Terry
As far as I know Terry will have IVIG treatment #2 today. Please forgive me if I am repeating but she did say yesterday that her day was FULL. That is a GOD thing I feel as how can one have a full day of activity in the hospital? She sounded last night as if every minute was filled with something happening. My understanding is there will be treatments through Sunday and then they will determine if they can release her to rehab. Again the Dr. said she needs to be ready and willing to do 3 hours of rehab each day and how long that will last I have no idea. When I injured my hamstring I had PT twice a week for 45 minutes and I thought that was a lot. Three hours a day, sounds like that is serious. But I have no news for today so let's hope and pray that treatments go well.
I have a tire on the pick up that has a mind of its own. I put air in it Tuesday morning and by the afternoon it was flat as a pancake, a pancake that I would make! So my thought was will it hold air for half hour when I need to drive to Costco to get the new tires. That will be in a few days. So too see just how long it will hold air I put air in the tire last night about 6:00. I checked it before I went to bed and it was still up so I figure I will have no problem. Well I checked it again this morning and it is still totally good and that is a good 12 hours after I put air in. I guess it just has its own mind and sometimes it is lazy and just lets the air out while other times it has energy and holds it in. Will see what it looks like this afternoon! The Costco guy said it would be 3-5 days and that was Tuesday so maybe this week yet. It certainly would be nice if I could get those tires on so I would not have to check each time I wanted to go some place. At this time I still am OK with driving the truck so Terry's car still is parked in the garage.
The Start of Something BIG
It was late fall of 1976. I had accepted the position of "Director of Education" at the School for the Deaf in mid May. I would be finishing my MA at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks that summer and then would be full time starting in August of the year. I have to admit I was both excited and terrified of what lie ahead. I would be responsible for all the teachers, the dorm personal and the night people. As I pondered my future I wondered what the superintendent, Mr. Hayek was going to do!!! Well I knew he had plenty to do but that was my thought. In mid August Mr. Hayek and I sat down to talk about the school year and he brought up a subject that I was not aware of. He said that there was a new special education law and it involved IEP. That stood for Individual Educational Plan and little did I know that for the entire span of my teaching those letters, IEP, would make me mad, make me sick, make me want to quit and more. But here I was a new Director of Education and I was informed that the beginning of this new era meant that every teacher had to turn in their lesson plans for the next week to me on Friday! That meant that by 3:30 every Friday I would have piled on my desk weekly plans from about 16 teachers!!! This included the woodworking instructor, the printing instructor, the business teacher, the art teacher, the music teacher and about 12 classroom teachers. My job would be to look over the plans and see IF the teachers were teaching to each student! Of course this was all new and I thought to myself looking at these plans kind of remind me of the all nighter study times in college! AND it involved plans from people like Mr. Hartle and Mr. Rafferty in printing and woodworking whom I was positive were great instructors but had never in their long teaching careers written up lesson plans and to say nothing about individual plans for each student.
So this was my introduction to being a "Director of Education" or in layman's terms being a principal. As the year started and went on of course I could in no way do what I was asked to do or supposed to do. For the most part the plans came in on Friday and I spent maybe a half hour glancing at them and then I would place them on a library table for them to pick up Monday morning. At the end of that year I turned in my resignation as we moved to St. Paul. The move had nothing to do with the IEP movement but to this day I sometimes reminisce about the uselessness of that at a residential deaf school. I have no idea what they did with that as time went on. Things changed so much from that point on in many ways. It was the era where large towns were starting their own programs and many students were then able to stay at home and go to school. I have said this in the past but again I do not think it was too long before the number of students dropped way way down. From about 130 in the mid 70s to a number today that is close to single digits! The school does do different things for the state of ND so it is still operating but for how long, I have no idea.
For the next 30 years after that the IEP loomed large in Deaf Education. And as is so often with government programs there was good and bad. I would admit that my attitude towards IEPs was less then good and I, to this day, believe that it takes more away from the students than it gives. Really if you are to do INDIVIDUAL instruction with 5 classes a day with an average of 7 or 8 in each class. A teacher would certainly have to be beyond super man or super woman! Enough!
I do not have a plan for the day. We got about .2" of rain last night so things are kind of wet. It looks to be pretty cool for a few days before the heat comes Tuesday with temps above 80. It looks like that will be a good time to plant. Saturday and Sunday look like rain so it is "inside" for a few days. I have nothing else to say for the day. Terry has not called yet but maybe they are doing the treatment early, I have no idea. No FP but 2 pods with breakfast so I am good!
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