Last week, Jordan participated in her school’s holiday play. I wasn’t able to attend, but when I arrived home she was abubble with prideful energy. This is the first year since she became symptomatic that Jordan could do more than hum a tune and interject a few words here and there. She actually memorized whole passages of the songs, and when she reenacted the proceedings for me in our kitchen, she remembered stage direction, too. That might not seem like much, but for Jordan it’s quite a step forward. It means her memory is getting better, further sign of her progress.
Jordan’s school is a wonderful place. It took some trial and error to find the right one, but now that we’ve found it we feel very fortunate. She is having fun. She’s safe. And she’s learning. Her teachers and aids work hard to give her the extra attention she needs while providing discipline and taking pains to help her blend in with the rest of her classmates.
That’s a good segue to introduce a new feature on Jordan’s Journey. You might notice that on every post there’s now a brief section labeled “Possibly Related Classroom Projects.” These links are provided by DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit that helps teachers all across the country find desperately needed resources for planned classroom projects. You’d be surprised at how little the needs can be and how easy it is to contribute what you can. When I browsed the projects, I was most struck by the creativity of the teachers themselves. We hope you’ll take time to learn more about some of these projects, as we highlight those that might be similar to the step you’re reading about in Jordan’s Journey. This new feature is just a sliver of what we have planned for The Journey website in 2009. I’ll share more soon. Until then, thank you for traveling along with us and for lending any support you can to classrooms across the country.
Jordan's Journey 