Tips for Special Ed families in High School

Here is a comment I posted to a blog about preparing for an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting:

Here’s is a tip I heard about in a meeting of Disabilities Services Coordinators from a number of Universities and Community Colleges in Pittsburgh:

If you have a child who is a Junior or Senior in high school and you are tracking them for a specific community college or university, invite the Special Education Coordinator (or whatever they are called at that school) to one of your IEP meetings. This allows them to get an idea of how your family works, what the child’s educational environment has been and what their current development is. This allows your family and their office to work much more efficiently and smoothly to make your child’s post-secondary school experience as successful as possibly.

w00t for working inside a complex system!

Inspirational Quote:

Your official job title is “NerdHerder”. What does that entail?

Until we can get the electrodes wired into their seats, I’m forced to pace around my team with a big stick.
Atlassian Blog

Some things that work (Part 2)

This is related to my last post on Linda Hereshoff’s Special Education program at Jordan Middle School.

The next program that I would like to bring up is NYLC (or, the National Young Leaders Conference). This was lot of fun but more importantly, it was illuminating and well conceived. I had the chance to play a Representative, a Supreme Court Justice and a policy analyst–in the process discovering I love legal research.

Through the same program I will be attending the Presidential Inauguration in January.

The program is run like a sped-up session of Congress. The entire Conference was structured around a piece of legislation, bit of which were Amended and presented by student teams. Our legislation covered “safety”; ie, everything from terrorism to gun control.

Presenting policy was a blast. Me and another student were in charge of presenting modifications to federal weapon’s laws. He and I got the job because we were the only people in our group of 20 who had ever fired a gun. He was from rural Alabama so once I convinced him the restrictions were necessary, we had honed our arguments for the general caucus’s Amendment approval process.

I particularly remember presenting our Amendment in front of the committee–made up of other students–and caucus without my notes because I had had to give them to the committee unexpectedly. I had had to hand-write out 3 copies 10 minutes before my presentation so I basically had them memorized. Therefore, when a committee member asked for some piece of minutiae evidence I gave him chapter and verse of it from my notes.

The whole caucus went “oh!”.

The Amendment was accepted 40 to 2 in favor in my caucus.

My boyfriend, Matthew, attended another session of NYLC as well as the follow up Law Forum:

NYLC (especially the law forum) was an excellent educational experience for me. It gave a more in depth look at our government and legal system, not just by telling us how it functioned, but by inviting prestigious speakers and letting us enact demonstrations of our own, and thus showing us.

These programs require teacher or student referrals and cost a lot of money, but they are impressively run and a great deal of fun.

Inspiration Quote:

It would not be possible for Noah to do in our day what he was permitted to do in his own…The inspector would come and examine the Ark, and make all sorts of objections.
-Mark Twain “About All Kinds of Ships,” 1892

Some things that work (1 of 3)

I spend a lot of my time working through and within programs that don’t work. I am sure many of you do as well. So I think it is important to praise those who do well. I think a good system is one which is effective, efficient, and kind. In that spirit, I picked out one today (probably more later):

Linda Herreshoff’s program in the Palo Alto Unified School District’s Junior High School, Jordan Middle School. She works with students on the Autism Spectrum including students with Aspergers and other high functioning kids. Linda is a lifesaver for students with disabilities–her work has improved so many lives in this area it’s difficult to give her enough credit. From classes on how to tell jokes to working with parents to forming solid relationships with students (who, like all 11-13 years olds can be prickly critters). She is a wonderful teacher and person.

Inspirational Quote:

“You see, Asperger’s is unlike other ‘visual’ conditions. You can tell if a child is physically handicapped, you can tell if a child has Downs Syndrome - simply by looking at them. But an Asperger’s child looks COMPLETELY NORMAL! It’s what’s happening on the inside that is their detriment. If they tantrum, act out inappropriately, or do things that other children typically don’t do - it just looks like their parents are to blame for failure to ‘bring them up right’ or ‘discipline them correctly’. So again, my goal is not only to help Evan and others like him, but it’s also to help the general public know more about these types of pervasive development disorders.” Liller Family Blog

Other Story-Archs (Part 2)

