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What I keep thinking about every time I see a Christmas play at church…

This year, I have seen a Christmas play at two different church. I enjoyed both of them. However, I found myself thinking about the same sort of thing at both of them. Now, to be honest, perhaps my dream is not currently possible, but maybe someday, somewhere somebody could actually do this.

What I noticed is that in both plays, the interpreter did not quite fit in with the scenery in the play. At one play, the placement of the interpreter could almost be a nuisance to the rest of the congregation since they at times blocked the view of the scenery. In my mind, I could almost sense people in the audience getting annoyed because the ASL interpreters were blocking their view. Now, would those annoyed members then have a high opinion of fellow Deaf people in the church? Isn’t there a better way to do this?

Oh yes, I’d think there could be a better way. How about, interpretation shouldn’t be an afterthought that is just pitched into the front of the stage. How about — make them actors in the play. Embed interpreters here and there right in the scenery? Make them part of the choir. Maybe even have Deaf people as actors for some role with someone shadowing them to voice what is signed a la what NTID plays do? After all, Deaf people can be pretty good actors if you thought to give them a chance! Come on folks — let’s be creative, find ways to make sure that all verbal communication is also made visual and vice versa. Let the ASL interpretation in the play actually enhance the experience for everybody simultaneously.

Fireworks!

Lately, I’ve been finding myself in my personal worship time using the sign for “fire” right over my heart, but going outwards and upwards just like this guy on this youtube video does many times:

If you go to 3:19-3:22 on that video, that is exactly what I’m talking about. Actually, PLEASE watch the whole video for yourself. You might not understand the ASL, but his signs are pretty powerful, and if you turn on captions, you can see the song lyrics. I’m finding has a quite powerful message for us. Now, I sometimes play with that sign that showed up at 3:19 and change the sign so that the hand extends outward from above my heart in different directions. Let’s say, one hand goes to the right, the other goes to the left, or even one going upward, the other going downwards. After all fireworks do that — they explode in all directions to make a beautiful spectacle.

What is really amazing about the way it is signed in the video at 3:19-3:22 is it presents the concept of both projecting outwards while at the same time surrendering or committing yourself wholly to something. Think like you are totally opening your heart to the Lord, and pursuing Him with everything that you have got, holding back nothing. And that is not all, in doing so, you make a spectacle for the rest of the world to see. And when people see it, they will be drawn to it. Think about it: people come in great numbers to see fireworks. They don’t come because they were forced to come, they come because they are drawn to the spectacle.

Let’s think about how we as church can make a firework for the rest of the world to see. For starter, it comes right from the heart. Surrendered hearts. People are driven away when we try to tell them they are wrong or otherwise try to force our ideas on them. Why not rather actually live our ideas, and invite them to join us if they dare? Show them how beautiful it can get when we live a life that is in total abandonment to God. Allow God to explode you with His love for the people that we might meet out there. Over and over again!

-Tim

Wisdom Beyond all Wisdom

I was talking to a friend tonight about one of the internal conflict I have. I really, really believe in a God that is all powerful. I don’t, however, believe that it is God’s will for people to live in pain day after day. I also don’t believe that many bad events that happen (especially these that requires people to do something sinful) is really God’s will. To say that it is God’s will that somebody sin is a contradiction to the perfect nature of God. I don’t believe it is God’s will that murder, rape, thief, and so forth takes place. I also don’t believe that when people do bad things to me that it is God’s will that those people commit those evil acts.

Yet I believe that in one way or another, it IS God’s will that we have to live through the events that happen to us. Christ’s life and the day that Jesus died is the most poignant illustration of this idea. In order for the crucifixion to take place, many, many people had to sin. Judas had to betray Jesus. Pilate tried to wash his hand clean and ignored the pleading of his wife. I believe that through it all, God was giving every character an opportunity to do the right thing. An innocent man should not be put to death. Yet, through it all, it was precisely their disobedience that allowed the greatest act of love to be accomplished. It was precisely through their sin, a sin that God knew very well about, that we find forgiveness for all our sin. God used sin, yes, the crucifixion — shedding of the most innocent blood ever to walk the face of Earth to break the power of sin over mankind once and for all. And that is the most amazing thing — Christ could not have accomplished God’s destiny for Him without the sin of others around Him.

