Thomas Huisman

May 9, 2016
Professor Sevensma
Education 202
Final Case Study
This is Jasons second year at Lake Michigan Academy, a school for children with learning
disabilities. All students here must be evaluated so teachers can know how to work with them
better and set up plans for the future for them. This report will be designed to help the
committee understand Jason better and know how to better work with him in the future. I have
just begun work and observations with Jason so I still have many questions about him, his
strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, and his background. There are many things
still unknown to me at this time.
Lake Michigan Academy is located in Grand Rapids off of Burton St. very near Calvin
College. This is a school that strives to transform the lives of children with learning disabilities.
They empower students to focus and build their strengths not their weaknesses. Students leave
LMA with renewed self-esteem and lifelong tools for success. (LakeMichiganAcademy.com)
They are a small school with around 35 students with grades ranging from 1st - 12th, although
at the moment their youngest class is 3rd grade. That's Jasons class. Jason is 11 years old and in
3rd grade at Lake Michigan Academy. I am not sure as to where Jason is from specifically, but I
know that his family moved to somewhere in Grand Rapids because doctors recommend the
schools here for their help with special education.
His parents have two other children, an older brother and sister. When Jason was
around two years old his parents realized that he wasnt moving very much at all and that he
couldnt crawl or really move around. They realized something was wrong and went to the

doctors. The doctors recommended an early childhood program in Grand Rapids for him, but
while Jason was there he made zero progress over the course of the year. So his family pulled
him out and have been doing everything they can to get him the help he needs. He has been to
Family Tree services , Physical therapy, Occupational therapy, Speech therapy, and Vision
therapy. He participates in therapeutic horseback riding lesson and private swimming lessons.
Some of Jasons vision treatments have taken him and his family all the way out to California.
He tried the Koman reading and math program but showed no progress there either. He was
also in Gymco preschool and part of ABM Feldenkrais therapy. It was part of the BRAINS
program. With no schools helping Jason to progress, his parents found Lake Michigan Academy
where he has made great strides since he has been there.
Its very hard to understand Jason completely without knowing him and working with
him one on one because he has no actual diagnoses. The doctors are stumped and have no
name for it and the only thing the teachers have ever been told is that he suffers from blind
sight. The teachers dont even know what that means, but they do that know that he does have
some kind of vision impairment. This also makes Jason impossible to test especially in any sort
of standardized test because he can not read and his writing is very poor. He is able to read
sight words that he has memorized if they are paired with pictures, but other than that he is
unable to read.
The teacher, Mrs. Willard, is put in a tough spot because its hard to judge where Jason
is at and its also hard to articulate that to someone else like a future teacher because they
cant establish a baseline for him. Although I have just started working with Jason and we have
no official name for his learning disability, I believe he shouldnt be defined by that and him not
having a label is great for him. Once you get to know Jason even just a little, you realize who he
really is, a wonderful little boy.

As I worked through a simple math game with Jason, a girl was taking a test a couple
tables away. Her teacher came out to check on her and told her she could do it. Jason was of
course distracted by this, but what surprised me was that he stopped what he was doing to sit
up and yell across the room, you can do it!. I was struck by Jason's encouragement to the girl
considerably older than him. I quickly realized what a polite kind boy Jason is. Although he
struggles with many things in school, he doesnt struggle to be kind to those around him.
What excites me most about working with Jason is that although his progress has been
slow going, this is one of the first places he has started to make progress while being at school!
I believe it has to do with all the love and attention he receives from being one of four students
in Mrs. Gillards class. Mrs. Gillard sets up her room in order to set up her students for success.
There are four desks in the middle of the room where all the students can interact or work
alone at their desks. Mrs. Willard is able to work with all of them one on one or all of them at
the same time if she wants to. There is a reading corner with bookshelves and a basket labeled
for Jason with books just for his level. There is a comfy, cozy, corner for him to read and
practice his sight words. There is a smart board in the back with bean bags to sit in to watch the
screen for videos, presentations, and online quizzes. The room has every place and tool a child
needs to learn and it's all there at Jasons finger tips every day with incredible one on one time
with a great teacher, Mrs. Willard. According to Affirming Diversity on page 126-129 the way a
room is set up is one of the main things that teachers and control and change to have a positive
effect on their students (Nieto). I believe the setup of Mrs. Willards room has set Jason up to
learn a lot and to progress greatly throughout the course of the school year.
Each day Mrs. Willard works her students through different subjects and each subject
usually sends them to several locations throughout the room. This is perfect for a kid like Jason
who is always moving no matter what and always looking forward to finishing and moving on to

