The Inside Track

My student teaching situation is a bit unconventional.  I am interning with two teachers in two different classrooms, on two different days.  One teacher meets with her kids everyday, and the other meets with hers only every other day.  The everyday class is an Alternative Education class where the students come and go throughout the day and work on getting credits from independent work and custom-made curriculum.  These students have been suspended or expelled at some point in the district, some have behavioral issues, and some have emotional behavioral issues that stem from learning disabilities.  The other class is the Special Education Transition Program for the district.  The students there are 18-21 years old, and they are learning to live and work in the real world; they will also discover what level of independent living they will be able to manage in the long run. 

I've been spending my student teaching constantly changing gears from one class to the next, and back again.  But what makes my experience so unique is that both of the teachers I'm working with are going to be retiring at the end of this year.  THis doesn't mean I will be able to easily step into their classes when the positions become available.  In fact, both of their positions would be too difficult for a noobie eacher like myself to handle in their first year.  What is unique is the conversations I get to have with both of them.  I am able to chat with these two educational sages and they get to reflect on their careers and tell me what they would have liked to have accomplished, what they wish education could be like, and what positions are not yet posted that are available. 

The last thing is the inside track I am  wanting to talk about.  These two ladies have connections I can only hope to gain over my educational career.  I was telling one about the districts in the area that i have applied to so far (Issaquah SD, Lake Washington SD, Renton SD, and Snoqualmie Valley SD) and with each one, she mentioned someone who she had a connection with who was not a teacher, but a director of this, or the chair of that department.  I don't want my first position to be from a favor; the first teaching year is supposed to be hard enough.  But in conversatios with the other teacher, she mentions positions the district is looking for that it hasn't posted yet, and the people that may go for it, and what kind of person the ditrict is looking for.  Information is a weapon, and something that I can use to my advantage. 

The quesion then become: how do I get this information to work for me without taking advantage of favors that ma not be necessary to call in?

SpEd vs. Senate Bill 6 & Budget Cuts

VS.

Recent news stories in special education point towards the same ideas: Budget Cuts, and Special Education Spending.  The two seem in opposition to one another.  In one article The Florida Senate is trying to pass Senate Bill 6 where teacher pay would be linked to student test scores.  In the realm of Special Education, this is a horrific concept, because success for these students cannot be measure by test scores.  The ability to tie your own shoe or independently use the bathroom is not a question on a test.  Luckily, today Gov. Crist Vetoed the bill.  My Fox Tampa quoted the Governor as saying, "There must be more attention to their special needs."  He mentions how the bill ignored this population of schools, but that the bill, in general, was too flawed.  Common sense did win out, and this was a step in the right direction. 

This situation in Florida points to the notion that education reform is needed, but what will it look like?  It will not look like merit-based pay, nor will it look like federal mandates and across-the-board standards.  I also do not believe it will look like a model of business-like cut-throat pressures for success.  It is true that education NEEDS to be reformed, but it will look like a new education model that will not start at the top and make its way down to the students.  I have a hard time beliving my WA Senator in DC has any idea what will help the students in the schools in their own state.  What will work for one district, will not work for its neighboring district.  Therefore, Education reform needs to look like the democratic system in which we live and thrive.  Reform needs to start with the highly trained professionals we trust to enrich the lives of our children.  It takes a community to raise a child in the way that they should go... NOT the government.  The unions should push for influence, power, and respoonsibility of the teachers, not more money.  You give teachers the power to educate the children in the right way, and the parents will fork over the dollars to let their children be taught. 

But I digress.

The second article I was reading was talking about budget cuts in the recession economy and the overspending of Special Education Programs.  What was interesting in the article was the Federal mandates to provide Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to all students, but they don't provide the funds to the districts so that they can do that.  We argue for more money and smaller classes through the unions, but what we need is the ability to hire the needed professionals to educate the children, and the proper environment that is conducive to learning.  How does this happen?  We need to change what we think about education.  Everything else in society is changing, but we're still trying to stick to the same ideas of what is considered to be "teaching."  Is it more important for a student to know the meaning of the work and recite it for a test, or to be able to find the meaning of whatever words they may come across on their own?  Is it more important for students to loathe dragging themselves through restricted learning methods that are intent on getting test scores, or should we get them to enjoy the learning process so that they will be more willing to step out and venture into the world and discover what it can teach them?  Asking ans discussing these questions will get us on the road to reform. 

UPDATE - Shifting Expectations of the School Institution

I wrote this in a discussion with my classmates who were discussing the need for parental involvement; where it happens, and where it is hard to get it.  This was my response, which referred to an earlier post.