I was surprised at Al Jazeera’s coverage of “Israel at 60″. While Al Jazeera often linked with terrorism by the Bush Administration (according to Al Jazeera and the British newspaper the Daily Mirror) they usually don’t get any cred for good reporting or interesting perspectives. Their three part series on Israel at 60 is not the standard fair I saw at CMU which was a lot of stuff about Israeli culture and free food and “never forget”. Al Jazeera is more negative, their story-arch emphasizes faulty assumptions of historical Zionism (”Zionist mythology has propagated the idea that Palestine was a barren and scarcely inhabited land. But that was far from true. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had lived for centuries in the land that Jews were now laying claim to”) and the plight of the Palestinians.

Same image, different coloring.

What is fascinating is how this story-arch feels so different from others found on Israel’s 60th B-Day. It has many of the same threads–worries about Israeli Arabs, interest in the movement from the socialist kibbutz system to modern capitalism, questions about Israel’s identity–but the coloring of those threads (the tone of the piece) changes the effect utterly.

Al Jazeera’s English edition is not always beautifully written (like the New York Times) or neutrally written (like the Economist tries to be) but it is surely one of the most interesting news sites on the web because of its solid writing and reporting perspective.

Inspirational Quote:

Today, Malcolm’s online reporting and many others’ like it do offer such information sooner — perhaps even too much of it. He is operating in a whole new world in which deadlines are minute-by-minute; reader comment is swift and often severe; and the tools range from audio and video to BlackBerrys and laptops.

It is ’round the clock — it’s demanding,” says Malcolm, 64. Not only is the process of delivering political news via blogs a lot faster than traditional models, “it is a lot more unpredictable,” he adds.

Andrew Malcolm on blogging

Other Story Archs (Part 1)

I have been thinking about story archs for some of the scholarship applications I am looking at (how do I tell a coherent story about my interests in 500 words of less) and also reading a lot of news. Because of this I got curious about how other regions’ news sources tell the same story as US/European sources at the same time. For example, I had been hearing about a picture which captivated the Chinese Blogosphere (or at least part of it) of the handicapped athlete having the Olympic Torch ripped away from her by a Tibet protester (US news sources called them “free Tibet” protesters. China Daily, where I got this picture, called them “Tibetan separatists”). It’s the kind of meme which shows up so many places it is hard to track. I have seen this one mentioned in comments on articles and blogs, but it took me a while to finally find a copy of it:

(In case this was horrific enough, the man pushing her wheelchair in a blind athlete. yeah.)

This story focused on the valor of the athlete and the violence of the protesters. I guess with all of the news this week, the Paris protests seemed more outrageously aggressive than violent (no one fired into the crowd and no one was killed). China Daily also made no mention of the powder-puff blue garbed Chinese guards (the Economist called them “thugs”) who menaced protesters (ineffectually it seems) away from the athletes in Paris and San Francsico.

Next time: Al Jazeera’s take on Israel at 60 is surprisingly balanced.

Inspirational Quote:

“He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.” about Andrew Malcolm

Hilary v Barak–post response to MSNBC article

This is something I posted to the MSNBC article “Hilary: Obama is out of touch with families”. There’s a lot of vitriol against either Hilary or Barak by supporters of the other in the comments for news stories like this and I wanted to say my piece about how we need to structure the debate to come out of this contest with a Democrat in the White House. Enjoy!

Perhaps I am being silly here, but who here support[s] John McCain?

Anyone?

Going once…

Fine.

So, rather than trying to find the most effective way to put down Hilary (she doesn’t have a normal family because her husband cheats and her daughter overachieves. Well, anyone seen the divorce rate or the growth in women attending Law and Med school? Husbands (and wives) cheat and their children fight their way to the top. Her family outline seems pretty darn normal to me) or the best way to put down Barak (out of touch. Well, yes, all three of the candidates are millionaires. I don’t care what their personal net worth is if they support the policies I support).

How about we distinguish how they will beat John McCain, because right now he’s the lumbering turtle in this rabbit race and to be effective in November both candidates must finds ways to distinguish themselves by beating *him* down.

Clinton doesn’t want to spend 100 years in Iraq.

