A Visit to the Old Sod

We have just returned from a fortnight in Ireland, the land of Saints and Scholars, as well as the home of many of our ancestors.  It has been thirteen years since our last visit.  In that time Ireland has joined the European Union, the Celtic Tiger was subdued by the Great Recession, and the population of the island has experienced a great influx of immigrants—from Eastern Europe and Africa. 

In this and the next blog submission I will share our experiences.  Most memorable was a visit with some of my cousins in County Kerry and County Limerick.  Time and schedule did not permit visits with others, nor were we able to see my husband’s family in County Mayo.  The warm friendships we have forged over several decades survive the changes and are stronger than ever.  I am lucky to be “double cousins” with several of my Irish family.  My grandfather’s brother married my grandmother’s sister in Ireland.  An across-the-Atlantic effort to fill in a family genealogy has resulted in a shared enthusiasm and many hours of discussion coupled with hard work. We are making good progress.

Ireland remains the land of Scholars who are universally respected and officially supported.  During our stay we were able to visit a boys’ school and share some time with eager ten-year-olds and their teacher.  It was a church run school, although there are no religious directly involved with teaching or administration, and admission was competitive.

The boys prepared a program about the history and symbols of Ireland as well as a biographical program on Seamus Heaney who died while we were in Ireland.  I was very impressed with the teacher’s classroom control, the courtesy and attention of the boys, and the toughness of the curricula.   The class of about 28 boys included three Africans and two Eastern Europeans.  The church owned schools are not co-educational and all students wear uniforms. 

Students were lively and bright, answering questions in a thorough, charming, respectful, and interesting manner.  They were as passionate about their learning as they were over their sport teams.  The Irish student “does what is expected” and there are few behavior problems.  Although the school had only a few days to prepare the lesson was well planned and presented.  The boys had some questions of their own for the visiting senior citizens.  I’m glad to say that we acquitted ourselves well.

The Irish respect learning and have a deep love of their culture.  I mentioned that Seamus Heaney had died.  Where else would the first five pages of the country’s premier newspaper be devoted to Mr. Heaney, his life and works?  The papers and television were full of tributes to Ireland’s Noble laureate; his funeral was nationally televised.  The entire country mourned his loss. In the August 31-September 1 edition of  The Irish Times Weekend, Fintan O’Toole wrote:

                                “Like all great poets Seamus Heaney was an alchemist.  He turned our

                                disgrace into grace, our petty hatreds into epic generosity…He lacked the

                                arrogance to tell us who we are – much more importantly, he told us WHAT

                                we are.  He reminded us that Ireland is a culture before it is an economy.

                                And in the extraordinary way he bore himself, the dignity and decency and

                                the mellow delight that shone from him, he gave us self-respect…”

Yes, in many ways Ireland has changed. The culture unique to the Irish identity persists, but times are hard today.  The country was one of the first in Europe to be brought to its knees by the Great Recession.  Once again circumstances diminish opportunities for the well-educated, highly motivated Irish young adult who is forced to immigrate to far flung places like Australia.  The United States should capitalize on this talent pool and welcome more of them into the country. They have strong values, a good work ethic, and marketable skills.

The Irish are survivors but a pervasive feeling of despair is seeping into the Irish soul.  This country has survived centuries of subjugation and repression, war, terrorism, and economic deprivation.  They have not forgotten “WHAT they are” through the trials of famine, fight or faith.  However, inclusion in the European Union (EU) is effecting a subtle, yet essential, change in Ireland. More than one Irishman asks how a country that finally overcame more than 800 years of brutal occupation could cavalierly cede much of its sovereignty to the EU. 

There is a cold uniformity and almost automatous acquiescence to the dictates of Brussels and Berlin apparent in Ireland today.  Of course there are economic benefits incumbent upon the Union but with Ireland’s financial collapse ECB imposed Spartan austerity on the country.  It has been a long, painful, and difficult haul, but Ireland has towed the line and is trying to recover. Unfortunately the foreclosures are only just beginning.  Despair over family survival bubbles just below the surface as years of unemployment, underemployment and underwater mortgages begin to boil over.  Many are fearful of what tomorrow will bring—each expecting to be scorched as it evolves.