What’s more is I don’t think that this applies only to Christ. In Romans 8:28, it says pretty clearly that God causes all things to work together for the good of these who love Him, these who are called according to His purposes. So take a minute and think about it — God is not surprised when someone else sins and therefore hurt us. Quite the contrary, God already knew about it. In every instance, I’d challenge you that God has a lesson for us in each and every event that happens in our life. Even the sins of others are obedient to this principle. A lesson, that if we take it to heart, if allow the situation to drive us deeper into the Lord, will accomplish great work not only in our life, but allow us to fulfill His perfect will for us. If Christ could count on this to fulfill many, many prophecies in the OT, then we most certainly can trust God to do the same for us.

-Tim

Words about Deaf education

The Deaf community is trying to put together a statement to legislators and so forth on the importance of the Schools of the Deaf and why ASL and English bilingualism is the best approach to educating Deaf kids. Here is my thoughts on this subject — I focused on the ASL and English bilingualism aspect, and my thoughts are partially directed to parents of deaf kids:

Denying a primarily visual language to a child whose hearing is not great is like gambling. Some might make it through by the luck of the draw, and those are the success stories you see. What is often unseen except among the Deaf community is the so-called silent evidence that shows how those methods are truly a disaster. We see those kids who come into our schools at 5 with no language, or quite delayed language development. Then we have to hurry and catch them up in the fully accessible visual language (ASL) before we can then teach them English. In the meanwhile, the clock is ticking and these kids are unlikely to achieve the level of education necessary to obtain great jobs.

It is not the ears or hearing that is important, but rather the mind that is most important. The ability to think, understand, and be understood on complex subject matters is the key to a good job in this day and time. Recent research has shown that these abilities are actually enhanced even further when somebody grew up with more than one language. Why not, instead of seeing lack of hearing as a limitation, see it instead as a call to champion bilingualism or even multilingualism. Bring these kids up in both ASL, English, and what ever other language you would like from day 1.

If only these kids who had to struggle with delayed language development had started off with ASL, we could have leveraged that language basis in speech therapy so they could exceed the verbal communication skills of even those who were subjected only to oral methods and forbidden from using sign language.

If I were to separate my thoughts into different points, and add a few more on top of it:
1. Language is the basis of one’s ability to think, understand, and be understood.
2. This ability is the foundation for obtaining a good education or learning yet another language.
3. Communication is vital to learn any other skills — speech/lipreading skills included.
4. For every ‘success’ of the oral method, there are just as many that did not make it. Why gamble with these kid’s life and education when we could have far higher success rate using another approach?
5. It might not be most convenient approach for the parents or others in the short term (since they need to learn a new language for their kid), but life should never be about what is most convenient. Rather it should be about what is best for the child mentally, physically, emotionally, and perhaps even spiritually.
6. To parents: don’t limit your kid, allow them to explore the world, express their interests, and unfold their potential naturally just like any other kid. There is no reason why deaf kids cannot go on to accomplish the same or maybe even far more in their life as their parents achieved.

Things that make you who you are today

I had to chuckle when I was thinking about ridiculous stuff I did when I was a kid. Like, my mom never understood why I would take ALL day on the computer patiently waiting while I colored each countries. The computer was so slow, the fill function would take 5-10 minutes each country I wanted to color. Then sometimes there were hole in the border, leading it to fill in well more than I wanted, and I had to fix the hole. Everyone else doing this homework probably would have been using a nice old crayon, but no, I had to do it with the computer, even if it took forever.

Or, how about that one where I blew soda bottle top on the kitchen table for about 2-3 hours. I was having fun looking at how as I blew the soda bottle top, it rolled in different directions based on how I blew it. I steered it as I blew it. My mom told me “I couldn’t watch it! It was so boring.”

How about the time when I filled out fairground applications with a typewriter! It took forever — talk about lining up every line so when I typed, it would hit the right line. This was before we had the nice computers we have today, and needless to say my mom was rolling her eyes thinking “you could get this done much faster with a pen!”

How about for 4-H, I opted to use the computer scanning software to load it into my computer, then manually enter the data into it, then print that out.

Fast forward to today. Have I grown out of it. Nope! I still, at times, spend lot of time working on a solution to do something somewhat simple in a MUCH faster way over the long run. And guess what, sometimes it is a positive trait. You see, I’m an incredibly patient person (ask anybody who has danced with me as a beginner or who learn sign language from me). If something isn’t working, you can probably count on me to bang at it persistently until an acceptable solution is found. You see, this is my life as a computer programmer — I’m paid to solve problems. Yeah, sometimes even problems that gets other people stumped.