the next thing. For math Jason and I went into the main room to work on his numbers, as soon
as that was done, we moved to a different table to work some other number flash cards. For
story time he sat with the other kids on the bean bags as the teacher read to all of them. In this
way, he stays moving and it's harder for him to become board or completely distracted with
something else.
During my observations with Jason I noticed that he usually understands what he is
doing quite well, but he still struggles because he loses focus so quickly. That is something that I
will continue to observe about him and why I believe that is the case and what might help him
to stay focused or what holds his focus the best. I have also learned that Jason is a very kind,
loving boy. He is always very nice and polite and he is never causing any trouble on purpose. I
believe this is because he has been raised by a kind and loving family. I wish I could know more
about his home life and how that has shaped his personality. I am curious to find out more
about his strengths and where he can really shine and how all the different factors of doctors,
school, and family factor into how and what he learns throughout the rest of the year.
Jason has many strengths and weaknesses that have the ability to help and hurt him
respectively while he learns at school and the world around him. Jasons weaknesses can tend
to mask some of his strengths, but as I have worked with Jason I have been able to see many
strengths that he possesses. His strengths lie in the functions of higher order thinking, memory,
and social cognition.
When I was working with Jason on his reading then we read a book called The
Rainforest. In it there were several different animals. At a few points, Jason would stop
reading and tell me about the animals he saw at the zoo the week before. For example, he
would read the page the snake and then stop to tell me all about the Boa Constrictor he saw
in the zoo and how it wraps around his prey and suffocates it and how it eats rats and other

animals. I was shocked by the details Jason was able to recall about all the animals and all their
characteristics. I realized that even though Jason was reading pages with two words on them,
that his ability to think and remember things was much more complex than his ability to read
and write. Jason displayed very high levels of higher order thinking here and in other
circumstances as well. This example also displays Jasons strength in memory and recall.
Jason also showed strength in the area of social cognition as well. He is a very friendly
kid and he is always talking to and playing with his friends. He is always the first to speak words
of encouragement to other students and his teacher Mrs. Gillard. When Mrs. Gillard was sick
and not feeling well, then Jason would recommend that she get some rest and take some
medication for her sickness. He always shows great awareness of whats going on with other
people and how they are doing and he is always to looking to help in any way he can.
Although Jason is strong in several areas, it can be hard to see at times because his
strengths can be affected by and covered up by some of his weaknesses. Some areas where
Jason shows signs of struggling are attention, spatial ordering, and neuromotor skills.
Jason struggles a lot with attention. He is constantly look around and turning his head to
look at what is going on. He tends to sometimes just zone out and look out into space. If it is
close to recess then he often talks about how his tummy is growling and he needs a snack soon.
He seems to really struggle with his mental energy and endurance. He can focus for a few brief
moments, but then he loses it again. Mental energy and endurance are both important areas of
the function of attention and are necessary to keep the learner on track for almost any task
(Barringer, Dean, Pohlman, Robinson, 2010).
Mrs. Gillards room however is setup to help Jason with his learning and we have learned that
room setup is very important in helping your learners. (Nieto, 2010).

