be consequences for those who would do the forest cat any harm.
Whilst Conjune unfortunately got made fun off and harassed by some [but thanks to his mothers and father’s intervention the school did react in those cases] he also made a few friends, many who would remain friends a live long and following him to the secondary school he was attending. Although the cat had his fair share of happy experiences and memories, the negative impact from some of his school colleagues also made him withdrawn and cold looking to strangers and people he had not much contact with. Whilst his family and friends knew him, for others he appeared distant.
In the secondary school Connor and June discovered his passion not only for physics and mathematics, but also it was there where his interest in theatre awoke and the reason, he joined the school’s theatre club. Despite being someone who preferred to be alone from time to time and not being a extroverted person, it longed Connor and June to be part of a stage play where people would see them play minor part or perhaps one day even a major role.
It was unfortunately a rocky start due of the senior theatre director being heavily unfriendly, antagonistic, and even ableist to Connor and June which almost prompted the cat to leave as a member of the club. Fortunately, the junior theatre club director had a different view and attitude towards Connor and June and was more than eager for the cat to join, having seen the cats acting skills the junior director saw the potential of the forest cats acting and recruited him for his first roll in one of the musicals. With the senior directors (early) retirement Connor and June would act in different rolls and theatre plays trough the years of secondary school.
When reaching the age of sixteen the cats parents admitted to their son, that they are in fact not, his biological parents but had adopted him which led for some time to a fallout between him and his parents as well as him often staying with friends. Whilst both his mother and father assured him that they kept it for this long to themselves not for ill meaning but rather being ashamed of how his biological parents threated and acted towards their new. Leading his mother who was a friend of his parents, breaking up the contact with them. The northern forest cat was still hurt by for how long his parents have kept this information from him. Resulting in him not trusting them for some time.
Searching for his biological parents to get closure, Connor and June experienced by himself just how distant his biological parents are to him by when he finally had the strength to meet with them, his “parents” send out their butler at the manor to tell him to go away and not to return. Over time the fallout with his adoptive parents got resolved and Connor and June sees them as their true parents for how they cared and loved him going so far that when his biological parents suddenly passed away he did not accept the inheritance that lawfully would he had the right to claim. Making his reclusive younger sibling the sole heir.
Having passed his final exam Conjune decided to take a different path. Despite his liking for musicals and other forms of theatrical plays, the wasted potential of space exploration around his home-planet and their solar system inspired the cat to enlist into a studying program for aerospace engineering which he passed a few years later. With the degree of an Aerospace engineer and the lessons of business economics and business management, Connor and June had the requirements to open his own aerospace manufacturing and space transportation company which he called “Twin Wing Corp.”
The search for co-workers and investors was stressful and tiring, being able to convince people to invest their money for a company that brought people and satellites into space was a tiring task. Thanks to his dedication, hard work and success in bringing experimental equipment and construction parts alike, Connor and June stand out as a reliable head of the company pleasing his investors and fans for space exploration alike
Currently Connor and June are planning for a manned space exploration to their neighbour planet that he and many others are eager to explore since it is the planet with the highest habitability next to their own home world.
~~~~~~
Special Thanks: I would like to thank @freakova who read this character sheet beforehand and not only helped me improving my writing but also gave great input for Connor and June. Many thanks to her for giving me the encouragement to write and publish this Sonic OC.
this might be a strange question but what goes into becoming a teacher? i've been thinking about becoming a teacher and i'm nervous even though it's something i really think i want to do and i'm curious as to how you go about becoming one like what courses/requirements do you need to take and how do you come up with a lesson plan and everything? and how did you know teaching was something you wanted to do or realize it was something you would be good at?
hm well i can only tell you about my own experience, which i would say is probably pretty unorthodox, but it’s been working really well for me!
