Backtalk: For many students,there’s nothing elective about electives

As a parent, I’ve always felt lucky to have been a teacher. My knowledge about teaching and learning has been enormously helpful as I’ve raised my two daughters, especially my younger daughter, who is on the autistic spectrum. At the same time, though, parenting a kid with special needs has given me a lot of insights into what I could have done better as a teacher, and what our schools must do better in the future.

While my daughter is high-functioning, she often needed support in middle and high school, and she had to take extra reading and math classes. But that left no room in her schedule for electives, which had always given her a lot of joy, while also allowing her to practice her social skills. Without electives, she struggled. So, I found activities for her outside of school.

In her equine therapy program, my daughter and the other kids had chances to socialize, practice their conversational skills, and improve in many other areas affected by their disabilities. The youngest participants, for example, would look for letters and numbers around the stable, and the older students would strengthen their sequencing skills by recounting what they saw on their trail rides. Working with the horses helped the children improve their balance, stability, respiration, and muscle movement and tone. And there was also a garden, where they had opportunities to get their hands dirty and learn how to tend plants. It was such a peaceful and calming environment that the children with hypersensitivity to sound (who often needed to wear earphones in school) didn’t even need to cover their ears.

December was especially joyful, since all of the kids got to show off their riding skills, while friends and family sat in the bleachers with their cameras. There was a lot of clapping and excitement, and the children’s sense of pride in their accomplishments stayed with them for months.

I often feel torn about the priorities we choose in public education .

We signed my daughter up for a weekly art class, too, and it proved to be equally rewarding. The children who participated included honors students, students from other schools, and home-schooled students, which gave my daughter great opportunities to practice social skills with peers she probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. And here, too, she had chances to share what she learned. Any student could sign up to display her art on the student-of-the-month board, and my daughter was thrilled to do so, even calling her grandmother to describe the pieces she had chosen to show.

As both a lifelong educator and a parent, I often feel torn about the priorities we choose in public education. I understand how important it is to teach every child to read and write well and to succeed in math and history and all of the core subjects. But I also sympathize with those who argue that our schools have lost their sense of balance over the last couple of decades. The more narrowly they focus on academics, the more desperate children seem to be for activities where they can develop new social skills, share their talents, and use their hands to lead a horse, plant flowers, or paint a picture.

But as a parent of a child with special needs, I’m not torn at all. When my daughter was growing up, those activities were not just important but essential, just as essential as the extra help she got in reading and math.

My family was lucky enough to be able to give my daughter opportunities to interact with all kinds of other kids, learn to ride a horse, be an artist, show off her talents, and experience success in ways she rarely could in her academic classes. But so many parents of children with special needs can’t afford after-school classes or summer camps or other chances for their kids to explore and learn and succeed in these ways.

When people argue about whether our school music and art programs should get as much money as the math or history departments, or whether we can afford to provide electives and after-school programs during a recession, I’m never sure that they fully understand what’s at stake. For all kids, it’s true, these programs are important, and they’re worth every cent we spend on them. But people also need to understand that for some kids, like mine, they’re not just important; they’re a lifeline, and they matter just as much as reading, math, or any other part of the core curriculum.