Planning or hoping?

Unusual picture, this, from an unusual source. My husband has the world's greenest thumb and grows an extensive vegetable garden. However, he hasn't planted squash in years; this abundant crop came from our compost pile. We toss our vegetable waste in the pile and often wind up with gourds, pumpkins, and this (quite tasty, actually) bumper crop of squash. While we are tending the rest of the garden, the squash was growing untended and unnoticed.

Sometimes we get lovely moments of serendipity like this. But other times, we wind up with a bunch of boring gourds that aren't even worth placing on the Thanksgiving table because they are so commonplace. I'm open to sheer luck, but I'm a believer in planning.

This month's edition of Teaching Exceptional Children was all about futures planning for students with special needs, including an article entitled "I Can" and "I did"- Self Advocacy for Young Students with Developmental Disabilities (Kleinert, Harrison, Fisher, and Kleinert). The article describes the work of the Kentucky Youth Advocacy Project (http://www.kyap.org/). KYAP teaches children, young people, and professionals how to set and work towards self-selected goals. The year-long project culminates in a celebration of the students' efforts, where they present their progress and success to the group.

In spite of remaining troubles, I believe we have done very, very well accommodating and teaching students with special needs. But one area in which we are lacking is teaching them how to teach themselves - how to plan and persevere, not just to hope for the good luck that someone will be there to help them.

Sometimes, the compost pile is full of great vegetables. But I'll bet on the bounty of a planned garden any day...