How is your summer going? My kids’ preschool teacher, Mrs. Callahan used to look for scrapes and bug bites to determine if the kids were having a good one--evidence that they were getting outside and having fun. 

After a year plus of COVID griefs, fears and stress, I’m thinking we Indiana educators may need a different measure than how many boxes of bandaids we’ve purchased to determine the quality of our summer. The bumps and bruises on our psyche are evident and it’s time to stay off of the monkey bars for a day or two.

My turn to write the blog for PATINS staff is coinciding with a vacation to Lake Michigan. Our plan was to:

1. Find a place close to the beach.
2. Stare out at the waves.
3. Resist the urge to make other plans

So far, we’ve accomplished steps one and two, but step 3 was derailed by the fact that we forgot a couple of crucial items—I forgot my prescription and the teen girls forgot their bathing suits. So we’ve spent more time in CVS and Meijer than staring at the lake. One of the teens whose birthday is today started throwing up yesterday evening. Our rental is really nice so we may just huddle here with all of the chocolate that we somehow remembered to pack. (Update: she’s recovered on day 2!)

I do not wish a barfing teenager on you at all to force you to slow down, but I do hope that you are making room for some “nothing” time in your summer. Research shows that our brains need down time in order to reset and come up with new pathways. Rest is essential for creativity. I’ve been working on content for new trainings to present for this school year with my focused brain in the past few weeks, but this week I’m letting my diffuse brain take the jet ski handlebars and drive. 

I know when I return to my laptop next week, I'll revise with some fresh ideas.

Are you focusing on your return to the classroom this fall? Take some time to walk, meditate or just stare blankly. If you find yourself mopping a bathroom floor in the middle of the night, prepare yourself for the jolt of creativity that only comes when you make some room for eureka. 

If your idea keeps floating around and you need some help pinning it down, give one of our specialists a call. Check out our professional development guide or training calendar for opportunities to learn something new. Registration is open for our PATINS A2E state fall conference. At PATINS we strive to practice the UDL methods that we preach and encourage creativity and participation for a deeper learning experience.

We have a wonderful opportunity to frame this coming school year with all of the new strategies we’ve discovered through this challenging time. Join me and the PATINS staff in creating new opportunities for Indiana students.

It is my blog time again. Not moving too far from what I have blogged in the past regarding my grandchildren, I am keeping it in the family. Today, I am going to share a tidbit about myself.

I LOVE listening to music. I find comfort in the sounds, the melodies, and instruments used, but really enjoy the lyrics and the stories told.

I have an abundance of song lyrics memorized to a wide variety of tunes. There are a lot of lyrics that have special meanings that conjures up memories of a time or place or event. This is not unique to me; we all experience those moments when a song starts.

Over and over, I sing along, word for word…. or though I thought! Let me give you a couple examples.

I was late in arriving to listening to AC/DC. I found them of value when I wanted some upbeat music to listen to while working out. “Thunderstruck” is quite motivating. I began listening to AC/DC a little more. I had listened to their song “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” several times. It was not until I came across the written lyrics, that I realized I had missed a couple words.

The refrain is “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap”, but I heard “Dirty deeds and the Dunder Chief.” That is what I head. I knew what the song was about, and I even knew the title of the song. BUT I heard “Dirty deeds and the Dunder Chief.”

If I had been that wrong with an AC/DC song, what other songs could I have been mis-lyricing? Probably plenty. Was I the only one that thought Dunder Chief was the lyric? It turns out, I am not. In polling several others, they shared a similar Dunder Chief experience with this popular song. How could others have had such a similar version of a song, when the lyrics are in the title, but be so misguided by what they heard?

When you listen to a lot of music, this type of thing must happen all the time. My wife shared with me that she and some friends came to Indianapolis for an Eagles concert in high school. The question was asked, “What is your favorite Eagles song?” “Hotel California”, “Desperado”, “Flies in the Vaseline”? Yep, someone thought “Life in the Fast Lane” was “Flies in the Vaseline”. Makes Dunder Chief sound mild.

I have since found other songs that I had the lyrics a bit off the mark, but this old dog is not in the mood to be lyrically correct after all these years. Besides, that is the way I heard the song, and why take that away from the experience.