so i’ve been working on a masters in teaching for english/language arts grades 5-12 from western governors university, which is an (accredited) online program for aspiring teachers who need to be licensed as teachers in general as well as certified/endorsed in their particular subject areas. depending on what you want to teach, there are a couple of undergrad teaching degrees they offer (i believe it’s elementary ed, special ed, and a couple of different math and science programs), but to do like language arts or social studies etc, you’d need to have a bachelors degree to qualify -- though i also did my bachelors at wgu (in business management sdklfdjskdflsjd i hated it) so it doesnt need to be education-related or anything
if you wanna know more about my particular program let me know, bc it works fairly unusually but is a legitimate post-secondary educational institution and is also incredibly affordable, and idk what i’d be doing if i hadnt found out that it existed lmao
but so yeah idk what an education undergrad would consist of, but for my program in particular there were a lot of english content classes, obviously, like secondary disciplinary literacy, english pedagogy, secondary reading instruction and interventions, stuff like that
and then there were a lot of more generalized pedagogical courses, like educational assessment, foundational perspectives of education, classroom management, fundamentals of diversity and inclusion, principles of psychology: child and adolescent development, and stuff like that
again, this is just based on my own experience, but re: lesson plans, i actually just had some assignments for my courses where i had to write them and justify the thought process behind the decisions i made! like in my english pedagogy course, i had to write 3 essays (one for a literature-based lesson, one for a grammar-based lesson, and one for a writing-based lesson), and in each essay there was a section where i had to plan an entire lesson using their lesson plan format, and then explain and justify why i made each choice that i made.
i’m starting student-teaching next semester, as soon as we get back from winter break, and i assume i’ll get more practice with lesson-planning through that, but basically it kind of comes down to like...figuring out the standards your students are supposed to reach, then figuring out how you’re going to break them down into a curriculum, and then for each lesson you figure out what objectives/goals you want your students to reach by the end, and you figure out how to present the material and then assess in some way whether or not the students understand it. once you know what the purpose of a lesson plan is (whether re: the idea of lesson plans in general, or a specific lesson plan you’re working on), the rest is just figuring out how to achieve that purpose. and it comes with practice! and trial and error, and figuring out what works and doesnt work with your own teaching style and in your classroom, etc. ik that’s super vague but so much of it depends of the parameters you’re given—like while i’m student-teaching i won’t be picking the books we read, so i’ll already have that requirement figured out for me, yknow?
as for your last question, my mom has been teaching my whole life, and my dad started teaching when i was about 10. my aunt is also a teacher, and my other aunt is a speech-language pathologist, so. i grew up around teachers kfjsldkfjs
i’ve just always liked explaining things to people and helping them understand them! i think really what it comes down to is that i just have a lot of passion and a lot of things to say sldfksjdkflj like i really do believe that english/language arts in particular is applicable in all parts of life, because all people communicate. i can’t speak for like. calculus or biology or whatever, but 99.9999% of people will need to do some sort of reading, and some sort of writing and/or speaking and/or communication of some type or another, and for all of the “the curtains are just blue!!!” whiners out there, it’s crucial to know how to communicate with others, and to understand what others are attempting to communicate to you, and i can’t think of a single scenario in which that isn’t the case.
plus like, idk a single person who doesn’t like some form of story, whether through tv shows or movies or books or plays or podcasts or video games etc etc etc, and imo those can all be enhanced and made even better by having some sort of background knowledge of storytelling as an art, or as a process, or as an established medium with its own structures and intertextual lexicon etc! like the more i read about the art and history of storytelling, the more i enjoy movies and tv shows (which i already love and watch frequently), bc storytelling isn’t just a textual medium!
