THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509070038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 209 lines
THERE WERE NO yellow buses.
No good morning announcements or change-of-class buzzers.
No PTA membership table in the lobby, backpacks stuffed with pointy new crayons and unsharpened pencils, or stacks of waiting textbooks.
Nonetheless, Tuesday was the first day of school for about 57 children - ranging in age from a few days to 18 - who are patients at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk.
They came to class in their pajamas or were taught while in bed. They came with anxious parents and trailing IV poles, some still in shock that there could be such a thing as school - school! - while they were sick in the hospital.
But it didn't take long for them to learn that CHKD's school - with its short classes, one-on-one teaching and computer-based curriculum - was, well, fun. And a welcome break from the blood tests, shots and poking that go along with serious illnesses.
The eighth-floor classroom at CHKD is small, with space for only a handful of students and a couple of teachers. Otherwise it looks like a standard schoolroom.
There's the obligatory map of the United States. An American flag. Brightly colored posters that explain how the weather works. The alphabet marching across a bulletin board. And three Apple computers.
Courtney Maurer, 2 1/2, has already claimed one computer. Her pudgy fingers press the keys with assurance, even though she's rarely worked on a computer before.
``Do the boy, do the boy,'' she cries, as her teacher, Becky Overton, looks on with a puzzled expression.
``She wants the farm program,'' translates Courtney's father, Jim Maurer.
Obligingly, Overton pops in a new disk, boots it up, and a picture of a farm and a young boy appears on the screen.
``Can you hit this button one more time?'' she asks Courtney.
Courtney punches the key.
``Very good. What animal is that?'' Overton asks, pointing to the screen.
``A pig,'' Courtney squeals.
``And where's the apple?'' Overton asks.
Courtney points to the screen.
``Good job.''
While it may look like play, this program is designed to teach children to recognize letters. After Courtney picks out the pig, four letters appear on the screen and the toddler helps Overton move the cursor to alight on the ``P'' - the first letter of ``pig.''
For Courtney's mom, the chance to watch her daughter engrossed in such a normal activity as a computer game is a godsend. Courtney, from Jarvisburg, N.C., entered the hospital Friday, newly diagnosed with diabetes.
So after three days of her daughter's enduring needles and finger sticks, Regina Maurer was thrilled to hear about the in-school teaching.
``I think the school is wonderful,'' she sighs.
In another corner of the room, preschool teacher Ann Barnes, dressed in a brightly flowered dress, pulls two miniature chairs around her and cajoles two children to sit in them. One, 4-year-old Nicholas Posipanko of Virginia Beach, also newly diagnosed with diabetes, is hesitant and pushes back into his mother's protective arms.
The other, 4-year-old Jennifer Medeiros of Hampton, who has AIDS, sits eagerly on the edge of her chair, awaiting story time.
Barnes reads aloud ``The Hungry Caterpillar'' and soon has Nicholas pointing out the characters, counting the things the hungry caterpillar is eating, and forgetting that he isn't home in his own school. He even leaves the safety of his mother's lap.
This is teaching with a lot of hugs, a lot of touching and an incredible amount of patience and flexibility.
It is teaching in small amounts, with teachers usually able to spend only a half hour or so per day with each child.
And it is teaching filled with incredible rewards, as when a long-time patient goes home to his own school, and incredible sadness, as when a child unexpectedly dies of cancer.
``It is hard on teachers,'' said Principal Margaret Coleman. ``I spend a lot of time making myself available so that as death occurs, they can talk and cry.''
The school's 11 teachers have unlimited time off to attend funerals and memorial services. This year, Coleman wants to create a ceremony in which the children who die are memorialized through the work they created while in the school.
``People often ask us, `How do you work when death is imminent?' '' Coleman said. ``But when you think about the thousands we teach, not that many die.''
And, she continued: ``We make a difference and change the quality of their life. We get them to concentrate on what's normal for them, not on sickness.''
CHKD's program is one of three in-hospital educational programs that the state Board of Education funds throughout Virginia. The teachers here are employed by the Norfolk Public Schools and all come into the hospital with master's degrees and special training in their fields.
The school also employs a guidance counselor and physical-education teacher - even though the latter's talents aren't used very often.
Unlike regular school, this one runs year-round, with a more relaxed, ``camplike'' atmosphere during the summer months. Once school officially begins again after Labor Day, the atmosphere changes to a more traditional educational approach.
One of the school's greatest benefits, Copeland says, is the way it helps patients' home schools recognize and cope with any special problems. Last year, CHKD teachers sent 400 discharged patients back to their home schools for additional help - assistance with a learning disability, for example, or help in coping with diabetes.
``These are the children most likely to fall through the cracks,'' Copeland says.
In his room on the eighth floor, 10-year-old Kevin Lane is midway through a 2,000-mile computer trek across 19th century America, following the Oregon Trail. The fifth-grader, who normally attends Bethel Manor Elementary School in York County, has been here two weeks, recovering from an operation to remove a growth on his heart valve.
