iMatter

I attended a 2 day conference this week on Mental Wellness in Ontario Schools. It was an incredible experience. The message was loud and clear - mental health is a major concern in society today, particularly amongst our youth. 1 in 5 people are expected to be faced with a mental illness in their lifetime and anti-stigma campaigns are popping up everywhere, trying to dispel the myths and encourage people to talk.

The more that people discuss anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc., the less taboo these terms will become, hopefully encouraging people to reach out for help. There are hopes that mental health issues will be discussed in schools through the health curriculum and character education, building empathy and creating networks of support for children and adolescents with these invisible disorders. Two high schools were showcased for their dynamic anti-stigma campaigns. These teenagers were amazing! They have won awards for their work in creating peer support groups, anti-stigma lessons for grade 9 students, mental health awareness weeks, flash mob dances, t-shirts, slide shows, newsletters, the list goes on and on with the most incredible of ideas. The program was called iMatter. Brilliant.

Another presentation I was moved by was on The Jack Project and Kids Help Phone. Eric Windeler is Jack's father and the man behind this anti-stigma program. Listening to him speak about his son's suicide was heartbreaking. He said he didn't want Jack's death to be in vain, so his family began fundraising to increase awareness about mental health issues. You can read more about The Jack Project by clicking on Jack's image.
Eric explained that less than 10% of funding for the Kids Help Phone comes from the government. This crisis line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it helps hundreds of children across Canada each day. Their largest fundraiser is titled Walk So Kids Can Talk. I signed up for our local 5K event as soon as I got home. If you would like to support this incredible cause, it would be greatly appreciated. My sponsor page is:
http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1411963

By far, the best part of the conference was listening to the speakers. Not the researchers, doctors, or agency reps, but the TAMI (Talking About Mental Illness) speakers. These are volunteers who share their stories with thousands of strangers each year in hopes that they will make a difference for just one person. There were 2 young women who spoke of their struggles with anxiety, depression, bi-polar, bulimia, cutting, suicide attempts, and of their recovery. They talked about being ashamed by how they felt, what is was like to lose 'friends' who didn't understand, the shattering of self-esteem each time they were called a 'freak' or 'crazy', how they hid their deepest, darkest secrets from the people closest to them...and then they spoke of the light that came when someone reached out, the comfort from family and friends, support from therapists, and discovering what they were experiencing had a name and that things could and would get better.

Both women received standing ovations. Not a dry eye in the room. They are heroes.

I took more away from this conference than I can put into words. I had so many ideas that my head felt like it was going to explode on Thursday night. I have a pile of papers, pages of notes, 20 brochures, and a whole summer to get things ready. Amazing things are going to happen.

The most important ideas I would like to share with you:

1. You cannot take care of others until you take care of yourself.
2. Think about the negative connotations of the words you use. We are all guilty of it. Words like 'crazy', 'nuts', 'psycho'...they can hurt as much as, 'retard', 'loser', and 'fat'.
3. Listen openly.
4. Sometimes you need to put the friend before the friendship in order to help.
5. Invisible disorders are incredibly frustrating to live with. People are afraid of what they cannot see and empathy is often replaced with criticism and judgement. Mental Health Disorders are real and they can be debilitating. Educate yourself. Advocate for those who can't. Be Kind.

Walk a mile in my shoes and then you can judge. 

The Ethics of Food

2008

I recently watched Food Inc., a documentary about the deplorable changes to the food industry in the United States, and subsequently in Canada. The most applicable lesson I learned from my university degree was the importance of being a critical consumer of information, so I will not quote lines or stats from the movie because I know that it is in its own way one-sided and does not reflect all farmers, companies, or products. I do believe after watching it and from reading holistic magazines and speaking with my naturopath that some parts of the film must be true. For that reason, I am more than disgusted at the state of our food industry.

