What is the hill you're willing to die on?

After seizures and medical trauma, I knew I wanted to be in a position to give back. I thought I wanted to be a neurologist but medical issues and a seizure relapse side-lined my pre-med career. It was too stressful and intense for my current state (Biology and Chemistry + corresponding lab classes with 3 other classes? Talk about weeding out the weak in the first semester of pre-med).

After I composed myself and recovered, I went back to college undecided to take some classes and get my feet wet. My mother was a teacher that went through the system. She was a teacher, school administrator, and then retired as a high level enrollment director for the DOE. Following in her foot steps seemed like a logical idea. It was also a way to give back. Special Education was booming. I had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and Special Education services as a child. Coming full circle as a Special Education teacher sounded like a good idea.

As I progressed in my studies in college, my "Education 101" teacher said something so profound it stuck with me to this day. She said "teaching is a very political job". At 21/22 years old, I thought it was an incredibly odd thing to say. Why would loving children and supporting their growth be political? I thought things were cut and dry: Teach children, love them, support their growth, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Today, I think there is happily ever after in homeschooling, leveraging the public and private sectors (education and medical) for beneficial outcomes, and having our prioritizes straight. I think my Education 101 teacher was right. Teacher in the school system (especially the public school system) is a political job and the politics don't always benefit children or learning outcomes. I digress for now.

When I started fieldwork in 2010, I worked in a variety of settings: "general education", "special education class in general education", "special education", and "special education setting with profound disabilities". Despite all my experiences from 2010 onward in a variety of settings, the setting that had my heart was the 6-1-1 setting. The 6-1-1 setting is mainly for children with Profound Autism. The "6-1-1" means there is 1 teacher, 1 classroom paraprofessional (There could be more paraprofessionals if a child needs a 1:1 for medical or behavioral reasons) and no more than 6 students.

In this setting, we taught ABCs and 123s but also met the needs of children. We taught life skills like hand washing. There was a "sensory class" where the coverage teacher came in as prep period, turned the lights off, put on a soft video, gave the children sensory toys, and essentially gave the children's nervous system a break. I thought there was such balance with education and meeting the children's needs. I loved it.

As I progressed from fieldwork to graduating from college and developing a robust and diverse resume in a variety of settings, I saw the pendulum begin to swing in the other direction. In around 2014/2015, this idea that it wasn't "equitable" for children with profound disabilities to note learn what their counterparts in general education were learning. But wait...wasn't the whole point of specialized settings to give children with profound disabilities an individualized education?

It's a load of nonsense. The truth they were not saying out loud was special education started as a profitable business model for schools after I.D.E.A (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). Even public schools are businesses. They need to be. How can they budget and stay afloat if there wasn't some sense of being a business? They could provide special education services and build a successful business. With the roaring demand for Special Education services, the supply cannot meet the demand. The idea of incorporating general education material in the specialized setting is not "equity" or "age appropriateness". They are trying to weed out who really doesn't need to be in these expensive settings. That is the cold, hard truth.

I got hired full-time in June 2016 and started my first year of teaching September 2016. Because I spent so many years in fieldwork and subbing, I actually knew all six of my 6-1-1 students for many years. I was able to meet their needs while entertaining the nonsense that was coming down the pipeline in the name of "equity and inclusion". My "age appropriate" math curriculum was "points, line segments, and planes". My students could barely add or count money for life skills, but points, line segments, and planes was the curriculum. There was also an Assessment called "NYS Alternate Assessment". All of my students had to take it. It was so long, tedious, and inappropriate that it took a month to accomplish. A month I could have actually been meeting their needs was down the tubes.

One of my students had a history of psychiatric issues. On medication, he was getting temporary relief and was making leaps and bounds academically. He went from putting sticks in a cup to writing his name. Alternate Assessment (because he was technically "6th grade" by age) asked him "What is a systematic graph equation?". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I remember telling him "I don't even remember what that is, select whatever graph you think is pretty". INSANE!

The results happily got sent home to parents from Administration, while I thought the whole thing was a dumpster fire. Despite this insanity, I "played the game" so to speak and this was not the hill I was going to die on. The hill I was going. to die on came so abruptly and unexpectedly , but it is the hill that fuels my career today.

In December 2018, I found this post from "Humans of New York" posted in 2015. I saved it to my phone and it mirrored what I had experienced full time teaching. By December 2018, I have been teaching full time since September 2016. By that time, I witnessed massive trauma as a classroom teacher, and while the inappropriate assessments where annoying, they were not the hill I was ready to die on. I found a much bigger hill to die on. While I was discovering the hill I was ready to die on, the end of the post still rings in my head like a bell :

"When I first began teaching, my mentor told me 'If there's anything about the system you want to fight, just make sure its the hill you want to die on'"

It summed up my first couple of years of full time teaching very well. As I said, I watched my students grow up from elementary age students to junior high school aged students entering puberty. Once my students hit puberty, a rush of regression started with them academically and behaviorally. Looking back on it, they all had metabolic dysfunction and puberty threw a monkey wrench into the metabolic issues already present.

As much as I loved my students, my time in the classroom was traumatizing. Students had gut issues and diarrhea all over my classroom. My student that had a history of psychiatric issues developed diabetes and it sent him on a path of regression and chaos. The breaking point came when he had a behavioral outburst that was so severe, my classroom was trashed to pieces. That was his breaking point and mine.

His behaviors had hit such a peak before this emergency, I asked "Why is he in school? He should be getting medical attention". The response was "He has an IEP. He needs to be in school". After 911 was called and he was in the ambulance, I spoke with his Mom (who I had a great relationship with). I told her "I don't know. Ask for a CAT scan. There has to be something medically wrong with him to cause this massive regression".

That day shattered my fairy tale of giving back and making a difference in my student's lives. I found the hill I was willing to do on. This hill is the hill I wrote an entire book on and the hill I still die on today: "IEP vs Inflammation: Where do we prioritize our energy?"

https://a.co/d/e6DD7YB

The fact of the matter is that children with profound disabilities are the most medically neglected population in mainstream modern medicine. They are constipated? Take laxatives, no further testing, and have a nice day. (I consider this child abuse, especially in school age children). They're having behaviors? Try a psych drug and have a nice day. It's all their diagnosis. Nothing can be done.

I knew "IEP vs Inflammation" was the hill I was dying on. How can academic progress be made with children that are so sick? Their ailments over power the situation and academic progress cannot be made.

It wasn't until I found "The Wellness Way" and their case studies of getting children symptomatic relief did the answers finally come. So many case studies of gut infections and liver issues. This was the missing component. This is where the mainstream modern medicine system was missing the mark. You could get these children symptomatic relief and improve outcomes.

I, not only found the hill I was willing to die on (and die on over and over again), I now had the facts and expertise to back it up. This is why "The American Dream Learning Center" offers "Learning Coaching" and "Health Restoration Coaching". I loved teaching, but I cannot fix issues that appear to be academic issues on the surface but are really symptoms of metabolic illness on a deeper level.

I offer these services separately, but I will never stop educating on their correlation.

This is forever my hill to die on.