Immigration into Ireland has not helped the financial situation.  When things were good, people came by the tens of thousands.  Assimilation was slow, but the Irish are a welcoming race and encourage those who wish to make their future in Erin.  Today many immigrants hold the service jobs that were once filled by the Irish.  Some newcomers are gaming the generous social welfare system. However, “Ireland is a culture before it is an economy.”  I imagine that in the future the newcomers and their children will enrich that culture in distinctive ways. After all, “the next great Irish writer may just be a Pole,” writer Maurice Fitzpatrick once noted!

The Irish are survivors, but they do not necessarily flourish.  I fear the culture will not come through today’s troubles unchanged and unscathed.  The modern world is less forgiving than in ages past.  These are good, caring, talented people.  They deserve to maintain the “self-respect” reflected in Mr. Heaney’s art.  

Go Mayo!  In the all-Ireland Gaelic Football Championship game this Sunday.

I've Caught the Bug

For years, as a reference librarian, I taught classes, gave workshops, and advised interested parties on how to do genealogical research.  I even spoke to the local DAR, not an easy group.  Whenever cornered by an aficionado outside my official duties, my eyes reflected the deer in the headlights look as I plotted my escape. Whenever possible I would indicate the appropriate resources, instruct on their use, make alternative suggestions, and beat a quick retreat back to the reference desk.

No more.  I’ve caught the “family tree bug.”  Actually it began last year when my cousin, his wife and his older brother were planning a trip to Ireland and we invited them over for a look at our Irish cousins’ pictures, provide addresses, and offer general encouragement.  I reviewed old family documents, sorted photographs. My cousins and I shared old family stories, recalling long lost faces and remembered names.  That planted the seed.

We are double cousins with an Irish family. By that I mean that my grandfather’s brother married my grandmother’s sister. That branch of the family stayed in Ireland while the rest emigrated to Chicago. Throughout the years my grandmother corresponded with her sister. When my grandmother died, the Irish aunt continued her correspondence with my mother.  Since then I have picked up the threads with my cousins. It is fun to read over letters written nearly fifty years ago.  Over the past fifteen years we have visited with each other in our homes. 

Last summer I gathered together legal documents, photographs, notebook lists, and old letters to begin a family genealogy.  I added information from the very helpful Irish Census of 1901 and 1911, as well as our own census information, marriage records, and obituary notices.  Once I had the skeleton of a genealogy, I sent my information to the Irish cousins, asking for their additions and corrections. The only caveats I insist upon is that the genealogy not be placed on the Internet, on an Internet site like Ancestry.com, or made available to the Mormon Church family genealogies. I eschew the Internet sites because of inaccuracies and because posting genealogies provides a treasure trove for Identity Theft crime.  The Mormon restriction is made because I don’t want the entire family baptized in retrospect should some future family member become a Mormon.

Despite these prohibitions the Irish response was enthusiastic.  One of my cousin’s children had begun the Irish branch genealogy a few years ago. He was glad of the American cousin information; I was delighted have his work augment my own.  Since then we have debated and collaborated, meeting in person for the first time this summer.  Soon we will meet again in Killarney.  I have worked feverishly in the past weeks to add a new branch to the genealogy that is based on the family of my great-grandmother.  Assiduous research has resulted in enlarging the primary family’s genealogy; careful collaboration has cleared past doubts, filled holes.  We are well on our way!

What plans for the future?  There are a few people—read, strangers—I plan to contact personally to chase down lost family members.  Much work has to be done in obituary searches and the 1940 census. Primary sources for soft records need to be found. There is a good deal more to learn.  The August the Third “Gathering” of the family clan in Ireland should have provided another rich source of information for my cousin’s work. I can’t wait to consult with my Irish counterpart to share new data we’ve been able to assemble.  There is much to do.  I think of the possibilities all the time.  I am on the look-out for new sources.  

Do I see a deer in the headlights look in your eyes?  What’s your hurry?  I have so much more to share…

Our Special Children

Mickey receives his award.

He celebrates with his family.

