From Being Sick to talking about Mari's Development

Isabella is sick since Sunday. Since she has no symptoms of having a cold or any other respiratory disease, we thought it could be a urinary track infection. The lab results said she does have an infection.

Yesterday we took her to the urologist since this is the third month in a row that she gets an infection. I am a little worried. Apparently bacteria has become resistant to the prophilactic (daily antibiotic in small doses to prevent infections) she takes daily. So now it needs to be changed.

Today she didn't go to class. She spent all morning with me. She watched a little bit of tv and then we started in our daily study routine. I am so excited to watch Maria Isabella learn to read, count, recognize numbers, and add.

This has been a very difficult process. I think perseverance and patience were and still are the key factors to succeed. This reminds me of something I learned in my Behavior and Classroom Management course I took last February. It was on Differentiated Instruction. Bu what is Differentiated Instruction? Carol Ann Tomlison says it best:

"In differentiated classrooms, teachers provide specific ways for each individual to learn as deeply as possible, without assuming one student's road map for learning is identical to anyone else's. These teachers believe that students should be held to high standards. Teachers work diligently to ensure that struggling, advanced, and in-between students think and work harder that they meant to, achieve more that they thought they could, and come to believe that learning involves effort, risk, and personal triumph. These teachers also work hard to ensure that each student consistently experiences the reality that success is likely to follow hard work."

I also love these quotes provided to us by the professor:

"The biggest mistake of past centuries in teaching has been to treat all children as if they were variants of the same individual and then to feel justified in teaching them all the same way." Howard Gardner

"To learn a pasticular concept, some children need days; some ten minutes, but the typical lockstep school schedules ignores this fact." Maryling Hughes

"When a teacher tries to teach something to the entire class at the same time, chances are, one-third of the kids already know it; one third will get it; and the remaining third won't. So two-thirds of the class are wasting their time." Lillian Katz

I really believe in Differentiated Instruction. I believe it promotes full inclusion of all kinds of students in one class.  It helps to build up self-esteem. It certainly means harder work for the teacher, but it also means greater benefits for the students.  I think Maria Isabella would greatly benefit from a Differentiated Classroom.

By the way I'm in the process of looking for the best school for Maria Isabella. I am looking for a school with adequate accessibility and one who is willing to implement and IEP program for her (Individualized Education Program), which goes hand in hand with Differentiated Instruction.

I think I already found a school for her. What I don't like is that Marce and Mari won't be in the same school together. What I like though is that it is a fully inclusive school. They even have a child with down syndrome. I like it that it is a catholic school, although it is opus dei which I think are a little to extremist. And although the school is new in Nicaragua it comes from School Association AFE that has existed in other countries for many years.

I really hope that when they build their new school they take into account Maria Isabella's accessibility needs. In fact, they already have a little girl with only one arm and no legs on a wheelchair. This brings more hope to me in that the school would be built taking this girl and my daughter into consideration.

And finally, I would like to share some videos of Mari reading and practicing adding with repetition which is an aspect of neuronet.....watch her: