An Unusual Website For Teachers
A beautiful city park. A whole bunch of cats. What’s not to love?
This is my second book for Lima and my third book for Peru! These books help people with autism get out into the world. That is my way of saying thank you to Peru for being such a lovely host during my visit!
One of these days I am going to get completely caught up! One book at a time…
In the summer of 2015 I travelled to Peru as a National Education Association Global Fellow. It was an amazing experience and we saw some of the great museums and cultural sights of Peru including Machu Picchu. The Peru Department of Education welcomed us and we toured schools and met students and teachers at one of Peru’s most respected schools and again at one of Peru’s poorest school. It was an incredibly enriching experience.
My way of paying back the lovely people of Peru who treated me with such kindness and respect is to make Ability Guidebooks. I’ve previously posted a book for the Inca Museum in Cusco and now I’m thrilled to add another book to the list for Peru.
I Am Going To The Love Park! Lima, Peru
Rome is such an amazing city! Just walking through its cobblestone streets, soaking in the architecture and the history, feel like a gift. My way of saying thank you is to create these Ability Guidebooks with the photos from my visit. I invite others to do the same–create an Ability Guidebook for their own community. I will help any way I can!
Without further ado, I introduce the newest Ability Guidebook, this one for the Roman Forum!
Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The Old City of Kotor!
Whenever I finish an Ability Guidebook it always feels like a cause for celebration to me. I think that is because I picture someone with autism who has a hard time getting out of their house, but this book makes it a little easier for them and so they give it a try. These books are all about opening doors for people everywhere. That is why I try to make them for everywhere I go.
I am especially happy about this new book. It is my 50th Ability Guidebook and Montenegro makes my 12th country!
It is always a very happy to announce another Ability Guidebook. This is book number 49! There are now four books for DC. Let your special education teacher friends or autism programs know!
Ability Guidebook I Am Going To The WWII monument
Ability Guidebooks are the creation of Brett Bigham, the 2014 Oregon State Teachers of the Year. Many people with autism become stressed out with new experiences. Ability Guidebooks help alleviate that stress by allowing people with autism a chance to see what is coming up. There are now Guidebooks for eleven different countries in four different languages with more coming up!
They make great field trip guides for general education students too!
There is nothing I like more than adding another country to the list of places with Ability Guidebooks! This is my Tenth country! If you know anyone who speaks Croatian, I need a translator!
I Am Going To Walk the Walls of Old Dubrovnik (As a PDF )
Brett Bigham is the 2014 Oregon State Teacher of the Year and the President or ORSTOY, the Oregon Chapter of National Network of State Teachers of the Year.
If you saw my “to do” list it would make your toes curl. From “replacing the front porch” to “reclaiming the back yard” plus a thousand other little things to do on our 1915 house. Three years ago I was stepping into my role as Teacher of the Year. It was like stepping out my front door into a tornado and life has never been the same. That role created a “to do” list that is still beyond comprehension and is one of those things that will never be completed. As one thing disappears of the top of the list, two, or three or ten things have already appeared at the bottom of the list.
Imagine, if you will, you are a respected voice for a group you care about. For me there are three groups–people with special needs have me as their champion, lgbtq kids have me fighting in their corner and every day I represent teachers. When you have been given the honors I have it means your voice will be heard if you speak up. Those voices of the kids I teach and the kids I represent will be heard. It is hard to rest when your actions and words can make a difference.
That’s where my life has taken me. During the Fall I wrote three essays for national publication (I still can’t use “blog”…in my day an essay was an essay). For Microsoft Education I wrote a piece about access and opening doors for people with autism. For the Oregon Education Association Magazine I wrote about meeting Dr. Stephen Hawking and how he had a message for my students who use wheelchairs and speaking devices. I completed an essay for a book about supporting lgbtq youth, wrote a guest editorial for the Oregonian and the Bad Ass Teachers Association published my keynote speech from the Oregon Safe Schools Awards. The Huffington Post and the Tyler Clemente Foundation are still waiting for me to get their essays finished.
On top of this I have my own blog, my own twitter and Facebook, a business selling curriculum on Teacherspayteachers and a social networking platform that many professional PR people would kill for. I am finishing my 46th Ability Guidebook for people with autism. This one is for Croatia and adds an 11th country to my project. I have pictures for over 30 more books ready as soon as I have the time.