I can tell you that co-workers have benefited from this trait. Take for instance, one test environment server that we all had installed on our machine that lost all of its configuration state every time you reboot the server. Of course, you don’t want your laptop running 24/7…and you need to reboot sometimes. Some other guy developed a few scripts to set up the configuration once the server has boot up. Ok…I looked at how it was done — then I developed a script to make that script. And then I developed a script that would run several of those scripts upon server startup, so you could have everything configured within a minute after the server boot up. I don’t know if anybody else would have bothered, and when I demonstrated this system at a team meeting, everyone was wowed. That was maybe 3 years ago. I can’t imagine how much time I would have wasted over the years if I hadn’t developed those scripts!

Now our system has been upgraded. Once again, I’m at it…making a better configuration for everybody, and making it easier for everybody else to get their machine up to speed.

Sometimes, I kind of think I might have the wrong job, honestly. Because on my job, oftentimes the things I love spending a lot of time doing sometimes isn’t necessarily in my job description. I was just talking to another co-worker, and he remarked “no offense, but you have sysadmin traits”. Oh yeah, I know that, thanks for confirming it to me! Now, I also like doing development work. I’m a developer, and a researcher at heart. YES — I don’t think you can be a good developer without some good research, or at least self-education skills.

The love of brothers and sisters

I had a dream this morning. All I remembered of the dream is I was a kid talking to my sister in the back seat of my parents car. That is all.

I woke up, and started pondering the dream. I realized all of sudden how much I love my sister. I also realized that when growing up, we sometimes got into fights, had conflicts, and things like that. But after everything settled, we still found a way to love one another. We did not have a choice in the matter: she was my sister, she shared the same roof over my head, and she shared the same parents. We could choose to hold grudges and the like against each other, but it would have made living together unpleasant, so children wisely choose to find a way to forgive and let go of the past. Oftentimes, children do a much better job of this than adults.

Consider that we love one another not because the other person did something to deserve it. Rather, we love one another because we shared the same parents, who could rightly demand that we get along. I’ve heard of parents who, if brothers and sisters have problem with each other — neither are allowed to leave the house (grounded) until the problem is resolved. Whether we liked it or not, our sibling is to be our friend — no if and/or but.

Similarly, consider the Kingdom of God and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Just like biological family, we don’t choose who our brothers and sisters are. The only condition of being a child of God is to believe in Jesus. Most of the time, we come to Christ not because we are perfect, but because we all desperately need God’s grace, forgiveness, and help in our life. It is wrong, therefore, to expect perfection on their part. Quite the contrary, we are commanded to love one another as Christ loved us. We are commanded to forgive one another, and even be willing to lay our life down for one another. All that simply because we are part of the same family — the Kingdom of God. Just like none of us deserved God’s grace, neither should we put any condition on the love that we extend to one another. We are called to love one another simply because we love our heavenly Father, and we know that He loves all His children. We cannot hate any of our brother or sister and still claim that we really do love Jesus.

Dedicated to my awesome sister, Debbie, whom I love dearly

-Tim

My view on abortion

This post is inspired by this other post on a pro-choice site:
Honestly, the thing that kills me about the anti-choice

I’d like to start by saying, I totally get everything that this person is saying on that site. I despise self-righteous behavior in any way, shape, and form. I also have no desire to stigmatize any woman who finds themselves pregnant out of wedlock or who have had an abortion. No, folks, I see abortion as for most part an act of desperation.

I, too, would like to live in a world where rape is so unthinkable that nobody ever has to fear it ever happening to them. I’d like to live in a world where employers care and respect their workers enough that they would make sure that their workers needs are taken care of before they take their dessert. Way before — how about putting their worker’s need above their own. Employees, on the other hand, should feel the same about their boss. If this sort of mutual respect and care for one another was lived — then nobody would be living without an adequate wage that leave needs unmet. The aim of education would be to make each successive generation more brilliant than the one before. The aim of all parents would be for their child to understand love, joy, and peace in ways that surpasses their own understanding.

