Goodbye and hello

This is Walt Katovitch, my father in law (the shadow in the foreground is my husband), who died this week at the age of 88. He ailed very little until the last six months, when both his physical and cognitive health took a sharp decline. We were tremendously grateful for the help of assisted living and caring friends nearby, as we are on different ends of the same coast and couldn't see to his day to day needs.

I don't think Walt ever hesitated to enter a conversation with anyone; he was the kind of guy who could have chatted up the Queen and the man polishing the Royal silver with the same ease. We'll miss him.

As the new year begins, I'm going to begin some new adventures on my quest to learn more about how to ally with people with developmental disabilities. I'll be taking Disability and Higher Education with Dr. Wendy Harbour at Syracuse University and I've been selected to participate in Partners in Policymaking (www.partnersinpolicymaking.com), a national training program in leadership and advocacy open to people with developmental disabilities, their families, and allies. I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy the fun and refreshment of the New Year.

And who could have predicted...

Looking at the rough surroundings, who would have thought that a seed could sprout here? And not only sprout, but grow leaves? Now, is it the same size it would have been in more fruitful soil, with less wind, in better company? No. But there is growth nevertheless.

When reading and writing about education, I hear much talk about "benefit"- what is the benefit versus the risk of this decision, which students will benefit from a program for the gifted, what was the student's score on the ability to benefit test?

I believe that we cannot judge benefit in advance; benefit can only be judged after action has been taken.

I recently read a study discussing the benefits of an Ivy League education on different groups of students. The group with the greatest benefit? Students from socio-economically disadvantaged families. The students who came in with the fewest advantages got the most from the experience? Go figure.

Why, then, are there questions about the benefit students with developmental disabilities may gain from postsecondary education? These students have so much to gain. What good could they bring to the world if they are allowed to bloom?

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl is one of my favorite works, because of his insights on the meaning of life. His search was severely tested in the brutality of Nazi concentration camps and the murder of his parents and young wife. In these desperate and barbaric circumstances, he maintained his sanity and the sanity of many fellow prisoners by emphasizing that life had meaning and the individual had control, even just of his own attitude towards the presence of suffering.

Much later, he spoke to a group of young activists (see clip below) on the necessity of idealism if we are ever to reach or to help others reach full potential. He saw more danger in underestimating people than in overestimating. What a great soul; his lessons never get old.

This post is for Eliza and other people who are pursuing their dreams.

Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others Video on TED.com

Eliza's University Experience: Letter of Support from Diana M. Katovitch, M.S. au...

A discouraging story and a sign of how much further we have to go... the ARC of the United States also published this story in their blog.

I felt compelled to write, both to the university and to Eliza and her parents, to let them know that postsecondary education for students with developmental disabilities is already here. It reminds me of the old stagecoach story...

A stagecoach becomes stuck on a muddy hill while traveling through the frontier. The driver says to the passengers,
"All you who're goin' with us, get out and push. All those who ain't, get out of the way!"

Are we going or getting out of the way?


Eliza's University Experience: Letter of Support from Diana M. Katovitch, M.S. au...

Voltaire speaks and I listen

"The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire


The exact translation of this quote is in dispute; in the original French, it was "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien," which can also translate to "The best is the enemy of the good." I have read some comments about its meaning as a call to arms against mediocrity - which I heartily endorse - but I have found the first translation to be more helpful and more meaningful in my work and in my life.

I read the quote originally in a short article on environmentalism. The author, Laurie David, wrote that the goal of being perfectly green kept untold numbers of people from trying any environmental preservation efforts at all. Since they were unable to give up their homes in the suburbs and the cars they needed to get around, people assumed that their small efforts to bring reusable bags to the store or to hang laundry on the line would be useless. Never mind that the collective small efforts of many people can make a big difference. Never mind that it is good for everyone to feel and take some responsibility to make the world a better place. It is not perfect, but it is good.

In striving to create inclusive communities, I believe that perfection is the enemy, particularly if we are so busy worrying about "getting it right" that we don't make efforts to get it going at all. An example from my work this week - it is the beginning of winter sports season and several of my students and former students tried out for sports teams. Only one young man made the team he tried out for, because there were eight slots on the team and he was one of eight players that tried out. The other two did not, because there were more capable players than there were places on the team.



In a perfect world, everyone who tried out and wanted to play could play. In a perfect world, everyone would have a real role on the team. But this isn't a perfect world- as a matter of fact, it's high school...

Perfect? No. Good? I think so.

My students, the coaches, and I felt that the boys deserved a chance to try out like everyone else. If they made the teams fair and square, good. If they didn't make the team, the same happened to many of their peers. Maybe they will choose to work as managers on the team, maybe they will try again next year, or maybe not. What is important is that they had the same chance as anyone else to join in high school sports.

And I can tell you, this attitude would not have existed 20 years ago. Even allowing a try-out would have been unthinkable. We all would have been afraid that the kids would have been injured or terribly discouraged by not making the team. We would have been caught in the trap of perfection, too afraid to try for good, because good might not have been good enough.

The coaches were worried - they are sensitive to the feelings of their potential players. I assured them that giving the kids the chance was good enough. The chance to manage the team? Even better. It's up to the kids what good they wish to make of this; they need to decide what is good for them.

We didn't have 2.4 children - but the families we have, with all their flaws, are very good.

We didn't get the corner office - but the job has a lot of good in it.

We didn't get into the best college - but our college was good, in spite of (because of?) its faults.

Our lives aren't perfect, but they are deeply good.

When we are over-focused on perfection, we miss the good that surrounds us.

Perfect is only the surface; good goes all the way down.

Also by Voltaire...
Aime la vérité, mais pardonne à l'erreur.
Love truth, but pardon error.

Sometimes, good is better than we give it credit for...

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...

This seems to be a wall

Somehow, I got musing on the idea of walls - those apparently insurmountable obstacles that keep us from getting to where we want to go (My husband, son, and I learned that not even a GPS system in a rental car can get you through a wall to a gated community, but that is a story for another day...)

Then, my mind turned to the idea, "Well, if the wall is there and I need to get past it, how many ways can I think of to do so?" Here's a partial list

• Build a ladder


• Build a staircase


• Raise money to install an elevator


• Dig under it


• Keep walking until you find a way around it


• Gather a group of friends and make a human pyramid to climb it


• Then, toss down a rope for others to climb up, too


• All of you learn how to rock climb! (We don't need no stinkin' ropes!)


• Use a sledgehammer and try to break it. Again, you'll need some friends


• Divert a river to flood the area in front of it and ride over it on a giant inner tube


• Build a hot air balloon and float over it


• Train a bunch of birds to lift you in a harness over the wall.


• Keep the wall, but paint a mural on it


• Turn around and walk away from the wall. Find another place to go.


• Sit there and blame the wall for wrecking your life


• Make peace with the wall

And that's just from a few minutes of creative musing. What walls are in front of us? How are we going to get around them, if we choose to do so?