I am certainly not as clean of an eater as I should be and I love fast food and sugar and chips as much as the next person who is well aware how terrible each one of those things are for them while scarfing them down. I wasn't surprised by the information in this category, after all it is well known that eating McDonald's is not healthy and I have seen Super Size Me. The concern comes from the low standards put on the everyday foods that I consume, the ones that I assumed were healthier choices based on labelling. Since watching the movie I have learned about Genetically Modified Foods, which are everywhere and that there is a special coating on apples that makes them storable for longer periods of time. Chickens aren't allowed to roam free and are force fed inside cages that are stored in hen houses without light, some cows are fed so much so fast that their legs cannot keep up with their weight causing them to be immobile. Hormones are added to milk. Pesticides are sprayed all over crops. If you have to wear a mask to spray it, shouldn't that be a sign in and of itself that maybe it shouldn't be used on food? The movie interviewed farmers who had law suits served by companies for refusal to comply with their inhumane rules and subsequently they went out of business. Did you know there is corn in batteries? Corn! Bigger and faster and making things out of GMO corn = big $$$. The brand names that I thought were reputable were put to shame. Marketing ploys revealed and I am left wondering how it got to be this bad? Who allowed this? My local health food store will not sell Burts Bees products because they are a company owned by Clorox. They do the research but how many of us do? And where do you go to find out this information?  

The recommendations for healthy and environmentally sustainable living were to eat locally, in-season, and organically whenever possible, and research the companies you choose to purchase from, which can prove to be as difficult as remembering how many times Victor Newman has been married. They suggest buying free-range, grain-fed meat and eggs and it turns out they are a lot harder to find than you'd think. It takes some serious investigative work to scope out these products and it costs a ludicrous amount to feed a family with them. Fast food is a whole lot cheaper, which is a point made in the movie. Parents stated that they knew it was not a healthy choice but they fed their kids Burger King value meals over vegetables from the supermarket because they would be fuller for longer. 

Why is it that what should be consumed as an occasional treat, such as pop or chips, is the norm because they are cheaper to eat than a salad and milk? Should it not be the other way around? When obesity and disease rates are skyrocketing, costing health care what I can only imagine is billions, why doesn't someone in the higher power world make it more affordable to eat healthy? Maybe try being preventative rather than reactive? I have never taken a corse in marketing, business, or economics, however, I would like to think common sense prevails here so I will go ahead and say that the governing bodies of food industry have it backwards and we are suffering from it. 

I know we all have choices to make but some people cannot afford to chose what they would prefer. When it is almost $6 for a dozen brown free-range, grain-fed, certified organic eggs and $10 for 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts of the same variety....well how does one feed a family when rising fuel costs are driving prices in all areas of living to increase and then jobs are being lost and no one is hiring? To buy kamut pasta with organic sauce does not make the budget cut when competing against a mortgage payment. Zoodles it is. Our local Easter Food Drive happened over the weekend and I was thinking to myself what would be better when I'm shopping for our contribution: fewer items with higher nutritional value which would only feed a few people, or a bag full of items with BPA-lined cans, GMOs, preservatives, and probably some variety of corn masked as flour, which would feed more people. 

What is the right thing to do in a society that values bigger and better over quality and process? I have made a more conscious effort to look for organic foods made in Ontario or at least Canada. I look at labels to see if I can pronounce the ingredients. I ask around for reputable stores and hope I am making the right choices. My grocery bills have increased a lot so I guess that means spending needs to be cut somewhere else. I'm assuming that will be my latte budget :(

Brennan eating his organic sugar-free cookies from the Easter Bunny

My Ride on The Spectrum

Do you know what tomorrow is? I've wanted to write a post on this topic for a while now but I didn't ever get to it. Tonight seemed only appropriate as tomorrow is Autism Awareness Day.

If I had known 5 years ago what I know today I would have approached some students much differently. I would have seen actions as reactions and not as 'behaviours'. I would have had more compassion and empathy and I certainly would have been a better advocate for my students. My class has changed quite a deal over the last 2 years and with it I have had to take off my ODD/Behaviour hat and put on a hat I never would have thought I'd want to wear as an educator. When I say this, it is not out of disrespect. It is the opposite actually. It is out of a profound respect for those who are gifted in working with this population. I did not see myself as one of these people 5 years ago. It turns out I love my new hat! It suits me just fine and that hat has made me a better person both professionally and personally.

Quite candidly...I was ignorant. Not in a rude way but in an uneducated way. Well if I'm going to be completely honest I was likely rude-ignorant too at times. Most people are when they are faced with something they know little about, something that would change their world and turn it upside down. You see children with Autism do not respond to the Cognitive Behaviour Programming I use the way students in a traditional Behaviour class do. That meant change in my world. Very big change in a world already riveting with constant change, one that I had fought hard to create. One I wanted to keep.

I resisted change.

I argued change.