Within the past two weeks our family has celebrated and mourned two of our special children. Forty-six year old Mickey with Down Syndrome celebrated his successful adjustment to independent living after the death of his parents.  Our thirty-nine year old Sharon with Prader-Willi Syndrome died unexpectedly.  They were part of our large extended family, welcomed at family events, but not really understood beyond their immediate families. They were indeed special, unique, and forever children mentally and emotionally.  They were deeply loved by parents who dedicated their entire lives to their care, worrying about what would happen when they died and siblings became responsible for their special brother or sister. One child outlived his parents as one would expect; the second left an inconsolable mother.  Both lived at home for most of their lives; one included in all extended family interactions while the other was primarily sheltered within her immediate family.

These are not unusual arrangements, and far better than the lives of older mentally impaired individuals. Another cousin—born a year after I was—a PKU child, was kept close to home, seldom taken anywhere. When his parents tried to get him special schooling at a Kennedy family sponsored facility for mentally impaired children they were turned away—no clout, little money. Jimmy stayed at home, often perseverating, always fearful, until his widowed mother could no longer take care of him. In his 50s he found himself in an alien setting, a very nice caring Home—“he seems happy there”—but everything was unfamiliar. Pity he didn’t find his way there earlier because I suspect he never experienced happiness. That is not to say that his parents didn’t love him and care for him—they did their best but Jimmy was a child of the 1940s and we were far less enlightened.

Special children are not labeled “mentally impaired” in the 21^st century. That is a PC no-no. They are intellectually disabled and/or developmentally delayed. They are not hidden away, unschooled and untrained as Jimmy was. This is a very good thing, because each special child has potential, just like the rest of us. 

As a child of the 60s, Mickey attended a special school for children like himself, learning the skills necessary to obtain work in a sheltered workshop. However, like so many Down children, his parents were getting old, their health failing. The world was beginning to close in on Mickey. After his parents died, Mickey’s siblings took the responsibility their parents’ prayed they would accept. Today their brother lives in a supervised independent group home. He has friends who have their own unique challenges. He has a job. His weight is down and he is less reticent to interact with the world and other people. Mickey’s success was celebrated by Aspire of Illinois, an organization dedicated to facilitating the lives and actualizing the potential of adults with developmental disabilities. I think he is truly happy with his new life.

Sharon’s education was determined by an IEP (individual educational plan). She was a special child treated under Public Law 94-142.  She received early evaluation and education in “the least restrictive environment” to the maximum extent possible. The local school district was charged to provide services and interventions appropriate to her needs. She was “mainstreamed” into the general school population but would remain alone within her difference.

A few times her widowed mother sent her to a hospital for morbidly obese children. Prader-Willi Syndrome has an eating disorder component that makes supervised diet a necessity. Children with Prader-Willi can function at a fairly high level within the mental retardation IQ range. Sharon did as well as she was able. After the legal age limit of 21, she and her mother were left to their own resources.  Sharon stayed close to home, intensively cared for by her mother with help from brothers and a sister. Sharon enjoyed pets and was known fondly by the neighbors. But she did not really have a life outside a small, carefully proscribed, circle. She developed serious health problems. Extended family members rarely saw daughter or mother as the years passed.  I was shocked—and a bit guilty—reading her death notice in the local paper. Only a few cousins attended her funeral, unable to console a mother disorientated by grief, lamenting that she had “spent my entire life taking care of her.” Such is the toll that befalls the family of our special children.

As you might suspect this disquisition on special children is about to veer into something quite different.  I was not only a member of the extended families of these three children; I have worked in the system set in place by PL 94-142 (Enacted in 1975 as the Individual with Disabilities Act, IDEA).  I was a mainstreaming aide for a number of years in our local junior high school. All of my students were special with IQs ranging from the low-60s to the mid-30s. I worked with them in both a self-contained classroom and in regular, specially selected regular classes. Each child had a team of educators determining their educational goals. Each child had close families, caring—and often despairing—parents. 

The law requires that all children be educated in “the least restrictive environment.” From this concept came the practices of mainstreaming and inclusion, although the presumption was that self-contained classrooms would be the better general option in some cases. Children are mainstreamed by pulling them out of self-contained classrooms and placing them in regular classes with the general school population. Inclusion virtually eliminates the self-contained classroom. It was expected that a certified teacher with training in special education would work in the regular classroom with the special education child. In reality, things work differently. 

Special education assessment takes place when the child is very young so that services can begin in the home.  An individual educational plan (IEP) is created by a team of special education professionals with parental approval. When the child is old enough for school, s/he is grouped by disability:  intellectual disability, developmental delay, learning disability, behavioral disorders, etc.