Obama doesn’t want to overturn Roe V Wade and bring coat-hangers into the bathrooms of our daughters, mothers and wives.

McCain is the real enemy, I am cool with passionate debate but I know come November, I will vote for *anyone* rather than John McCain.

Both candidates do it for me.

I still support Clinton. However now every argument I have with my Obama friends always ends with “but I will vote for either rather than John McCain, who hates babies”.

(Btw, I say John McCain hates babies because he would rather they be born and then starved, beaten or microwaved to death than that they be aborted. Sounds like hate to me).

See, I don’t mind being vitriolic when it is against a candidate whose view on abortion, equal rights and proper military deployment are anathema to me.

Inspirational Quote:

But language is a treacherous thing, a most unsure vehicle, and it can seldom arrange descriptive words in such a way that they will not inflate the facts–by help of the reader’s imagination, which is always ready to take a hand and work for nothing, and do the bulk of it at that.
- Mark Twain Following the Equator

Things I don’t care about in this presidential race

Top 3 things which I don’t care about:

1. The cost of any of the candidate’s haircuts
2. Any of their pastors’s soundbytes, co-professors’s political actions, or spouse’s affairs
3. Their clothing

There are so many interesting issues–health care, tuition afford ability, constitutional preservation–that these quick print issues are just, well, irritating.

Inspirational Quote:

“Everyday throughout America, the Overspeeder runs over somebody and ‘escapes.’ That is the way it reads. At present the ‘mobile numbers are so small that ordinary eyes cannot read them, upon a swiftly receding machine, at a distance of a hundred feet–a distance which the machine has covered before the spectator can adjust his focus. I think I would amend the law. I would enlarge the numbers, and make them readable at a hundred yards. For overspeeding–first offence–I would enlarge the figures again, and make them readable at three hundred yards–this in place of a fine, and as a warning to pedestrians to climb a tree.”
- Mark Twain, “Overspeeding,” Harper’s Weekly, 11/5/1905 (from a letter to the editor dated 10/18/1905)

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Ok, this looks pretty hilarious. Somehow these two goofballs (ok, they’re actually intense actors but they usually play goofballs) have managed to take some of the most contentious issues of today–Guantanamo bay, racial profiling, racism, police and governmental bias, airport security, citizen’s rights, and include them in a real way in a movie about two college students going to Amsterdam to get high.
However the only pickle in the pudding came when I tried to view an alternate trailer–because the first one was hilarious and I wanted more free funnies. When I clicked on it I got the following message:

You little pervert, are you over 17?

The MPAA has concluded that this film contains some adult content (theme, language, violence, nudity, sex and drug use are among the contents considered). In order to show you these materials, we must verify that you are aged 17 years or older.

To ensure verification, please provide information as it is listed on your current Driver’s License or State-issued ID.

First Name:
Last Name:
Date of Birth:
Zip Code:

By clicking the “submit” button, I agree that I am at least 17 years of age, I authorize you to confirm my age by checking the accuracy of the information I have submitted against the government-issued identification, and I agree to the Terms of Use government this website.

To the information
First: “Heck”
Last: “No”
DOB: “121280″
Zipcode: “94303″

I received the message “Sorry, we can not verify your age/identity at this time…”

Now, back when Congress was trying to legislate morality with the Children’s Defense Act, the Children’s Internet Protection Act and the Child Online Protection Act. From Reno v ACLU (1997) we get this quote:

“Commercial pornographic sites that charge their users for access have assigned them passwords as a method of age verification. The record does not contain any evidence concerning the reliability of these technologies. Even if passwords are effective for commercial purveyors of indecent material, the District Court found that an adult password requirement would impose significant burdens on noncommercial sites, both because they would discourage users from accessing their sites and because the cost of creating and [*857] maintaining such screening systems would be “beyond their reach.” (Page 15)

So the Supreme Court of the United States has already said age verification is not a viable form of CYA for purveyors of censored material. I believe this technology may still “impose significant burdens on noncommercial sites” but Harold and Kumar has money to spend. I believe because this is censorship imposed by the MPAA, it is unamerican but not illegal. However the greater issue for met is the statement “I authorize you to confirm my age by checking the accuracy of the information I have submitted against the government-issued identification” because that means a third party, for-profit business with no legal mandate my personally identifying information–apparently a form of my US ID.

