10 Hours Down, and I Still Want to Go Back ;)

Well, I finally completed my volunteer hours at HHS. The funny thing is, although I was not thrilled about having this assignment, I really want to keep going to Miss Holland's class. The kids are not at all like the kids at my high school, but they're so unique and interesting. Since they don't really know me, I can ask all the questions I want, and they answer them because I'm a "teacher." I've learned everything from gang leaders and founders (some of the chosen research topics) to why all the guys wear their shirts so big (a 6x when they should be in a L). Well, they couldn't really tell me the answer to that, but it was fun hearing them try. The scary boys in the back corner aren't so scary anymore, and the "gangstas" in the other corner aren't so tough anymore. Patricia even made a 100 on her last vocabulary test! Although my ten hours are up, I will definitely make one more trip to Holt before I go back home for Christmas break. GO IRONMEN!!!

I'm Not Weird, I'm Just Gifted

Today we read an article by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez ( http://alisavaldesrodriguez.com)about parents with an extremely gifted kid who was thought to have autism. When I first got the article, I was so excited to read it because I worked with special needs children in high school and love autistic kids. The little boy in the article was believed to be and diagnosed with autism. He was interested in very complex things like sprinkler systems and referred to himself in the second and third person (like Dustin Hoffman's autistic character in "Rain Man" http://www.dvdmg.com/rainman.shtml). Although Alex did show symptoms of the type of autism he was diagnosed with, there were many symptoms that he did not have. The author took him to yet another doctor who realized that he was super gifted, not autistic. Alex had just seemed that way due to bad parenting. The author and her husband never made Alex do anything; they catered to his every want and need.

The article has two arguments that jumped out at me.
1. Just because someone diagnoses your child with something does not mean that that is what they have, so always double check and get second opinions (doctors do know best, though).
2. Parents should not do everything for their children because then kids will not learn to do things themselves, thus resulting in a possible misdiagnosis like Alex.
I was very entertained by the article and wanted to keep reading (partly because I wanted to see what the parents would do or not to next). The article was very successful and got it's point across. I give it an A+!

Dinner or Desperate Housewives

"Us and Them" was a very interesting essay. It's so funny that the narrator thinks that someone without television is weird and the outcast of the town, when he and his family are the "new guys" (the typical outcasts in a city). The Tomkeys are definitely strange, and I know that I would not make it without my television to watch the shows that I've become addicted to, but it's interesting to see that having a television and watching all the prime time shows is what is considered normal these days. The Tomkeys had lived in the North Carolina town much longer than the narrator's family, yet they might as well live on the other side of the world just because they don't have a television and they value spending time with each other talking (which is what families should do more of). The essay really makes me think about how big of an impact television has on people's lives and, as corny as it sounds, kind of makes me want to go back in time to when did spend time with their families and just enjoy being with people without having to watch television all the time.