Why Our Children Need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)

IMG_0764But those are for kids with learning problems.

Yup! That is the place that one is most likely to find an IEP.

All children need them though, they just don’t necessarily need them for school.?We can call them something else if you’d like.?How about Individualized Assessment and Goals?

Oh, you have goals for your children?

Great! Let me see them.

Oh, they’re not written down. Well, tell me what are your goals for your three-year old?

You want him to grow up to be a kind, capable, productive, happy man. Great goals, but how are you going to get from his current self-obssessed, whiny self to that adult?

This is where an Individualized Assessment comes in.

You see the first step in figuring out how to get our children to where we want them (that’s another post) is figuring out where they are. In order to do that we need to methodically and honestly evaluate them, because academics, family dynamics, physical capabilities and emotional maturity are all factors in who they currently are and who they will eventually become.

 

Individualized Assessments help us to remember that each of our children is different, with their own strengths and weaknesses.

They help us to identify those strengths and weaknesses and develop ways of measuring growth.

They keep us honest by reminding us that our children often struggle with the same things we do.

They give us a record of our children and our vision from year to year.

They keep us from being overwhelmed by all of the possibilities for curriculum by reminding us of how our children have learned in the past.

They give us reminders of what to pray for each of our children.

They keep us from thinking that things are better or worse than they really are!

In the coming months I’ll be talking about each ?of these points as well as writing a ?sample Individualized Assessment. I really do find the exercise of thinking about each of my children and making out a list of goals and gifts, then using that list to guide their schooling to be extremely helpful. I want to know my children so that I can help them to know themselves and grow into maturity.

 

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *