October 16th Visit

    Today we got the opportunity to visit a school that was completely different from the public schools that we have already been to. I had preconceived notions about this school because kids in the after school care that I work at had previously gone there or are currently going there and I had heard many different opinions about it. I was glad to finally get the opportunity to make my own opinion of the school and to see what they are all about.
    I decided to break this blog up into the positives and negatives that I gathered from our one day visit. I think the biggest positive for this school would be the job of teacher here. It is a completely different atmosphere for teachers at this school compared to public school teachers. The reason I say this is because from what I heard today, teachers get to be as creative as possible and are not held to outside evaluations. The elementary and middle school classes that I observed seemed pretty crazy, but I assume that this would be the norm for these kids and teachers. I did like that teachers were able to look over some behavioral "outbursts" and that there was no negativity directed towards the students that I observed. The skills lab that I observed was a very fun atmosphere and the teacher was excellent and some of the transition students were helping out in the classroom, which is awesome. The teacher also incorporated "cup stacking" as a fun activity for students and they were so great at it! The class sizes are a dream! For the high school classes; I felt it was a completely different atmosphere which I thought was odd considering the same students from the elementary and middle would be going into the high school classes. The kids that made up the high school rooms seemed to have more social challenges than anything else, but it was a good atmosphere and the teachers conducted themselves very well and always encouraged students to try their best. The transitional program seemed to have great outcomes and lots of job opportunities appeared to be available to the students.
   Those were my positive thoughts toward the school. I do not like saying that I have negative thoughts toward any school, but some things concerned me a little bit and I am fully aware that this is just a snapshot day and it is a different structure of school and that is always hard to get used to. I thought that some of the behaviors in the classrooms were overlooked due to disabilities that should have been addressed, but teachers looked over for whatever reason. I like the idea of not punishing children, but I think some of these children could have been "redirected" so the classroom didn't appear so distracted and crazy. The class sizes were great, but it seemed that all the students in the middle school classes needed one on one assistance from the teacher and the students were very dependent on it. The high school class I observed were getting their quiz grades back and it appeared that they all received D's and F's with the occasional C. I loved that the teachers seemed extremely positive and less stressed (when compared to public schools), but I also feel they have less pressure which is great, but it made me question how much effort they were putting into making sure these students were performing at their very best and engaging in productive struggle. The staff was extremely nice, but not as knowledgeable as our prior schools, many questions that were asked were not given a straight answer, which I am sure has to do with the "creative" structure of the school and that is completely understandable. I just am left wondering if some of these student's are being pushed to do their very best everyday because they are in a very restrictive environment. I know that social skills are addressed, but I don't feel that student's can get the full understanding of these social skills when compared to being put in an inclusion setting.
   I enjoyed the day and look forward to returning in the summer and learning more about the school. The staff was extremely kind to let us there and I hear many others throughout the year visit. I always like different ways of approaching matters and it this school was definitely a good example of a different approach!

"The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking  to bring his pupil to experience this power." -Alfred Adler

Visit #2: Middle School Visit

    My overall experience with the middle school visit was great! I never thought that I would even consider stepping foot on a middle school campus as a teacher, but now my heart is open to this idea.

   As the visit began I was immediately impressed with the ESE specialist that introduced us to the school and their philosophy that deals with special education. I thought that this lady was a wealth of information for all of us. The way she spoke about her job gave me so much encouragement and I am so thankful for that. She shared with us so many things that gave me a picture of what my future career could look like. She is definitely an inspiration to me because of her passion, her ability to juggle all her tasks, and her knowledge. I thought that she supplied us with valuable information for our educational career now and beyond. Resiliency, self-efficacy, and professional behavior were all addressed.

   Now, about the actual school. The things that stood out to me when hearing about the dynamic of the school were that they used the approach of trying all other options before resorting a child to a "somewhat self contained" classroom, there was a student with autism that was in honors courses, and the class size numbers. I liked that they used the approach of trying their best to include all students in general education because it seems to model that which we have learned in class about Inclusion. I also enjoyed hearing that a student who has autism was in honors courses and not just because it sounds like one of those feel good stories, but because I think it shows that they do use the least restrictive environment for students. I was a little surprised to learn about classroom sizes and how that works, I know it has always been a debate, but this is the first time that I have ever really thought that there may be a problem. A general education classroom can have a maximum of 22-25 students, but when a special education teacher is present in the dynamic then the number of students jumps to around 30. I see where they think this is okay, but if a special educator is in a classroom I think that he or she should not be considered an extra help to the general education teacher or vice versa, both teachers are a team and should be given the same class size as any other room because chances are the difficulty of teaching in that class is higher than the other classrooms.