The hospital school relies heavily on computers ``to make friends,'' Copeland says. She estimates her school has the highest computer-to-student ratio of any school in Norfolk.
Teacher Tony Foresta, for instance, wanders the halls carrying an Apple Powerbook laptop. After setting it up on Kevin's bedside table, he calls up the Oregon Trail program and leans against Kevin's pillow to watch the boy play.
This computer program teaches children to make choices, Foresta explains. Kevin has to choose when to go hunting for food, how many animals to kill, what supplies to take, what time of year he should leave for the journey. And there's some math, geography, reading and history thrown in for good measure.
``Who died here?'' Foresta asks, leaning over Kevin and pointing to the screen.
``Jed died.''
``All right! Two down!''
``Yeah, he broke a leg, got sick and died.''
After several progressively louder queries about how Kevin likes school here, he finally tears his attention away from the computer.
``OK,'' he says, his fingers moving rapidly over the Powerbook's internal trackball. ``Since we get to play computers.''
Kevin will probably be discharged in a few days. If he were staying longer, the CHKD teachers would get books and assignments from his home school for him to complete.
Coordinating regular schoolwork is just one of the many tasks the CHKD teachers perform for their students.
Foresta came to CHKD two years ago after working in Virginia Beach schools with special-education and emotionally disturbed children. The atmosphere is different here, he says. For one, teaching is secondary to medical procedures. So flexibility is key.
Teachers quickly learn to fade into the background when medical procedures and tests interrupt a lesson. Or when a child needs a nap more than reading help.
Or, as is the case with 14-year-old Jeremy Geib, when students unexpectedly get sick and can't attend school. Geib, who is hospitalized because of complications from muscular dystrophy, was excited about attending the first day of school in his new state-of-the-art wheelchair. But a new medication made him sick, forcing cancellation of classes for the day.
``That happens,'' says his teacher, Susan Baggerly. ``You come prepared to teach and then can't and have to have backup plans with other students.''
Although her daughter has been in the hospital all summer with leukemia, Donnelle Henry was determined that 10-year-old Tiffany would not miss the excitement of the first day of school.
On Saturday, she went shopping for back-to-school clothes and supplies, filling a shiny new backpack with notebooks, folders and pencils. Before class started Tuesday, she dressed Tiffany in her new outfit, a neon-colored tie-dyed shirt and matching hot-pink shorts.
So when her teacher, Becky Overton, shows up with a laptop computer, Tiffany is ready.
A reed-thin little girl, whose chemotherapy has left just wisps of hair on her scalp, Tiffany would have been starting fourth grade at Allentown Elementary School in Virginia Beach.
Instead, her ``schoolroom'' is this small hospital room, filled with stuffed animals and get-well cards. Her ``desk'' is a hospital bed, halfway reclined. And her ``classmates'' are her mother and the occasional nurse popping in to check on her.
Tiffany's cancer is in remission. Once she's home, hopefully in about six weeks, her mother plans to re-enroll Tiffany in Allentown Elementary. In the meantime, though, both mother and daughter were thrilled to learn that Tiffany would still be ``in school.''
``Can you read this question for me?'' Overton asks, pointing to the starting instructions for the math game she's booted up on the computer.
``Why don't you?'' Tiffany says shyly.
And so Overton reads the questions and shows Tiffany how to move her fingers over the computer's trackball.
The subtraction question - 80 minus 68 - requires some figuring, so Tiffany picks up pen and paper and begins the age-old exercise of borrowing numbers.
``I forget how to do this,'' she murmurs, the classic back-to-school response after a summer without lessons.
But then it all comes flooding back and she writes the correct answer - 12.
``Doing good,'' Donnelle says from her perch on the bed, where she's looking over Tiffany's shoulder.
Tiffany punches in the number ``12,'' hits return and is rewarded with a jingle of music and the message, ``That's correct.''
Each problem solved gives her clues to finding a creature called Master Mischief, which, in turn, gives her points.
By the time the game is finished, she's racked up 4,075 points.
``Let's see how other kids have done,'' Overton says, calling up the game's scorecard.
Tiffany's face falls as she sees that her score is the lowest.
``But this was your first time,'' Overton soothes. ``Those other kids have played several times. You did just great.'' ILLUSTRATION: PAUL AIKEN/Staff color photos
Kevin Lane, 10, of York County concentrates on a computer game about
the Oregon Trail in Tony Foresta's ``class'' at Children's Hospital
of The King's Daughters.
RIGHT: Toshara Hagans, left, and Wayne Baker, both 8, learn from a
computer math game in CHKD's small classroom.
FAR RIGHT: Nicholas Posipanko, 4, of Virginia Beach and his mother,
Nicole, look at a book in a preschool session.
by CNB