VIDBE-Q Volume 66 Issue 3
was that day as his family struggled around him, we got so much more done that
first day. Returning to physical buildings, my multidimensional understanding of
students cannot go away, my lessons will be all the worse for it.
Just as I had to take the student where they are skill-wise and emotionally
for lessons, the pandemic also taught me that through working with families more
was possible. I had always worked with parents with what I perceived as their
levels of interest, but I now know I too often erred in assuming families did not
have time, or did not want a more active role. While literally spending a year at my
5
th
grade student's kitchen table with him, a kindergarten sister on and off
attending her class or ours, and a parent walking around working, I learned how
quickly families will make time if given the opportunity. From an off-the-cuff
joke, the next week my student was teaching his sister and mother braille. The
mother and sister were not just humoring the student to reinforce his emerging
braille skills, they were actively engaging and enjoying themselves as my student
ran a lesson on reading a line of braille. Soon we had established weekly times for
the student to show and teach his skills, cementing his mastery and pushing him to
keep learning. Families can be active participants not just in the grand scheme
shaping of goals and benchmarks, but in the minutia of lessons, sharing themselves
in the process. During down times, more honest conversations about mobility
struggles came up with the whole family, and lessons could be shaped to meet
