CHIP Can Help Schools with Healthcare and Students with Disabilities

 Mel Brencius, from La Habra, California, has been a Buena Park School District elementary school teacher since 1998. In this role, Mel Brencius routinely works with children who have disabilities.

School districts can recover costs associated with educating students with disabilities through Medicaid’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but now, it is offering to pay for other healthcare-related services. During the 2021-2022 academic year, the US educated roughly 7.3 million students with disabilities, a number that has grown in recent decades.

Many of these children with a disability are covered under CHIP, which also covers students who come from low-income families. While Medicaid is most widely known for insuring those who need healthcare but cannot afford private insurance, it also pays for certain services, such as nursing and speech therapy, that public schools offer to students in this population. In 2022, CHIP paid public school programs $6.6 billion for these services.

Now, Medicaid is expanding these services to help children with conditions such as asthma and diabetes, according to an August 2023 NPR article. The Medicaid program made this announcement in May 2023, saying it was up to the schools and states to be proactive in getting this coverage. Ultimately, this gives children access to healthcare services at school.

Schools in all 50 states can benefit from this Medicaid expansion, which makes healthcare accessible to both students with disabilities and with certain healthcare needs. However, their states will have to update their Medicaid plans or state-level policies for the benefits to become available.

Poke - A Simple but Versatile Dish Originally from Hawaii

 

Mel Brencius is an active presence in the Southern California educational community who teaches within the Buena Park School District. A self-described foodie, Mel Brencius keeps up on culinary trends and enjoys trying out new restaurants.

One dish that has appeared on an increasing number of menus across the country over the past decade is poke, pronounced “poh-kay.” Loosely translated as “to slice” or “cut into pieces” in Hawaiian, poke traditionally involved fresh-caught reef fish cut into cubed-shaped pieces and seasoned with sea salt, ground kukui nuts, and seaweed. The dish later evolved to incorporate elements of Asian cuisine, which introduced a soy sauce marinade and replaced reef fish with deep-sea fish like tuna. Since then, poke recipes have begun featuring other types of seafood.

Today, a classical poke consists of chopped or cubed raw tuna that has been marinated in a combination of soy sauce, onions, and sesame oil, sometimes with a side of white rice. The key to an exceptional poke experience is selecting the freshest seafood possible. Common alternatives to tuna include octopus, yellowtail, ono, and salmon. Garnish options in mainland-inspired variations of poke are innumerable, but traditional preparation limits them to native Hawaiian ingredients.

Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities

 Learning disabilities dramatically impact learning, threatening the academic achievement of countless students across the United States. These disabilities may not be easily recognizable, which further complicates a teacher’s work in the classroom. To address this challenge, teachers can implement strategies to better support students with one or more disabilities.

Critical to a student’s learning experience, teachers may not be fully aware of the scope and nature of learning disability. One third of educators admit that laziness and learning disability can be easily confused, raising a problematic issue regarding awareness and understanding of disability in the teaching community.

Typically, learning disabilities refer to a group of conditions that hinder learning and academic performance. Common examples include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and cerebral palsy.

However, not all learning disabilities are rooted in visible intellectual or cognitive issues. For instance, temporary limitations such as bone fractures or long-term conditions like epilepsy and inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS) can also negatively affect learning. Other hidden disabilities range from lupus and diabetes to psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Learning disabilities usually influence a student’s reading and writing progress. Some may need to repeat tasks multiple times, while others find it difficult to focus on classroom activities. Interacting with other students can be an obstacle for children who face challenges in processing social cues.

Teachers must approach students with a nuanced awareness of learning differences. Overlooking learning disability means struggling students don’t receive the attention they need to lead a healthy life in school and at home.

Organizational strategies are important in optimizing the classroom environment for better learning. Teachers should limit the number of distractions in the classroom to support students with attention problems. They can also resort to visual cues to make it easier for students to navigate the classroom. For example, using colored tape to demarcate boundaries for different areas can signal different functions like studying, playing, snacking.

Organization also entails time management with clear time slots for teaching and breaks. Breaks can benefit students overwhelmed with information processing. A predictable daily schedule enforces a clear routine for all students. Posting the schedule with easy-to-process symbols such as a pencil for studying and an apple for snacking is one approach. Teachers can facilitate access to school supplies and games by careful placement on low shelves or labeled see-through cabinets.

Students with learning disabilities, particularly intellectual ones, may find it hard to follow long or complex instructions. Teachers can break down instructions into clear and simple steps so students can manage tasks more effectively. To ensure complete understanding, teachers should phrase their instructions and task description to cover three main points: how long the task is expected to take, specific actions expected of students, and any reward for completing the task.

Teachers can introduce awards for positive results or specific achievements. This is a form of positive reinforcement that helps students celebrate their accomplishments and boosts morale.

Teachers don’t have to handle the responsibility of supporting students with disabilities alone. They can collaborate with administrators, therapists, families, and specialists to improve the learning experience for students with disabilities. Maintaining open communication with parents is especially beneficial, while regular updates about the children’s progress can guide parents in their efforts at home.

An Overview of Performance Art

 Performing art involves presenting a creative act in front of a live audience, such as theater, music, or dance. The origins of performance art in the visual arts can be traced back to the dada cabarets and futurist plays of the early 1900s. Due to its frequently immaterial nature, performance in the post-war era began to resemble conceptual art. Since then, people have also used the phrase to refer to artworks that use film, video, photography, and installation-based techniques to communicate the actions of the creators, performers, or audience.

Various forms of performance art are separated into three major groups: language-based, music-based, and live art. Under language is poetry, spoken word, storytelling, and protest. Poetry and spoken word are alike because, like poetry, spoken word emphasizes cadence and rhythm.

The major difference is in how the performance is delivered. While performing poetry, poets do readings while employing standard guidelines for structuring and critical thinking. These structures include proper rhythm, rhyme scheme, and metering. The performance of poetry is mainly live.

On the other hand, spoken word performances are usually done in the form of a digital podcast or video to reach a larger audience. Performers use gestures and carefully crafted words to drive home whatever meaning they want the audience to get.

Storytelling is a way of sharing experiences. A good example of storytelling in performance art is Ted-talks. Meanwhile, since the 1960s, protest as performance art has been a powerful tool for change. Every time there is a protest, the artist does so merely to promote a cause.

Music-based performance art includes dance and musical performances. Dance is a term used to describe the human movement to move an audience during a performance. What determines the boundaries of dance are social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic, and moral considerations. They do so because the audience's perception of what dance is meant to be will ultimately determine the dancer's movements. For example, dancing ballet to an afrobeat song is like not dancing at all.

Dance performances are often choreographed (practiced and learned). However, the contemporary dancing style known as the free dance style (freestyle) appeared in nineteenth and twentieth-century performances. Live music performances are live reenactments of songs by artists. Dance and music performances are sometimes infused together, especially in modern music videos.

Live art performances are staged as works of art by an individual or group and are typically experimental and original. All performance arts possess common characteristics such as live acting and lack of rules (whatever a creator declares is art is art.). Performance art is not for sale and can be funny, surprising, entertaining, or disturbing.

Every performance artist has one or more skills that make them stand out or remain relevant in their work. The most important thing is courage. All performers must learn to control and manage anxiety to deliver an effective performance. Other important skill sets are creativity, flexibility, resilience, and self-discipline.

Performance art is typically presented to an audience in an interdisciplinary fine art context, to be watched live or through other means. It may be formed spontaneously or written - however, it's created, it is also artistic action, and it has evolved into a genre on its own.