I tried to get out of the change but I couldn't and as I believe that everything happens for a reason, I think the reason I didn't get a new position last June was so that I would learn. In my learning, I asked for many different professionals to come into my room and to be given professional development opportunities because I just didn't know how to program for children with Autism. It had never been my focus in Special Education. I think the pivotal point was when I met my current teaching partner and an Occupational Therapist who consulted with my School Board. Oh boy did I learn. And I changed. I stopped fighting the inevitable because I no longer had a traditional behaviour class. I had a class of children who were living somewhere on the Spectrum. And it turns out that I was way more ignorant than I had thought and for that, I apologize to my past students who I did not understand. And to their parents. And to the other Special Education personnel who tried to explain when I was not ready to listen. Some behaviours are not oppositional, but are sensory related reactions to the environment. It takes one child who does not respond to the programming in my class to completely change the dynamics. This may sound odd, but it is a fragile environment. I have learned more from teaching that student than I have from any book I've read.

I don't know current statistics for Canada, however I recently read that today 1 in 8 children will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States. My previous assumption of what Autism was and what it 'looked' like was what I saw in the media: Rain Man, Sheldon Cooper, and children who were non-verbal or echolaic. What I didn't know was who fit in between these media extremes. The students I teach today. My kids.

I have a renewed passion for teaching Special Education and I have a whole new interest in ASD. It turns out, children with Autism and I are a lot alike. We traditionally don't like change; we crave (and thrive) in a structured environment filled with routine and outlined expectations. We like activities to be closed-ended and we need frequent movement breaks. We struggle to sit still without something in our hands or some gum to chew unless we are really interested and motivated by what we are doing. We don't particularly care for new situations or people. Some noises are too loud and some lights are too bright. Some people stand way too close! We are usually anxious and obsessive compulsive about a lot of unknown things. We are smart and dedicated to our craft, whatever that may be. We'll tell you what we really think, even if you might not like it. Please know that I am not saying that I understand what it is like to have Autism or to parent a child with it, however, the rigid thinking and structure needed to reduce anxiety is something I can easily relate to. The more children with Autism that I get to know and teach, the more I understand. This builds empathy and the drive to make others aware of why these children 'behave' the way they do sometimes. Not as an excuse because I set high expectations and excuses get in the way of children reaching their full potential, but as a valid justification for negative reactions to what we as adults see as a normal situation.

I've learned that these children communicate differently and learn better through pictures. Social nuances don't make sense sometimes and they need explicit lessons to understand what most people seem to learn innately through observation. My work world has become full of transitions for the smallest of changes in our day, bags full of pictures and social stories, and an awareness of sensory input that I wish I had known 8 years ago when I first started teaching. I now look for and recognize environmental triggers. I plan for difficult days anticipating what might upset them such as a supply teacher or an early release day. I am careful with my movements, the pressure of my touch, how close I am. I make sure I don't wear perfume and that I am as consistent as possible. These small gestures make my students lives so much easier.

The most important lesson I've taken away from my time with my new class and the professionals is that the world can be a devastatingly harsh place for some children. But not for the reasons I once only considered. I sought out my position to provide support for those children who's harshness came in the form of abuse or neglect. Now I support those who experience a different type of harshness: that of their overhightened senses and trying to live in a world that does not often make sense to them. For these reasons, behaviours occur. Sometimes those behaviours are violent. Sometimes they are counterintuitive and immature for the child's age. Regardless of how they appear to me, those behaviours are an important form of communication. They are not a means to make me angry or to ruin my lesson. They are messages that something isn't right and as the adult, I need to do something about it. It took me a long time to see the difference between what I thought was placating and what is really environmental and sensory regulation. I apologize for all those times I got it wrong.

It is my job to control the environment for children who cannot yet do that for themselves. To explain why it is important to hold a door open for someone else or say sorry when you accidentally bump into someone. I get to help parents understand the importance of routines and I get to learn from parents what it is like to not be able to serve broccoli because of the smell. Most importantly, I learn something new from my students each and every day. Some days there are confirmations that I am doing it right and other days let me know that I need to change. Again. For children who generally hate change, they have certainly inspired me to change for the better.

Tomorrow, I will be sporting my new I Love Someone With Autism shirt courtesy of one of my parents. Wear blue to show your support and encourage awareness for families who are on their journeys with Autism. And the next time you see a kid throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery store, think twice before assuming it is 'bad' parenting and consider for a moment that it might be sensory overload.