Here are a handful of other lyrical mistakes people have shared and how subtle they are, me included:

'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen

What people thought: “Saving his life from this warm sausage tea”
What the lyrics are: “Spare him his life from this monstrosity”

'Paradise City' by Guns N’ Roses

What people thought: “Take me down to a very nice city”
What the lyrics are: “Take me down to the Paradise City”

'Livin’ on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi

What people thought: “It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not”
What the lyrics are: “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not”

'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix

What people thought:"'Scuse me while I kiss this guy,"
What the lyrics are: "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky,"

What people thought: "Don't bring me down, Bruce."

What the lyrics are: "Don't bring me down, groose."

“Helen Wheels” by Paul McCartney and Wings

What people thought: “Hell on, hell on wheels”
What the lyrics are: “Helen, Helen Wheels”

What people thought: "I miss the rains down in Africa."
What the lyrics are: "I bless the rains down in Africa."

'Blinded by the Light' by Bruce Springsteen

What people thought: “Wrapped up like a douche, another rumor in the night.”
What the lyrics are: “Revved up like a Deuce, another runner in the night.”

“Money for Nothin’” by Dire Straits

What people thought: “Money for nothin’ and your chips for free.”
What the lyrics are: “Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.”

What people thought: “He just smiled and gave me a bite of my sandwich.”
What the lyrics are: “He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.”

It is easy to chuckle at some of the things people sing, but that is just the way they heard it. I bet some folks were laughing at me!

So, think back on some lyrics you might have thought you knew, but they seem odd now that you sing them. Just keep singing!

Dirty deeds and the Dunder Chief…

Failing “The Stranger Test” means you’ve failed a student, and that failure can mean, literally, life and death

My first year writing Individual Education Plans (IEPs) an administrator coached me in “The Stranger Test.” I would argue it was one of the hardest ongoing writing assignments I will ever have: everything you ever learned in graduate school, all the jargon and technical language, hide it. Write and communicate in such a way that a stranger on the street would understand what you mean.

It’s important because in practice, failing “The Stranger Test” means you’ve failed a student, and that failure can mean, literally, life and death.

A student I got to work with for a few years had moved across the state. I got a friendly email from the new team asking if I could help them out. When I recognized the student, I asked about the  Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools that he had been using at his previous  school.

“He has specific AAC tools? All the IEP says is that he gets ‘high and low tech AAC.’”

What in the world could that mean?

1. A picture of snack choices and an eye gaze controlled computer
2. An alphabet board and an iPad with any random app.
3. The cases of DVDs from his video collection and the Speak & Spell from my childhood.

All of those would satisfy the legal document. Yet none would match what this student had been using for years, the only way the team had figured out how to help him communicate what he wanted and gave him access to his education.

Why had the IEP been written in such a way that one of our most vulnerable students potentially lost all of his access to language? The most common answer I hear: “I was told not to name the exact brand/type of device in the Assistive Technology box.”

In the words of the greatest movie of 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean, the unwritten rule about not naming brands is “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” Individually, with the case conference committee, consider what the student needs and be clear about the features. In some cases, one and only one specific language system or product may meet that student’s needs and it may need to be named. For other students, several options might be appropriate, and then it’s critical to name the features that make that tool successful for that student, and “high and low technology” is not professional vocabulary for a stranger test.

In other words: the language systems of Proloquo2Go and LAMP Words for Life are not interchangeable for many students. The language system that is only available in iOS is not often interchangeable for whatever language system that can be found on a Chromebook. They might both be “high tech AAC” but for many people it’s like exchanging German for Mandarin. That change move might mean the difference between being able to communicate pain, needs, and accessing education and not. It might mean the difference between life and death.

Of course, we at PATINS have nothing but good news:

If you need help, a friendly stranger for your stranger test, PATINS is here with Specialists to assist you in making sure that you accurately describe the features in the tools your team has trialed. If your student has outgrown those tools and you’re looking for something new, we are here for that too!

Also, I have created a list of common feature terminology used in Augmentative and Alternative Communication tools with descriptions of what they mean, a little study aid for your ongoing Stranger Tests.

The hardest writing assignment of your life, the one in which the futures of children rest in the words you choose, is a living, breathing group assignment. Don’t hesitate to reach out if PATINS can help.