Remedial & Special education blog

I attended the OT workshop on the Kawa Model (Kawa = River) by Prof Michael Iwama. I have to say it is one of the most beautiful OT models about, and is not even restricted to OT. It uses the metaphor that the journey of life is like a river from its source (birth) to the delta (passing on).

While there may be rocks and debris that hinder the flow, where there is water there is life, the sand and riverbanks are the environment and social context of a person. The river may need to divert a bit to continue flowing, or there are difficult times (rapids), but working on dislogging the largest rock may not be the answer to improved flow, you may rather address a few smaller stones and debris. He also highlighted the importance of the influence that each person’s experience has in shaping individual views.

Relevance of this post? I think we sometimes view a child’s difficulties as being caused by one rock, yet one rock seldom halts the flow of a river, look for the debris and stones…..

This is a question which we regularly have submitted to our “Ask RemSpecED” column and it is one that needs to be approached on a case-by-case scenario.

One of the discussion board scenarios we have on the RemSpecED Facebook group is as follows:

My daughter has been in a very good remedial school for the past 2 and a half years, and the school has recommended that she is ready to mainstream for grade 6. Though we are all a little anxious this is a very exciting time. She is still struggling a bit with working fast enough, but everything else has clicked into place! Lets hope that she can work as fast as the others next year! Please tell us your stories…

If you would like to contribute to this discussion board topic you can do so via this blog or via the Facebook group.