Welcome to Teachers At Risk
An honour
-
Edublog AwardsAug
30
It Was One of Those Weird Things.
Filed Under Special Education | 2 Comments
It was one of those weird things. What can I say! During the summer, I like to go for a walk early in the morning before it gets too hot. Although come to think of it, this late in August it doesn’t get too hot. Today’s high was going to be 24 degrees. Not bad at all. Anyway, I was walking along enjoying the late summer sunshine and admiring the gardens in the front yards of the homes I passed (I’m not a fast walker) and was thinking about next week. School starts next week, and I would be back working with my special needs students.
For the last few days, I had been thinking about what I could do to help teachers better understand the learning disabled kids that would be sitting in front of them. I don’t want the teachers to think that these kids are stupid and/or lazy. Sometimes the kids come across this way if you don’t understand the nature of this special group of students. Learning disabled kids aren’t stupid or lazy- well, maybe sometimes they’re unmotivated, but then who isn’t unmotivated sometimes. As I was saying, these kids aren’t stupid. In fact they have average or above average intelligence. The thing is, these kids’ brains are “wired” differently causing them to learn differently. It’s my job as a special education teacher to support these students and their teachers by making their teachers aware of the students’ specific learning disabilities and the accommodations the teachers need to make so that the kids can perform to their potential.
Back to my walk. I was walking along thinking, wondering and admiring when suddenly this elderly woman crossed the street and came towards me. As she got next to me, she stopped and said, “Hello, how are you?” I, of course, said, “Hello, I fine.” I was wondering what was going on. What did she want? Suddenly she thrust a magazine in my direction and asked me if I had seen last Saturday’s Toronto Star. I had. That’s when I realized she was a Jehovah’s Witness and wanted to give me a copy of their magazine, Awake! So, for a few minutes we had a pleasant conversation about swindlers and the unfortunate state of the world. She was a very charming lady. When I moved to resume my walk, she offered me the magazine. I took it and continued my walk.
When I got home, I noticed that she had given two magazines, not just one. I had just noticed the one magazine, the one about the swindlers. But, there was another one tucked into the first one. I pulled it out, and much to my amazement it was about children with learning disabilities. I am a special education teacher who works with learning disabled kids. The nice lady wouldn’t have known this, and yet… Go figure.
Aug
29
I’m still chuckling when I think about what he said that day in class. A while ago, I got fed up with my students coming to class unprepared- no paper, no pencils, no books etc. (What else is new?) Usually, I’ll lend my students something if they give me collateral- a MP3 player for a pencil, a watch for a calculator etc. One day, I got fed up with taking care of all the collateral I had collected in my desk drawer. Often, the students would forget their collateral and leave my classroom with my pencil or whatever. I didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of their watches, MP# players, cell phones etc. Things “disappeared” from my classroom. So the next time a student came up to my desk to borrow a pencil, I told him and the rest of the class that I would no longer be lending pencils. I would be happy to sell them a pencil for twenty-five cents and donate the proceeds to charity at the end of the semester. Well, he was indigent. “Twenty-five cents,” he said, “I’m not going to pay twenty-five cents for a pencil. I’ll bring my own pencil from now on.” And, he did.
Aug
25
Just a Minute, Well Actually Just Two Minutes
Filed Under Learning Strategies, Organization | 1 Comment
Knowing how to organize a notebook and doing it are two very different things, as any teacher can tell you. I can’t begin count how many absolutely wonderful handouts I’ve given my students telling them how to organize their notebooks. They know how to do it. I’ve got their quiz results to prove it. So what are all those crumpled pages doing at the bottom of their backpacks- or worse yet on the floor under their desks? What is a frustrated teacher to do?
Well, I certainly don’t need to give them another handout telling them how to organize their notebooks, and I’m not going to organize their notebooks for them. What I need to do is help them develop the habit of being organized, or more specifically of organizing as they go along. Thanks to a posting in Senia’s blog, I think I’ve found an almost painless way to help them develop this habit. The two minute rule.
The two minute rule. I like the sound of it- although some of my kids might not like the rule part of it. I think my students will buy into it. At least that’s my impression. When they ask me if they can leave my class before the bell rings at the end class and I tell them to wait for the bell, they tell me ” Come on Miss, it’s only two minutes”. It’s only two minutes. I like that. So starting September 5, I’ll be telling them “Come on, it’s only two minutes”. Don’t ya just love it!
Aug
24
Disconnected From Life
Filed Under "At-risk" students | 2 Comments
I can see them now. Their body language says it all. In they come to my class –a bit late, feet shuffling, hoods over their heads almost covering their eyes and that sullen look on their faces. Hate school, hate home- disconnected from both looking to others like themselves for emotional support. Some turn to gangs; some escape into MSN, video games or drugs. Ask them a question, they shrug their shoulders. No short term goals; no long term goals. They live in the moment; no thought for the future. No future. They choose outrageously wealthy sports figures or musicians as role models. Something they can never be. There’s no voluntary interaction with adults to learn how to navigate the coming adult world. These are the kids I spend my days with. These are the kids I try to reach. When I do, I’m so grateful.
What can we do to try to help these at risk kids reconnect to family and school? I can only tell you what has worked for me-sometimes. I can only tell you what the kids have told me. Since I am a special education teacher, I get to work with a lot of these kids. Some I teach everyday in my class; others I monitor on a regular basis by meeting with them during their lunch, or when I withdraw them from other classes.
When I first meet them, I work hard to develop a relationship with them. It’s not easy. You might think that students would respect me because I’m a teacher. Not these kids. I find that I have to convince them that I respect them first, before they will respect me. I convince them by being compassionate. I try to understand where they are coming from and not judge them. In an earlier post, Don’t Blame the Lettuce, I touched on this topic. Basically, I try to determine their needs and then try to meet them.
What are their needs? They tell they want someone to listen to them without telling them what to do. They tell me they want an adult to really care about them even when they’re bad. They tell me they want to listen to their MP3 player while working.-it helps them concentrate on their work. They tell me they want to have a bite to eat while they work. They tell me they want to go for a short walk during class because they can’t sit still. They tell me that they want to play Connect Four after they finish their work. They tell me that they’d like one of the lollypops I have in my desk-a green one, please. They tell me they’d like to wear their hat in class because it’s a bad hair day. They tell me they want to talk to me in the hall because their parents just broke up and now they’re living with their mom and four siblings in a hotel. They tell me their cat died last night, and they are really upset and can’t work. They tell me they are hungry because they didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. They tell me…
What do I tell them? I tell them I don’t believe they’re bad, because they are not. I tell them that we all have different strengths that we can use to help us succeed. I tell them being a teenager sucks because people expect you to act like an adult but treat you like a kid. I tell them I hated being a teenage. I tell them I hated grade 10. I tell them to come and see me even when they’re not in my class any longer. I tell them I’ll buy more lollipops when I get paid on Friday. I tell them that I want to help them set realistic goals for the future because if they don’t have realistic goals, they’ll have no future. Basically, I tell them, and I show them that I care.
Subscribe to stay up to date. Teachers at Risk is informative. It's free.
-
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