   The two classrooms that I observed were very different. The first class was a general education science course that was co-taught. I thought that the general education teacher had a little better handle on the class as a whole, but the special education teacher did share the same amount of power in the classroom. I was very impressed to see that the ELL students were able to have a general education science teacher who could speak both English and Spanish and there were about four that I could see that benefited from that. The special education teacher took on the last half of the lesson and the students started to get a little out of control, but that could be because it was the last half of the class. The second classroom we observed was what I would consider a self-contained classroom and these students were in there because they were labeled with emotional behavior disorder. I personally thought this teacher was great she was fun, sarcastic, quick, and could hold her own with these middle schoolers. I heard a few of my peers say that they did not think she was too good of a teacher, but I have to disagree because she commanded attention from these students that I do not think any other teacher could have done. I would not exactly call her a "warm demander" but I do think that what she was doing was best for the majority of the students. She was a good example of tough love, I think.

   I think it is funny how at both visits so far, that the first half where the teachers speak with us is so empowering and then we actually go into the classroom and get a little bit of a rude awakening. I enjoyed my visit today and really, really feel good about my career choice. I am so thankful for people like the ESE specialist at this middle school today.

"If kids come to us [educators /teachers] from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important."

-Barbara Colorose

Day 1: Elementary School Observation

I was so impressed by this first practicum. I loved hearing from the diverse group of teachers and appreciated the time they took out of their day to encourage us. 

The first class my group and I observed was an inclusion class. I had the opportunity to observe one of the girls from the after school care that I worked at. :) It was definitely interesting to see. In this setting two children were taken aside during the math lesson and another teacher worked with them while the general education students did their math lesson. I was very surprised at how well all the students were able to focus because to me there was a little too much going on. Special education in this classroom looked similar to that of what I was expecting. I am always so concerned as to how I will get students to focus because I try so hard to help the students that come to where I work with the academic side of things, but so many of them are unable to focus for more than two minutes so I was really looking forward to seeing how teachers handle this and was a little disappointed to see that they struggled the same way that I did, in this setting. I was not disappointed in the teachers, but that I thought I would be able to pick up things to help them focus. I cannot say that I felt this classroom dynamic was the best for the students who needed that extra help because they were so easily distracted, however I obviously could be wrong. In this case the special educators worked in the classroom with the general education teacher. I was very impressed with the general education teacher and do see where she included ALL the students. 

The second class my group and I observed was an inclusion class, but at the time students were pulled out for their math lesson into the center of the pod. I immediately fell in love with this set up. The students were crazy, but the teacher handled everything so well! As I said earlier, I am pretty worried about the academic side of special education because my only experience thus far is in the after school care and summer camp settings where we have zero curriculum and following a schedule is not implemented. However, after I saw this teacher I realized that almost everything that she did or that she was saying are things that I have encountered with trying to do arts & crafts or explaining a new game to the students at my work. I was so relieved to see her using manipulatives and engaging the students in all kinds of ways! This is why I am in special education and it was so refreshing compared to the first classroom (which wasn't all bad, I just liked the excitement of the second). This observation matched my expectations because this is what I love about my job and that is why I wanted to pursue a career within the special education "umbrella". I was so surprised by this teacher's ability to have students on all different levels still engaging in the same activities even if she had to modify some on the spot. I was also glad to see this because in the math course I am taking we just discussed differentiated instruction and higher level thinking questions that challenge students in a "productive struggle". The teacher seemed a bit stressed, but I think she was able to smile her way through it and you can tell she has a passion for these children. 

Based on this observation my questions are:

1. Do the students in the first class I observed, which I believed to be full time inclusion, get to see the teacher that worked with the students in the second group? Because I see an opportunity for those students to benefit much more from her style of teaching math then the "point to the picture of a triangle"/flash card/"you need to focus on me" that I saw in the first class. 

I could find answers to this question by asking my professors or even inquiring with the school because she deserves some praise, anyway!

2. I know that we were told that the teacher was the previous ESE specialist and I do believe that what we observed in the second group was the "support facilitation" maybe? I guess my question is what are all of her roles and what would be her title. Because as of right now...I WANT THAT STYLE OF JOB. 

I could find the answer to this question by also asking my professors. 

This experience helped me tremendously. My greatest fear is not being able to get the students settled down and focused, but I realize that this is something that IS  a struggle and it is something that will have to be figured out with each student's different needs. I walked away today with an "I can't wait to teach!" attitude despite the stress you could see on almost every single teacher's face! I am impressed by these teacher's ability to focus on the task at hand when there is so much they have to worry about.

"Perseverance is not a long race.It is many short races one after another." 

--W. Elliot