Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource
Any parent or teacher who has worked with a seriously ill child knows how difficult it is to meet the child’s educational, physical and emotional needs all at once.
Melanie Brady, a lecturer at USC’s Rossier School of Education, suggests that parents and teachers can improve the lives and schooling of sick students in Los Angeles as long as they realize the uniqueness of each child and understand that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to balancing both a student’s health and their education during formative K-12 years.
Students with chronic conditions or going through difficult periods of treatment often don’t have the best options to pursue their education. But here are some steps Brady suggests both parents and teachers can take.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What kinds of options are there on a traditional school campus to support students who are sick?
It varies depending on the (grade level), ability and performance and needs. So, I think that if a parent finds themselves in a situation, they want to plan ahead and contact the teacher — and also plan ahead and ask the doctors or the nurses for resources.
You want to talk to the school and see what’s available. Sometimes, people who have long-term health conditions already will have a 504 plan in place, or an IEP (individualized education program). … When those are not in place and something takes somebody by surprise, that’s where the process needs to be initiated.
What kinds of options are there if a student can’t pursue their education on a traditional campus?
If a person, the parent, needs more support for their students … see if (the school or district has) a liaison. Sometimes, the hospitals also will have a liaison, usually in the form of a nurse or social worker. If it’s a larger hospital … they will have a schoolroom. They will have some teachers. They will have a process to try to help collaborate with the home studies.
There are (also) home school options that sometimes the schools will collaborate with for independent study, especially with teenagers. That’s a helpful thing.
There’s also California Virtual Academies. And, they are set up with the whole academic public education that’s similar to the L.A. schools and the public schools throughout the state. There are several different options to take a look at, but working within the current setting is probably the best place to start for any parent or student, especially when the difficulties or the challenges that are upcoming are new.
What types of pedagogy are most effective in working with students who are enduring chronic medical conditions?
One of the things … is actually really simple, and I actually found it on the California Department of Education website, and they have articulated just a basic goal that’s kind of broad but important: working with that individual child and what they can do and trying to help them not to lose ground.
But then you have these different dynamics that require flexibility, because if the condition changes, if they’re in the hospital, there’s timing of treatment. They’re not going to be able to be in a room or have bedside teaching for when certain things are going on.
Some people may not be able to leave their bed. That’s where bedside teaching is going to be helpful, and also to engage with students (in) conversation, because … the longer they’re in the hospital, they’re more prone to depression. There (are also) things to do to ameliorate that for those students, to try to bring them together.
They have different educational needs, especially in that environment. And you can’t do teaching like you can all at once in general with a K-12 classroom.
How do educational approaches vary across age groups when it comes to working with sick students?
When we’re looking at the younger children, we really want to make sure they have significant play time. Play time is so important to the development of their minds and their brains. There’s a lot of learning that goes on there. There’s stress relief that goes on there.
Part of it is to be aware of what the typical development is, but also where a child is, because I think that they’re already in a distressing social- emotional space. So, moving forward from where they are is what’s important — and not comparing them to others. … I don’t think we have to look so far to see that … once they get to double digits, with some of the social media platforms, how negatively impacted they can be because of those comparisons.
It really needs to be a building-them-up kind of thing, because when a student feels like they have at least one area where they can do well, and one thing to be self-confident about in terms of their skill sets, I think that goes a long way to helping somebody feel like they have something that’s of value out in the world. A kid might be really good at chess. Somebody might be good at math, not good at language. Somebody might be good at art, but maybe struggles with some of the other subjects. (Finding) something that people are good at, and helping them be good at that thing, can go a long way for helping them with their identity development and forming of themselves.
How can dealing with ongoing treatment affect students’ mental health?
Not only do you want to try to maintain the current level of education and help with the focus on school as a recovery, (but students also) fall behind with friendships. They’re not in their usual environment. They’re removed from things they knew before. They have lost autonomy. … And then, there can also be, because of these spaces, the accelerating of maturity, so there’s these individual thought responses in terms of behavior within these spaces.
The other problems that can happen in this space is with the emotional struggles, the social-emotional difficulties that can impede your working memory. It can make it difficult to focus. … A person may or may not have learning difficulties or learning disabilities, but it certainly could highlight or accentuate some of those struggles and make it a little bit difficult.
And, the thing that we want to try to help them with is to prevent that risk of not engaging with school because of their absence. … We want to help support that so that there’s as little fallout as possible for them as they hopefully are adjusting back to home life and some real normalcy and in getting back into being present in a physical school environment.
What are the most important things educators and schools need to understand about working with students who are dealing with serious medical conditions?
I don’t think there’s an environment today where anybody feels like they’re underworked. I think we all feel a little bit stressed and stretched out very thin. And, I think there’s a lot of accountability measures that we try to use to make sure that we’re doing our due diligence, but I think sometimes they can fall short.
Let’s say there’s a situation that needs some attention, there’s some support that’s being asked for. There’s something that comes your way. There’s so many noes that these people and these students hear who have any of these needs. There’s so many noes, there’s so many struggles. It’s quite a weight of discouragement. I think, in that space, anytime I can say yes, because they’ve been told no so often, I want to be able to say “yeah, we can take a look at modifying that assignment. Yes, we can take a look at what might help the students out in terms of social-emotional support” — the yeses instead of the noes.
Modifying assignments for students becomes very cumbersome. … (But) if we could just realize the enormous impact that we have every day on everybody … (and) take that extra minute or that extra situation and say yes and help somebody, that can be really powerful.
