Education | Lessons from my daughter

Tonight, I am doing something new! Please take a minute to meet Matt who was kind enough to invite me to join Yellowbrick.me as a collaborator.

Lessons from everyone

Prior to getting my masters in Special Education, I worked as a job coach for a local non-profit that worked with individuals with special needs. During this time I worked both “in house” as well as at various group homes and job sites through-out the community. During my few years at this job, I met and interacted, and learned from the most amazing people.

The individuals I worked with had varying disabilities and varying levels development and communication skills. Working at job sites, busy insurance companies lunch rooms or at local grocery stores, I was always amazed and awed at my friends work ethics, at their willingness to help co-workers and customers. I saw social skills, as well as pride in their work that personally is lacking in many people.

When I worked “in-house” there was one individual that I worked one-on-one with. This one friend had Lesch–Nyhan syndrome (LNS). Along with cognitive disabilities, being non-verbal, LNS has a distinct symptom which includes self-mutilation. When agitated my friend would try to harm himself. He was missing numerous teeth as well as fingers. This is a very difficult disease.

However, what struck me most was my friends smile and his laugh. He loved “communicating” with others and he and I could be silly for hours. Some times when he became agitated I would calm him, he would nestle his head in my shoulder and I would hold him so he could not harm himself. We would stay that way until he was calm and then the smile would return.

I learned so much from him as well as the others I worked with. These friends showed such grace in the face of some major adversity. They put their all into everything they did, regardless of what it was they were doing. For the most part they were ready with a smile, they cared it you seemed upset and they really wanted to communicate. During my time working with these friends, I learned that life is meant to be lived to the fullest, that people should strive to help each other and try to comfort one-another. I learned, put your all into whatever you do.

I have not worked at this job for many years. Yet sometime I will see some of my old friends as I stroll through town with my family. They all remember me and I remember them. They now know my kids and we stop and say a quick hello. I have lived in numerous places and worked in even more and these friends are some of the best I have ever met.

The author:

Matt Connell, EdD., MBA is a Co-founder and CEO of www.Yellowbrick.me the online educational community for parents. His undergraduate education focused on the study of sustainable agriculture and energy as well as business. He taught special education to at risk students in the Hartford, CT public school system. His doctoral work was on group emotional intelligence and building teams. He has had the great fortune of traveling extensively; both domestically and internationally. He has had the even better fortune of marrying his amazing wife and having two amazing kids.

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Good morning Blogosphere!

The cars have 1/2 inch of ice on them and the driveway looks like a dangerously uneven ice rink. The road we live on is covered with black ice.

I made the executive decision that we are not going anywhere today.

So here I am!

Sitting on the couch with my coffee and laptop. Instead of going out to cheer practice, I will tell you more about my girl.

Do you remember how Emily told us she (we) had to make a salad dressing for her school culinary tech class earlier this week? If not, please check it out: Cooking with daddy!

The jar of salad dressing came back home without being open and Emily telling us that we needed to make a new one without “fish”…

When I picked Em from school on Thursday, her culinary tech teacher confirmed that we didn’t need to make anything. This is a class project.

What will be a school AND home project is the cooking competition Emily signed-up for.

A cooking competition!!!

I am not sure when it is yet and the rules are not quite defined still but from what I know so far, Emily will need to pick a recipe she for a main course. She will have 45 minutes.

I don’t know if she needs to make everything from scratch.

I don’t know if she can go see the space and tools beforehand.

All I know is that once we all agree on the recipe, she will practice at school during culinary tech and she will practice here too.

I also know that she will be allowed to have the recipe with her and will be competing against her peers who are also on IEP (Individualized Education Plan).

With that being said, I guess we need to get Emily involved in food prep at home!

Yesterday was Good Friday which meant no school for Em and no work for me so we made pancakes from scratch.

We started by making coffee…. actually Emily made us coffee.

I showed Emily the recipe, she gathered all the ingredients and most of the tools.

She doesn’t like the mixer. I don’t know if it’s the noise, the vibration or the safety lesson I gave her awhile back on how to use it but she’s not using it.

I guess we need to find a recipe without a mixer for the competition

She also doesn’t use the toaster on her own, she uses the microwave 10 seconds at the time and only use the stove to stir something we are preparing.

She’s never moved something hot off the stove or out of the oven.

I’m thinking we might want to find a really awesome salad as a main course for her competition!

Back to our pancakes, look at my girl.

Egg cracking… always FUN!

Emily’s technique is called “Egg crashing”. At least now we’ve determine that she should do it on the side and not directly in the ingredients she’s measuring.