 Often those with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders are very bright, but the topic I have chosen to discuss is not with these children but rather with intellectually disabled students including many of those identified as developmentally disabled, a “condition in which a child is behind schedule in reaching milestones of early childhood. This term is often used as a euphemism for mental retardation, which can be less a delay than a permanent limitation of a child’s ability to progress.” [mednet.com] 

In school year 1980-81, 20% of the total disability population being served was classified with an intellectual disability; in 2010-2011, that percent was 7.1. The term developmental delay was introduced in 2000.  I imagine the percentage difference has been siphoned off to the developmental delay and multiple disabilities categories since then—in 2010-2011, 5.7 and 2.0 percent respectively. [Indicator 9: Children and Youth with Disabilities, “The Condition of Education 2012”, National Center for Education Statistics – Institute of Education Science] 

For children with intellectual disability or developmental delay time spent in regular classrooms in the 2009-10 school year is surprising considering that self-contained classrooms were originally favored in IDEA.

                                    80% or more                40-79%              Less than 40%

Intellectual disability        17.4                  26.7                          48.2

Developmental delay       61.6                 20.5                          16.2      [Ibid.]

I have a problem with the increased mainstreaming time.  The primary part of my job in Special Ed in the early 1990s was to go with junior high school Special Ed children into the regular classroom, mostly for music, practical arts, and home economics. There were exceptions when I accompanied unusual students into math or social studies.  As originally planned by IDEA, a special education certified teacher was expected to be with the disabled children in a regular classroom. That seldom happened.  If the school district had money, the children would be mainstreamed with a certified teacher who was not hired as a classroom teacher. If that wasn’t possible, then a careful district would hire a college graduate with complementary skills.  Poorer, or less careful, school districts hired whomever they could get to work for a fairly low salary.

Time away from the MMI (mildly mentally impaired) self-contained classroom provided a respite for the Special Ed teacher.  The children gained little by mixing with regular junior high students.  Even though I was very good at translating relevant instructional content into a core that could be temporarily grasped by my charges, I doubt the children learned anything lasting.  They never truly mixed with the general population. They were ALWAYS viewed as different, apart. And they knew it.

The general student body was not made better for the experience. Some students would always be open, welcoming and kind no matter if the disabled child were in school, in their neighborhood, or anywhere else. Others would always be nasty. Only the parents of the disabled child took away a sense of “inclusion” however false the impression.  They wanted so much for their child to be like other children, which is completely understandable.  Many parents were deceived by IEP expectations. Some parents were simply in denial; a few demanding; others bewildered, exhausted, heartbroken.  There was a parent who wanted to know when his child would “snap out of it,” as if mental retardation was the common cold.  PL 94-142 focused a false light of hope on the despair of a parent with a special child. 

The light was as false as ship wrecker beacons on a storm tossed rocky coast. It robbed these children of precious hours that could have been spent to attain their unique potential.  Make no mistake; a child with an IQ of 40 CAN learn something useful to his or her life.  They need constant reinforcement and repetition to do it however. It is not fair to that child to be given false lights when safe passage is required.  It is not fair to take time away from developing their skills to prove a social scientist’s point. It is not fair to demonstrate daily that they are different and excluded. Special children need to be with their peers; they need to learn basic, practical skills; they need to experience the success of being who they are, not who some bureaucrat thinks they should be. 

They need a success like my cousin Mickey has achieved through ASPIRE’s independent living and work program.  Today Mickey “has learned household skills…caring for his clothing and appearance…he earns a paycheck…shops…dines out.” Mickey lives in an ASPIRE community of peers where “he has thrived.” [Letter from ASPIRE 6/12/2012]

Thank heavens most special children are no longer hidden away and intellectually neglected like Jimmy.  There is no shame in having an intellectually impaired child or sibling or cousin or neighbor. There should be no unrealistic expectations promised to those children like Sharon, mainstreamed to nowhere, never given the chance to fulfill their unique potential within a special peer community.  Mickey achieved self-respect as well as the regard of his family and friends. Ironically, Jimmy and Sharon shared the same, lonely fate—PL94-142 notwithstanding.