For the record, I have absolutely nothing against medically necessary abortions. Ditto for those that you know will be stillborn. I suppose where we might part company is I also want to live in a world where everybody loves all humans no matter if it is a single cell or a mentally defunct elderly person. Where woman are no longer pressured by their boyfriend, husband, parents, friends, any family members immediate or extended, or even society at large that they ought to have an abortion because they cannot afford or raise a child. If, indeed, they cannot provide a good life for the child, let the village be quick to pitch in out of love to help and make sure that child has a good, fulfilling life. I believe that if woman never feels desperate over the prospect of having a child, then she wouldn’t even want an abortion because she would feel empowered to actually choose life. Even if the pregnancy is unplanned, and especially if she truly loved all human beings no matter how small.

If ever I made anybody feel judged, looked down upon, or stigmatized because of their choices in this matter (or pretty much ANY matter), I’m sorry. Sincerely. Now, I won’t stop standing up for the innocent human beings who cannot speak for themselves because I don’t believe in taking an innocent human life. However, I have no desire to claim that I’m better than anybody else, or that if I were in their shoe I would have done any differently. The truth is I don’t know, and I cannot know what I would have done if I were in anybody else’s shoes.

What I can endeavor to do is that in every way possible, learn to love others more day after day. Even those who might hate me. And inspire others to do the same. The kind of love that sacrifices, and lays down its life for another. Maybe we disagree on the need to include the unborn in such a love, but I suspect that if you can join me in that love for all human beings that are born — the world would be a bit brighter than it was yesterday. Yes, even amidst disagreements we can find a better solution.

Thanks for reading,

-Tim
P.S. I know there are many wonderful, caring people on the pro-choice side — and I’m by no means whatsoever saying that I understand love and caring for people better than anybody else does.

Is it ever just a job?

During the Rochester Deaf Film Festival, I got talking with an interpreter about some of her pet peeve regarding the interpreting industry. She said that some of her fellow interpreters just treat interpreting as just a job. They come in, interpret, then go home, and that is the only exposure to deaf people that they have. Many times, while they are interpreting, they think about how to follow the national interpreting certification guidelines. For example, if the deaf person seems to sign more English, then they should sign English too. If they are more ASL, then sign more ASL. Even worse, sometimes they don’t even pay attention to make sure that the deaf person is following along with their interpretation. In another words, they think “if I follow the rules, then I’ve done my job”, but is that really what it is supposed to be all about?

Sorry, I don’t think so. In the continuum of life, I don’t think that anything that we do in life ought to be *just* a job. Neither should a game be *just* something you do to have fun. Nor should things you invest in just be a way to earn money (I generally avoid investing in companies I don’t believe in, even if I know it could make a buck for me to do so). Furthermore, even things you buy, and from whom should be weighed against more than just the price and how much you get out of it. No, it should extend beyond that, even onto how you are helping somebody else, or sometimes in the case of food, the environment through your purchase. I don’t think that enough of us ever fully appreciate the ripple effect that our life has on the rest of the world.

Back to the point about “is it ever just a job” — it is my firm belief that the most effective workers, the workers who make the most positive difference in the world are those who have a job that they believe in, and who treat their work as more than just a way to pay bills. They take ownership of their work — they seek day after day to do the very best job that they can at the moment. Yes, the goal would be, and should always be to do a better job today than yesterday. They also have a good sense of how their work helps other people — like a mission, a purpose for life.

If you are a teacher, it should be your goal to teach your classroom how to advance beyond your wildest dreams. By that I mean — do everything you can to bring out the kid’s greatest potentials. Forget curriculum (think of it as only minimum) — go above and beyond that. Why become a teacher if you don’t want to see those kids achieve a level of brilliance that you never managed to grasp?

I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the interpreters who see their job as just a job. I do appreciate their service. What I’m saying is I would like it if more interpreters come into that profession because they really do believe that Deaf people are capable of doing anything and everything that hearing people can do — except hear. It should be their goal to do their best to enable the Deaf people to communicate with their hearing peers seamlessly, and in a language that both sides understand. Free both sides, as much as possible, from the load of trying to figure out or translate what the others are saying, and allow both sides to think as much as possible in the idea and problem domain. In order to do this effectively, ideally, you should know both languages and the underlying culture very well. There is no better way to know both languages very well than to use both languages and interact with both cultures on a regular basis.