tbh part of the reason i think i’m good at explaining things is because i grew up in an emotionally abusive household, and i learned very early on how to anticipate the way another person (usually my dad lol) would interpret something i said to him, regardless of what i actually meant by it. so i subconsciously learned to apply that skill to other people, and now i’ve got sort of a knack for being able to cater my explanations to different people based on how i think they’ll best understand the information, and not just in a classroom setting—like i sometimes serve as a mediator/”interpreter” when my sister and my dad are having difficult conversations, because i know them both well enough, and the way they think well enough, that when one of them says something, i can usually understand both their intention AND how the other person is going to interpret it, and i can rephrase or explain things so miscommunication doesn’t end up making the problem worse
so in a classroom, i can explain things in several different ways, and if i’m working one-on-one with different kids i can usually figure out what isn’t clicking and can try another way to explain it. also bc my adhd brain processes information by making connections to other things i already know, i’m particularly good at coming up with (often unusual) metaphors or analogies for things, and people are like “oh wow ok that’s a weird way to explain it but i definitely get it now” and stuff
so basically i’ve learned bc of necessity how to communicate more effectively with others, and because i want everyone else to get the enjoyment out of language arts that i do, i’m drawn to teaching because i hope to help the students find at least some area of it that they’re interested in, and to show them that literature/storytelling/communication aren’t just about reading old boring books written by racist white dudes who hated women, but about learning to represent and interpret and take part in the human experience, because the foundation of any sort of society is communication, and that very basic desire to be understood by others
so even when i didnt actively Want To Be A Teacher it was always kinda in the back of my mind like “well if i dont find anything else i wanna do, i can always be an english teacher” bc most of my favorite teachers growing up were english teachers, and even at my absolute worst i did just fine in those classes, even when i hadnt read the books we were discussing (which was most of the time jsdklfsjd which is now kind of a problem for me as a teacher so i do think i shot myself in the foot there but oh well, i was 14)
anyway, as usual that got super long, but i hope it was helpful! lemme know if you have any other questions :)
I’m reading my psych eval and my parents did the exact opposite of all the advice in here let’s take a look
“create a stable and consistent schedule”
they didn’t
“cognitive behavioral therapy”
they didn’t
“outpatient therapy”
they didn’t
“assist him to build self esteem”
they sure as hell didn’t
“familial environment will continue to most likely provide the most positive outcome”
It didn’t
“all interventions should be provided in a reassuring, positive, and calm manner with the intention of building his self esteem, if these are to have a positive effect on him. Use of teaching approaches that create shame, embarrassment, or anxiety will be unsuccessful“
They took the exact opposite of this advice
They confused “social praise, tokens, treats, participation in desired activities, etc” with “verbal abuse, confiscating anything [deadname] likes, canceling all activities except the ones he doesn’t like”
Also I don’t have a quote but it stressed giving me lots of breaks and said it’s useless to make me work when I stop focusing but they apparently read that as “even if he’s begging to stop, don’t even let him get up for a glass of water.”
“reduce significantly the amount of homework he is expected to complete in order to avoid exhausting him” apparently means “give him extra work that’s completely unnecessary and tell him if he doesn’t do it they’ll force him to clean toilets/draw a black x on his face/etc” (they actually did say that. And I asked why I never saw anyone else being punished like that they said noone else behaves as horribly as me)
“re-evaluation in 3 years”
Lol nope
“provide a quiet spot”
The dining room, in the center of the house, listening to all the yelling while I do my homework, perfect.
“tutor”
both my brothers got one but I never did
God I’m sick of reading this. It’s like they actively attempted to make me suffer. And what’s worse is they can’t even claim ignorance. My brother got fucking tons of special help. So much of my childhood was spent in the waiting room of one of his tutors or speech therapists or whatever other programs he was in idek. My mom took so many classes on helping kids with dyslexia and autism (his problems) that she actually ended up working with special needs kids at my local elementary school after she retired because she had taken it upon herself to learn all about different strategies for helping him.
Not me tho lol “maybe if we yell louder and more aggressively he’ll finally be able to focus”
also the report explicitly stated that I’m developing anxiety and depression and it will only get worse without treatment and them, like, stopping yelling at me all the time, and then 3 years later when I was suicidal they were all “where did we go wrong? Where were the signs? Why are you doing this to us?”