My information is verified by Integrity Services who say they get their information:

“Using publicly available data that is digitized, indexed, formatted, and enhanced with other commercial data sources, Integrity uses the Aristotle COSMOS™ global database to power its age and id verification solutions. We provide full coverage for the United States and coverage for 157 nations abroad.” (FAQ: What are your data sources?)

There is a database with the first, last, birthday and current zipcode availible which is easily accessible to some random company? Because here’s the thing: I live a lot of places. My name has changed in the past few years. How often is this information updated? What right have they to keep my information? Maybe this is all naive, but I am so not ok having people like this knowing where I am, when I was born etc–talk about identity theft.

So let’s review.

1. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay looks hilarious and politically stimulating.
2. Someone on their publicity team has decided to let the MPAA determine who visits parts of their sites.
3. The MPAA is forcing the implementation of a technology specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court as unreasonably restrictive (though since the case is over a decade old, maybe they figure the spirit is as outdated as the technology mentioned–bad news for the US legal system).
4. A for-profit company has a database of the personal identifying information of all US citizens and citizens of 157 other countries in a database so that our age can be verified so we can watch a movie with cussing and nudity.

Riiiiiight.

Inspirational Quote:

“Nothing will work unless you do.” - Maya Angelou

icanhascheezburger branches out to political/graph humor

When will Lolcats/Lolpolitics/Lolgraphs stop being funny? Because they still are. Here is the website that started/organized it all: ICanHasCheezburger:

see more crazy cat pics

Now for political wonks, there is a political humor version (which don’t imbed the same way as the other sites apparently):

More political pictures

There is a lot of sexist issues here (both Ann Coulter and Hilary Clinton are made fun of for being too masculine. *sigh*. But you know what? That’s a pretty accurate description of how both women are portrayed in some circles. Punditkitchen definitely has a liberal bent, but they make fun of all the candidates equally.

And for math/stats geeks, there is a graph version:

I love how a lot of these graphs are about music. I have to include a second one:

This is a graphical representation of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”.

Have fun!

Inspirational Quote:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Douglas Adams

MPAA doing well, still complaining about piracy

You know those threats from the FBI you watch every time you watch a movie (and which can’t be skipped)? The ones that completely ignore fair use–by definition an “unauthorized use of copyrighted material”. Well, in addition to those the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is constantly complaining about piracy to everyone from Congress to Comcast (see below). Here’s their front page today:

I like Lucky and Flo, the anti-piracy dogs.

With the exception of two ratings topics, everything on the front page is about piracy. From the way they’re carrying on, you would think that they are loosing money by the aircraft-carrier load. Not so. This year they posted record earnings (again):

The domestic box office continued to grow in 2007, reaching $9.63 billion after a 5.4% gain.

Domestic theater admissions held steady at 1.4 billion tickets in 2007.

In 2007, the average price of a movie ticket in the U.S. rose to $6.88, a 5% increase over 2006

So, not so much with the poverty and woe. And if you click on the link entitled “MPAA’s Dan Glickman Comments on Comcast and BitTorrent Agreement on Network Management” (which I wish I had not clicked on since it was a sneak-attack-pdf-download) you will find that they are doing something with Comcast and BitTorrent to combat piracy.

For non-total tech-policy wonks, this oblique press release refers to the packet-forging which the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s been tracking since September. Basically Comcast decided it could pick and choose which applications, protocols and forms of encryption it would transfer–without telling its customers. They have since backed off–which makes the MPAA’s continued pride over their “agreement” sound just as out of date as their business model.

All in all, let’s hope for collective licensing and pay for those weekly NetFlix.

Inspirational Quote:

“A human being should be able to
change a diaper,
plan an invasion,
butcher a hog,
conn a ship,
design a building,
write a sonnet,
balance accounts,
build a wall,
set a bone,
comfort the dying,
take orders,
give orders,
cooperate,
act alone,
solve equations,
analyze new problems,
pitch manure,
program a computer,
cook a tasty meal,
fight efficiently,
die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.”
– Robert A. Heinlein