Dec

27

Problems with uploading to iTunes

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Sorry if there’s any confusion caused by the problems I’ve been having with uploading my podcast to iTunes. The podcast had to be loaded twice because it wasn’t linking to iTunes.

Dec

23

Out with the old; in with the new.

Filed Under The Way I See It | Leave a Comment

It’s the Christmas holidays and I’m taking a bit of a break and indulging myself by focusing on something less serious today.

Just recently, I changed the look of my website. I’ve had the old black and white colour scheme for about a year or so. I really liked it. The colour seemed to suit a blog/podcast called Teachers At Risk. But, just this past week when I was high on optimism, I looked at it and in a nano second I knew the black and white colour scheme had to go. I needed a colour that reflected my new optimism. I wanted something more cheerful. When I think about it, it’s not hard to find something more cheerful than black. I decided I wanted a green theme, a soft green theme for my web site. I’m a gardener and so green is good. A gardener has to be optimistic or why would she bother. So green it is.*** (I couldn’t get the green theme to work, so blue it is.)

I’ve recently changed something else as well-my hair colour and style, and I love it. I usually ask my hairdresser to give me a look and colour that is almost age appropriate. I like to push the envelope a bit. I like funky and edgy. I know that when you think of funky and edgy the first thing that pops into your mind might not be a special education teacher of a certain age, but there goes that stereotype. Anyway, I got fed up with my regular hairdresser. The funk was gone; the edge was gone. So, when a new salon opened in the neighborhood, I went and talked to the owner and told her what I wanted. She knew funky; she knew and edgy and together we chose the cut and the colour of the highlights I was to get. She performed her magic and now I have the best possible funky, edgy hair style that a special education teacher of a certain age could have.

My new hair style and colour is so much fun, but I have to admit I was a bit shocked when I looked in the mirror the next morning and saw those glorious copper coloured highlights but figured it was a good thing because now every time I look in the mirror I’ll be reminded not to take myself or life too seriously. Copper coloured high lights are not a serious thing.

I am serious though about wishing everyone peace and good will for the coming year. So

May you be filled with loving kindness.

May you be well.

May you be peaceful and at ease.

May you be happy.

 

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Dec

16

Helping kids with learning disabilities change negative habits of mind

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Special Education | 10 Comments

The other day in my senior class we were talking about what it feels like to have a learning disability. Many of the kids who are identified as having a learning disability said they felt retarded when they were told about their disability. Some of them laughed about being in my class and called it the “retard” class. I’ve heard their peers also call it the “retard” too class and laugh and comment about it. No wonder some of them want the door closed so that no one can see them sitting in the class. When I think about it, it’s a wonder any of them talk to me in the halls when they see me given that I ‘m the person who teaches that class. But, they do. Although, I must say that recently I had a grade 11 student cover his face with his hands when he saw that I was coming to talk to him. One of the students who has been identified as being gifted and having a learning disability told the class “One year they told me I was gifted; the next year they told me I was retarded.” How does a kid deal with that? This kid wasn’t dealing with it very well, unfortunately.

What do you tell kids who feel retarded because they have to live with the label of LD? I’ve told them everything I can think of. I’ve told them that they are not retarded. I’ve told them they have average or above average intelligence. I’ve told them they have interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, musical intelligences, etc that they could be proud of. But of course their daily experience in the classrooms doesn’t support pride. Now, I’m going to stop telling them things, and I’m going to have them start doing things that I believe will help them become more proud of who they are.

This is my plan. From now until the end of January, the end of the semester(I know that’s not a very long time, but I just thought of doing this now), I’m going to help them become philanthropists giving of their time, talents and money to help other people. This is my thinking behind my plan. At our school it’s really cool to be involved in various fund raising drives. The gifted kids do it all the time. The students helped raise eight thousand dollars to build a school in one of the developing countries. Students have raised thousands and thousands of dollars for charity. Every week there is some kind of fund raising going on. I’ve heard my students say that they’re never part of anything like that because other people think that they’re not good enough. It doesn’t matter what I say, they continue to feel that way. So, I’m going to use my class time to first teach them about philanthropy and then give them the opportunity to practice philanthropy and social action so that with each philanthropic act they do giving of their time, talents or money they’ll themselves in a more positive light adding to the common good and not see themselves as “retards” with nothing to offer the world.

Given that most of the students in the class are strong visual learners and extremely weak auditory learners and dislike reading, I decided that I would use a video or a movie of some sort to anchor the philanthropy unit. The question was what should I show them. I had no clue. So, I do what I normally do when I don’t have a clue. I googled and to my delight, I found a site that was most helpful. The site is called Finding Inspiration In Literature and Movies or F.I.L.M. for short. It is perfect because it has lots of suggestions for movies as well as questions kids could reflect upon. I showed them The Ultimate Gift, and they absolutely loved it and were more than willing to compete the assignments based on it. We’re at the point where the kids are going to interview an adult and create a video montage much like the one they saw in the movie. I can’t tell you how excited I was that they were excited about doing the assignments, even the kids who hate to write a word were willing to do this.

Now, I have to tell you something about showing videos or films to my class. Many of the kids in the class have short term memory problems and can’t do two things at the same time. I have found that if I show a movie over two consecutive days , many of the kids have forgotten much of the content. I’ve tried having them answer questions as they watched the movie, but that didn’t work well because they got so interested in the movie they couldn’t stop to answer questions .

So this is what I do now. I get the kids interested in the movie by asking a question about life related to the topic of the movie. Before I showed the movie The Ultimate Gift, I ask questions like: have you ever inherited anything; what would it feel like to inherit a million dollars; what would you do if somehow you got a million dollars? We talk about it for a while and then I told them that a character in the movie is facing those questions. Then I invited them to watch the film with me to see what happens. I showed the movie in it’s entirety, had a graphic organizer to help support memory and then I show the movie again in sections so that the kids could answer the questions. I find that showing the movie that way helps make sure that everyone get to see it at least once in class. If a kid wants to, I lend them the movie to take home and cross my fingers that they remember to bring it back the next day. Sometimes they do and sometimes don’t, but that’s life. I don’t remember everything either.

This semester I am teaching one Advance Learning Strategies class. Next semester, I teach two Advanced Learning Strategies classes so I’m going to spend some time before then, and see how I can incorporate more films to achieve the desired outcomes for this course.

I want my students to change the negative habits of mind they have about themselves, and I think I have found a way to help them to start do this. I think that when they start giving their time, energy, and talents to projects for the common good they’ll feel that they have done something valuable, that they are valuable and not a “retard”.

 
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