During the fall I also gave tv and radio interviews, wrote and gave three keynote speeches, sat on two education panels and was elected President of the Oregon State Network of State Teachers of the Year, named Chairman of NNSTOY’s Membership Committee and Chairman of the Day on the Hill Committee for their national conference, am Co-Chair of the ECET2OR conference here in Eugene and I serve on the board of two non profit organizations (Oregon Safe Schools and Clubfunder).
That was my fall. This is what I did in my free time. This is what I did while I wasn’t at work. My list for spring is…. daunting, to say the least.
But I bring this all up for a reason. This is not a “look what I did” post. You don’t have to look far to see what I’ve done lately. What it is is an example. Though I occasionally get a stipend, for everything I shared above that stipend totaled $125. That doesn’t even pay for ink cartridges I used printing materials for all the above events or the gas to get there. I’m doing this because it is bettering the lives of the kids in my classroom and, because of my interesting place in life, is bettering the lives of kids I’ve never met in places I have never been.
I do it because I am a teacher. And like all the other teachers you know, every single minute of our day is spoken for. There is never enough time to get everything done we want. Imagine being a 2nd grade teacher–how long does it take to cut out the pieces for 32 kids to do an art project? Just go cut out 64 eyes and see how long that takes. (and cut out a few extra because some will be lost or glued to the back on accident). Imagine the middle or high school teacher with 180 students and 180 papers to grade. If every paper got a single minute that is three hours. 2 minutes = 6 hours. 3 = 9. 4 = 12…
I hope you see where I am going with all of this… If you are a parent, the next time you see your kid’s paper with a bunch of red marks on it, know that that teacher probably stayed up late, skipped their favorite tv shows or reading a book, and instead tried to give your child 4 minutes, or 5 minutes or ten minutes of their time.
If you are a family member of a teacher, the next time you see them sitting with their never-ending pile of papers to read, bring them a cup of coffee or a tea and let them know you see their sacrifice.
And the next time you hear the media or a politician putting down the teachers, don’t accept it. Stand up for your teachers. Stand up for your schools. Appreciate what a good teacher gives to society and give them the job respect they deserve.
Only a few teachers are singled out and rewarded for this hard job. I have been blessed. But make sure the teachers in your life know they are appreciated!
Brett Bigham is the 2014 Oregon State Teacher of the Year and received one of the 2015 NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence, was named an NEA Foundation Global Fellow and was given the NEA LGBT Caucus National Teacher Role Model Award. He is currently working with Microsoft Sway to create Ability Guidebooks for people with autism all over the world. He teaches special education at George Middle School in Portland, Oregon.
I am very excited to announce that I have recreated all of my Ability Guidebooks as Microsoft Sways. By changing into this new format they are now recordable and viewable on a smart phone. If you need them as a PDF drop me a line, but Sway has allowed me to address the problem of making my books accessible to people who can’t read or can’t see well enough to read. Check out the Explore Helsinki “I Am Going To Senate Square”–the first book that also has audio recording to see what a difference changing formats makes!
I’m also THRILLED to say that Microsoft has taken me under their wing and have been sharing out about the books all week. They have been so incredibly helpful and are truly hoping that by giving my books more exposure, that people in other places will also create some books for their own home towns!
All of the Sway Ability Guidebooks are here: https://docs.com/user455133
And there is a blog post here that explains everything in a little more detail: https://blogs.office.com/2016/10/25/making-the-world-more-accessible-with-sway/
The first Ability Guidebook for Chicago!
Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The Art Institute of Chicago! corrected
Few buildings have as much history as St Paul’s Cathedral.
Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To St Paul’s Cathedral!
I wish we had had time in London to get more pictures but we only had a day and half. I’m thankful Mike is willing to stand in when I can’t get shots with the general public in them. Sometimes the scale of the room is necessary to give a real idea of the space you are about to enter. Nothing shows that better than a person. Without a model you have to wait ages to get a picture with just the right person to wander into the shot, at just the right angle and at just the right moment.
As a rule I try to get pictures with no faces in them but it is not always possible. Often I will blur people out but that in itself is usually a bad choice. Modern computer screens can be huge and a blurred-out face can be kind of scary on a big screen. Since my goal is to familiarize people with a destination, the last thing I want to do is scare them with a blurry ghost face!
St. Paul’s does not currently allow photography inside so I am very thankful to the photographers who share their photos on Wikimedia Commons.