All the subjects that are taught have there own place in the room to work on them or outside of
the room if a quiet environment will help the student. The purposeful set up helps Jason to
avoid many focus problems that might be present in a regular classroom.
Jason also struggles with his spatial ordering. When he has to name letters on flash
cards he often mixes up the U and the V or the Q and the O. Jason also struggles with
his numbers as well. I have noticed that it is hard for him to distinguish between things that
look a little similar. Sometimes he mixes up letters like Ms and Ws and I wonder if Jason
suffers a little from dyslexia. Its hard to say one way or the other because he cant write words
or sentences so we dont really know yet. Im interested to see if we could figure out any way to
find out whether he suffers from something like that or not. Working on assignments are
challenging for Jason. I know this because of the activities that I have done in my Ed 202 class
where we were distracted and given handicaps while still trying to complete the assignments
(Sevensma 2016a).
Another area Jason needs work on are his neuromotor skills. Jason has yet to learn to
write, and drawing specific things to make them distinguishable is also a challenge. As you can
see in his artifact his drawing is very hard to interpret and looks like a lot circles. I think they are
probably people at the I have a dream speech. However true this may be, when Jason was
asked to draw an animal at the zoo then his animal and people looked exactly the same. I have
also observed that many times when he tries to pick a card or a chip off the table for a game we
are playing then he struggles to pick the object up most of the time. We are trying many things
with Jason to improve on these skills. He has a special pencil to help him with his writing. He
also has sand and gel that he can practice writing letters in with his fingers.
Its evident that Jason has many strengths that are very helpful for learning, but there
are also a lot of challenges that mask the things that those strengths can do. I wonder just how

much Jason could accomplish if he were able to work through just a couple of those
weaknesses and then use his old and new strengths to work through his other ones and maybe
someday be writing and reading with ease. Jason has great potential and I wonder how we can
use his strengths to unlock the bright boy inside of him and help him to learn faster than ever
before.
On top of all the things that are affecting Jason and working against his strength, he also
has to work through the Socio-cultural variable of race and ethnicity. Jasons mom is Indian and
from India. His father is a caucasian male from the united states. This makes Jason half Indian
and you can tell when see his very tan skin and black hair. When I first started observing Jason I
thought this might be a large variable because of how few Indian people live in west Michigan
and how much of a minority this makes him. However, as I got to know Jason and learn more
and more about how much he knows, I began to wonder if Jason really knows that he is
different from so many people and what it means for him to be half Indian. I had decided that
he didnt understand and it would be a variable that would affect him greatly. However, after
reading See Baby Discriminate my opinion began to change. I read about how children notice
differences in race at an incredibly young age without any prompting from parents (Branson,
Merryman, 2009). I wonder about whether or not Jason has noticed that he is different from
others. If he has, I wonder if this affects him in any way about how he acts, how he feels, or
how he thinks of himself. Another article that swayed my thoughts on this variable was Basic
facts about low income children. It talks about how many low income students come from
majority families (Jiang, Ekono, Skinner, 2014). Many times stereotypes extend from actual
facts. In todays world I know that many people of minorities are stereotyped as poor.
Sometimes this is true, and sometimes it is not. Just like families of all races. I wonder if

because of his skin, do teachers assume Jason comes from a poor or bad home situation? Do
they look at or treat him differently because of it? Did I look at him differently because of it?
These articles and this case study as a whole has really challenged me not only as a
student, but also as person. It has challenged how I view people and who they are. If you had
asked me at the beginning of the class if I was racist, I would've said no in a second, but after
looking so closely at students and so closely at how I view them, I have come to realize that
even if we arent racist, race still often has an affect on how we see people. I am glad to
become more aware of what makes people who they are and how complex learners are in the
early stages of becoming a teacher so that I can appreciate and help my students to the
absolute best of my ability.

Work Cited
Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "See Baby Discriminate."Newsweek. N.p., 14 Sept. 2009.
Web. 9 May 2016
Barringer, Mary-Dean, Craig Pohlman, and Michele Robinson. Schools for All Kinds of Minds:
Boosting Student Success by Embracing Learning Variation. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.
Nieto, Sonia. Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education. New
York: Longman, 2010. Print.
LDRG. "Lake Michigan Academy." Lake Michigan Academy. Learning Differences Resource
Group, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 May 2016.
Jiang, Yang, Mercedes Ekono, and Curtis Skinner. "Basic Facts about Low Income Children."
NCCP. NCCP, 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 09 May 2016.
Sevensma, K. (2016a). Learning disabilities. [Lecture].