According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the term 'workaround' means this.
"A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem in a system. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true solutions, involving outside the box thinking in their creation."
Throughout my working life - before the kids - I was always one of those employees you could throw a curly problem at and as long as I knew what the desired outcome was, I could usually come up with a solution. Sometimes, these solutions were a bit different and not necessarily the way most people would do it, but in most cases they worked. In my last job at a vet practice, my boss and I loved finding different ways to get around our very user unfriendly clinic software to achieve the outcomes we wanted. The software designers obviously had no clue how a vet practice worked in real life and we wondered if they had ever actually set foot in a practice. We joked about our workarounds and believe me, there were quite a few.
Today it occurred to me that what I am doing with Sam is exactly that. Creating workarounds. Sam's condition, 22Q 11.2 distal deletion syndrome, has resulted in a number of systems issues. He is not wired like a typical child and that means to achieve the same educational outcome, I need to think creatively when devising a teaching solution. The Wikipedia workaround definition does go on to say "Typically they [workarounds] are considered brittle in that they will not respond well to further pressure from a system beyond the original design. In implementing a workaround it is important to flag the change so as to later implement a proper solution."
Unfortunately, there is no permanent solution to Sam's system problem. He is the way he is. We can't replace the missing genetic pieces. So the workarounds I create with him - in daily life and at school - will be true solutions. I need to think 'outside the box'.
"A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem in a system. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. But workarounds are frequently as creative as true solutions, involving outside the box thinking in their creation."
Throughout my working life - before the kids - I was always one of those employees you could throw a curly problem at and as long as I knew what the desired outcome was, I could usually come up with a solution. Sometimes, these solutions were a bit different and not necessarily the way most people would do it, but in most cases they worked. In my last job at a vet practice, my boss and I loved finding different ways to get around our very user unfriendly clinic software to achieve the outcomes we wanted. The software designers obviously had no clue how a vet practice worked in real life and we wondered if they had ever actually set foot in a practice. We joked about our workarounds and believe me, there were quite a few.
Today it occurred to me that what I am doing with Sam is exactly that. Creating workarounds. Sam's condition, 22Q 11.2 distal deletion syndrome, has resulted in a number of systems issues. He is not wired like a typical child and that means to achieve the same educational outcome, I need to think creatively when devising a teaching solution. The Wikipedia workaround definition does go on to say "Typically they [workarounds] are considered brittle in that they will not respond well to further pressure from a system beyond the original design. In implementing a workaround it is important to flag the change so as to later implement a proper solution."
Unfortunately, there is no permanent solution to Sam's system problem. He is the way he is. We can't replace the missing genetic pieces. So the workarounds I create with him - in daily life and at school - will be true solutions. I need to think 'outside the box'.
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| After a trip to the park this morning, we worked on our Sight Words, which also involved a cutting exercise. Sam had to say and match the sight words with the sheet and then glue them on. |
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| I had written sentences using the sight words and we read them together. Then I asked him to find any sight words in the sentence and highlight them. |
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| He really did get 100%. He got every one! |
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| Next, we worked on Days of the Week. I had created a story page and a page where he had to trace the day names. |
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| Sam has struggled grasping the concept of different day names. I needed to work on this. |
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| We played a Days of the Week app from LudoSchool.com. It's a simple app, but he loved it! |
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| He got all the questions right...on his own. And you can see how excited he was. |
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| Time for Maths...with Minecraft. Sam is crazy about Minecraft, so I downloaded images and found a Minecraft font. |
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| Adding with Minecraft :) |
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| I made a Minecraft counting book from 1 to 20. We did 1 to 11 today. I found 'tracing fonts' so Sam can practice writing his numbers and letters. |
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| And here is adding with Minecraft. I rely on Sam to tell me who all the characters are. |
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