Think about it a moment: the ideal French-English translator would know both French and English by heart. As a matter of fact, they probably grew up speaking both languages. Alternatively, they might have 6-7 years of immersion into both languages at minimum. They know culturally French and culturally English people. They would probably STILL be interacting with both cultures at a regular basis if they are at all able. What is the purpose of translating between the two cultures if you do not believe in your heart that both cultures have something of value to give each other, and you have the desire to bring them both together on one accord while allowing them to maintain their separate identity?

Yet…having interpreters who don’t regularly interact with Deaf people, and instead view their job as just a job rather than a mission to bring together two cultures is precisely what Deaf people have to put up with all the time.

I’ve been told by interpreters from time to time that interpreter agencies who send interpreter to interpret for me always tell the interpreters to sign more English for me. After all, I grew up with signed English. Has anybody really bothered to ask *ME* what I want? Rarely am I ever asked. Now, I can understand how some Deaf people might not be aware of why they understand one system more than the other, but I’m pretty sure I’m aware of what I understand. I have the ability to THINK in ASL. In my mental process — I don’t have to translate what I see signed to English in order to understand it, so there is absolutely no need to make it clear to me what English words are spoken. I might expand more on this topic in a later blog.

Why deaf adults should be part of the life of every deaf child?

Note: this was originally written on the night of 3/10

Since this topic is fresh in my mind, I thought I would write a blog about it. Let this be clear, I had great parents. But I do think my upbringing could have been even better if I had met well-adjusted deaf adult early in my life, and grew up knowing deaf adults. I didn’t have that privilege. When I got to know a wonderful deaf couple at around 28-29 (the Trachtenbergs), it has changed my life, and inspired me in ways that I cannot explain at this point.

I wish I had known deaf adults when I was a kid. There are something in life that a hearing parent could never understand or figure out on their own that only a perceptive, well-educated deaf person who is self aware can explain. As you know, when children are growing up, they are still learning the language, social conventions, and their view of the world is being shaped. A child is unlikely to be able to pinpoint when something is wrong — because when something is wrong, they internalize it as “normal”. After all, it is all that they ever knew.

Lately, I saw a recent vlog where a lady discussed her anger with the mainstreaming system. I also know somebody whose life to this date has been totally destroyed in part by the mainstreaming system — he was mainstreamed until 12th grade (12th grade, he was fortunate to go to RSD) with no interpreter at all. He also experienced anger, got into trouble, and was sent to principal office — all because the teacher could never understand him. Like it or not, when a kid feels they are not understood and unable to communicate, they tend to get mad.

I had anger problem. If you met me in my high school year, I don’t think you would recognize me for who I am today. I am now a completely different person to the extent that I cannot even understand why I was so easily angered back then. I’m eternally thankful to God for turning my life around, and teaching me how to forgive and love in ways I never understood before. If I hadn’t learned that last year, I think I would not have been able to deal with the situation I’m now facing in my life right now. I don’t want to discuss the current problem I’m going through in this blog.

Here is an example of bad situations that deaf kid find themselves in routinely that only a deaf adult could correct if they were able to interact with the family on a regular basis and serve as a mentor or advisor to the family and a role model to the child.

When I was a teenager, I did not always care about eating dinner with my family. Those years, I’d prefer to be on the chess server, chatting away (that might be part of the reason why my writing is so good, and I’m very expressive in IM). There was one thing that IM took away like nothing else took away: I was finally able to communicate on equal terms with everybody else! Nobody on the chess server knew I was deaf until I told them, so I was like everybody else on the server.

Why didn’t I want to eat dinner with my family — they always talked to each other using their voices, and only to me in sign. I always had to ask mom “what are you talking about?” over and over again. Then instead of exactly word for word what everybody else is saying, what I would get is merely a summary of the conversation. Sometimes I would get that summary, I would say my two cents based on it, then my mom would tell me “oh, we aren’t talking about that anymore!” It later evolved to the point where they would blame me for being socially backwards, and unable to change topic when everybody else does. Think about it a moment — I had just heard of the topic, and I want to say my piece, but you only gave me the summary AFTER everyone had already talked about the topic. This is the kind of junk that deaf kids often have to put up with even in the best families when the parents don’t understand. What they are asking me to do is impossible since I had just heard of the topic, then suddenly I have to change to whatever topic they are now talking about. And I don’t even know what the next topic is! Giving me periodic summary is insufficient to participate fully in a dinnertime conversation. No, you need to know exactly what is being said and when it is being said. Anything less is not full participation on equal footing.

