Jaagrav Advanced Learning Centre

I see children on my school OT caseload who are three, and four, and five, and six. They are behaving in all sorts of inconvenient ways for traditional schooling.

They touch things when they pass by them in the hallways. They stand up from chairs and move around the room, or they fall out of their chairs to the floor, or they pretend to drop a pencil and fall and chase after it. They play with anything on their desk and anything in their pencil box and anything they’re wearing and anything they can get their hands on. Their body knows that playing is how they *ought* to be learning.

When they are sad, they howl with sadness and throw themselves down. When they are happy they scream with delight or run around the room. When they are excited they are bursting out of their body with joy. When they are afraid they bolt from what it is that scares them, or tuck themselves under a desk, or weep. Their body is feeling and they are listening to those feelings.

The adults want them to be calm, calm, calm. To use their calm voices and be big kids and not disrupt class and follow the rules.

I see children on my school OT caseload who are eleven, and twelve, and thirteen. They don’t know how to talk about what they are feeling. They don’t know how to make their brain wander back from wherever it has wandered off to, to learn from a lecture. They know how to keep their hands still, and walk in a line, and be unobtrusive in class.

They know how to ignore what they’re feeling to earn an arbitrary reward or avoid an arbitrary punishment from an adult. They don’t know what they are feeling. They don’t know why they react so explosively when they are angry, or why their mind goes into a panic when they deviate from routine. They don’t have the words for it. They don’t have the tools to cope with it. But they know how to look convenient and quiet and calm. Most of the time.

Bodies aren’t always calm. Calm isn’t always best. Calm isn’t the same thing as regulated.

[Image description: Title text reads, “A regulated nervous system doesn’t look like this or this…” The first item is a straight line, labeled “Always calm”. The second item is a line with long-lasting peaks and valleys, labelled “lots of highs and lots of lows. Then it says “But this…” and shows a sine wave, with recurring, regular hills and valleys. It says, “Regulation simply means having the capacity to move in and out of stress while still being able to return to ‘baseline’ with ease.” The image was made by . End description.]

Reading offers numerous advantages, here are ten of them:

1. Knowledge Acquisition: Reading exposes you to a vast array of information, facts, ideas, and perspectives, broadening your understanding of the world.

2. Enhanced Vocabulary: Regular reading improves your vocabulary by introducing you to new words and their contexts, which can enrich your communication skills.

3. Cognitive Stimulation: Engaging with written material stimulates your brain, keeping it active and sharp. This can help in preventing cognitive decline as you age.

4. Improved Focus and Concentration: Reading requires sustained attention, helping to train your mind to focus for extended periods, which can enhance your ability to concentrate in other tasks as well.

5. Stress Reduction: Immersing yourself in a good book can be a form of escapism, offering a temporary reprieve from the stresses of daily life and promoting relaxation.

6. Empathy and Understanding: Reading fiction, in particular, exposes you to diverse characters and situations, fostering empathy and a deeper understanding of human emotions and behaviors.

7. Enhanced Analytical Skills: Reading encourages critical thinking and analysis as you evaluate arguments, themes, and perspectives presented in various texts.

8. Improved Memory: The act of reading exercises your memory as you absorb and retain information, characters, plotlines, and other details from the text.

9. Language Proficiency: Reading regularly improves not only your vocabulary but also your grammar, syntax, and overall language proficiency, whether it's in your native language or a foreign one.

10. Personal Growth and Development: Through reading, you can explore different philosophies, perspectives, and life experiences, which can lead to personal growth, self-reflection, and a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

What schooling should be...

Thanks so much to Carol Garboden Murray from Illuminating Care: The pedagogy and practice of care 💞

Handwriting rubrics help to outline the components of a handwriting sample to better collect data. Those areas may include:

✅Letter formation: how many letters are formed accurately (i.e. they look like the letter they are supposed to look like?)
✅Letter spaces: how many of the spaces between LETTERS are an appropriate amount of space (not too close or too far)?
✅Word spaces: how many of the spaces between WORDS are an appropriate amount of space (not too close or too far)? Spacing between letters and words is spatial awareness in handwriting.
✅Letter sizing: how many letters are the correct SIZE (i.e. tall letters should be bigger than small letters). This is also considered letter size awareness.
✅Line adherence: how many letters are placed age-appropriately on the baseline? Also known as line awareness.

Read all about this tool here: https://www.theottoolbox.com/handwriting-rubric/