I was a kid. I couldn’t articulate what is wrong like I can now. Remember: I didn’t know better. This was the only life I knew. You cannot blame a kid for being socially backwards if they never even get a chance to participate fully in conversations around them. In my mainstreamed school, my conversations with other kids were either written or through interpreter. I lived a mostly isolated life. I remember one situation in school others would say that I’m an introvert, and a very quiet person. When the interpreter interpreted that — inside I was screaming “no, you don’t know me at all!” There was a Tim inside that wanted to come out, but is being prevented from doing so because of the communication barrier. I handled it by being quiet, burying myself in my studies, and taking pride in how well I was doing at school. I was doing extremely well, indeed. Sometimes other deaf kid handle it by getting mad, speaking out, then get sent to the principal office as if it was their problem. They get labeled troublemakers (I wasn’t that) when in reality, they are like all other children in that they want to understand what everybody else is saying and BE understood.

Anyways, suppose a deaf adult had entered my life from the beginning. At 4 year old, they would have told mom and dad “hey, if you want your son to feel like a part of the family, you have to sign everything you are saying to each other if he is in the room.” They would have been able to identify with any problems I was feeling that is related to being deaf, being excluded from social gathering, and able to advise on how to correct it in a way that doesn’t place undue burden on my family. Even mom got frustrated when I keep asking “what are you talking about?” That could easily have been avoided that frustration if they had understood how frustrating it is for the kid when they are left out and simply signed the conversations all the time when I’m there.

Now, my parents were operating under the belief that if they didn’t sign to each other, then I’ll learn how to lipread/talk. If they were really serious about that — then they should have slowed down their talking to my lipreading level, be willing to repeat if I’m not understanding, make everything they said to each other clear, lose the mustache, and always make sure I’m looking at their mouth before saying anything. In general, be aware of how much of the conversation I’m missing — so if I’m looking down at my plate to eat, everybody needs to stop talking. Wait for me to look up before talking again. Wait for my eyes to be on you before speaking. The point is even when lipreading/speaking is used there are so many things that would be missed simply because the deaf has not turned their head to the person who is talking next.

Now, my life was light years ahead of what lot of other deaf kids have to put up with. Many deaf kids — when they go home, their parents don’t even know how to sign. I can’t tell you how much that breaks my heart — because the parents don’t even get to know their child at all. The child often comes home, and are unable to express any of their wants or annoyances to anybody. They are unable to laugh when others tell spontaneous jokes, sympathize with others when they hear things that bothers others. Many times these children grow up, and their language skill lags FAR behind their peers since they never get a chance to rack up the hours, hours of social and language exposure that a typical hearing child gets to experience. That is totally unnecessary — if they had been given a language they could communicate with on a regular basis (even if it is Signed English — the mistake of the ’80′s that research is now showing is inferior to ASL) then they would be able to develop linguistic skills to learn any language. Yes, even speaking and lipreading! I was fortunate that I could talk to everybody in my family, and knew that they loved me. It is just unfortunate that there was nobody (particularly a deaf adult) there to advocate for me, and to explain why a few of the things they did could have been improved.

When deaf culture (especially deaf adults) try to tell hearing parents that they want to be a part of their child’s life — please, please listen. We aren’t trying to take your kid away from you — we want to see your kid become everything they can become. They are like a flower that we want to see come into full bloom, bringing joy to you and everyone around them, and even wealth to society. Yes, we really love your kid, and we have both their and your best interest in mind.

Ok, I’m crying now.

-Tim
P.S. I’m aware that lot of hearing parents think that by not learning sign, the child will learn to speak/lipread because they are required to do so at home. The problem with that is far too often it fails, and the child winds up resenting, maybe even hating their parents for life. NTID has a very good video that illustrates how this often goes. There is also a bit of a twist dealing with CI’s, to which I’d just say that I’ve heard study that show that CI users who *also* grow up on ASL actually outrank their CI and English-only peers in spoken and written English skills. Unlike what CI companies and AG Bell would like to pressure you, parents out there should know that it is their call, not some company, or some system’s call. Remember: these organizations are not willing to take responsibility for the child’s educational achievement and social well-being — so you, and only you are responsible for that!