Classmates,
There is a reason I got into education, and there is a reason I want to get into education administration; the system is flawed. Now, every system is flawed, cracked and can be taken advantage of. However, I think that as society has shifted, education has not shifted fast enough to keep up, and that is normal of government-run institutions. As teachers, we, more than anyone, know what it takes to get student achievement. However, I have heard things that teachers need from outside sources, and I think we need to figure out what it will take for US to create a better system. I want to point you guys to a blog posting I made: http://lifeonsped.blogspot.com/2010/03/shifting-expectations-of-school.html

This illustrates an idea that I was kicking around with my CT the other week. If parents in trying areas have so much trouble helping their children, why not put the help where it is needed... with the students. following the atwork.wa.gov twitter account @janekuechle. She saw my blog posting and was hung up on my comment of "ineffective social programs". I'm not a politician who want to push an agenda of what level of government involvement is needed. My focus is solely on the children, and if we can redirect resources to create more effective programs that are run through the schools and follow the children, then that will help the overall state of our nations education. I know many paras (myself included) who worked two jobs, because they couldn't live off of just working in the schools. If you create social programs, dinner programs, tutoring programs that follow the student, and flow through the school, then people can make a better wage for themselves and families. Teachers can pick up extra hours without having to be a coach or leave their classes if they don't want to. Kids can be off the streets where it is safe, and be surrounded by positive influences for mor than 6 hours of the day. Parents do not have to use tech babysitters like TV and video games, and kids do not need to turn to gangs in order to find a sense of community or brotherhood or family.

I don't think parental involvement is likely to make a drastic change. Parents either care, or they don't about their child's education. If was can keep the kids fed, appropriately socialized, active, and tutored from kindergarten until graduation, then we will have changed the face of education in our country for the better.

Changing Demographics = Changing Expectations?

My classroom discussion for this week is: What influence do differing demographics have on the following: Planning, Instruction, Classroom management, Assessment, Achievement, and Expectations?

This was my response: Before I start my response to this I want to share a link:


The link is a clip from a Family Guy episode. The humor is a bit rough, but if you can get past it, you can see why I thought of it as soon as I read the discussion question. In this episode, The [talking dog] has a job teaching in an affluent [white] neighborhood. He loves it; he makes corny content-related jokes, and does cooky performances that the class loves. It is a teaching utopia. Then he gets transferred to an inner city class where they make a reference to the movie "Stand and Deliver." He tries to do the same things he did in the previous class, and comes in excited to teach, but the kids, and their lives break him down until he comes in unshaven and looking like a hobo. This is a satirical clip, but it isn't until he drops his expectations that he creates some kind of connection with the students. I bring this up for two reasons: 1) we need to meet students where they are, and SHOW them how to get to where they want to go. I've watched kids give up under the weight of a teacher's unattainably high expectations. 2) We need to be flexible and creative in how we connect and engage our students. What works with one group may not work with another, and it could be the same class taught in the same day, but kids are different. I am not one to force kids to feel like a cog in the machine... those are the grown folks that go postal on their work places.

After sharing this with my wife, she asked me WHY expectations would be different?  One of the things that can be assumed is the idea of a normal family environment for students.  She pointed out that kids who live in rich neighborhoods may not have close relationsghips to their parents because they may be out working all the time, they may not have a healthier diet because a Venti Soy Chai latte in the mornings in not nutritional either.  The point I want to get across is this: as educators, we need to meet where they are... exactly where they are.  Id doesn't matter if they are different race, economic level, or academic ability.  Students will not achieve under low expectations, nor will they succeed under expectations that are too high for them to relate to. 

The bar cannot be set across the same level for all demographic setting.  If failure to one person is success to another, the bar cannot be set the same for both.  If minimal requirements for one is to just show up and for another it is to get a B, then the bar cannot be set the same. 

This is not a matter of where kids are, but how to get them to where they want to go. 

The Needed Male Influence in Special Education

I wrote this posting after sitting through an Autism Workshop class on a waiver day titled, "Teaching Independence Through Structure."  What is most striking about the workshop is not anything in the content, but something that I already knew about working in Special Education.  Of the roughly SpEd staffers in this district at the workshop, only about 5 of us are male.  Of those men, 2 are paras, I am student teaching, 1 is the Jr. High Behavior Intervention Specialist, and the last 1 is the district Physical Therapist.  


Hmm... So I was sitting in a workshop that was discussing how to use structure to help students with Autism.  Structure; that thing that that I'm really good at, and that comes naturally to me.  Do is come naturally to me because I am a male?  To a certain extent.  I do not want to start making gross generalizations about gender roles, but this made me wonder is a male-dominated Special Education scenario would have an Autism workshop teaching how to be more nurturing. In my short experience, I've been utilized by SpEd classes and departments to create and/or add structure to a student that they recognized as needing it.  


Is it possible for a SpEd student to be nurtured into independence?  Does a breast fed child want to eat solid foods?  Is weaning a child a nurturing moment, or is it a necessary step in child development?  I cannot answer these for sure.  There are opposing opinions when we talk about getting a child to sleep through the night.  Do we let them cry it out until exhaustion makes them pass out again, or do we soothe them every time they wake and stir.  Or is it somewhere in between?  


I am not making the argument of nurturing or structure being better than the other.  I believe that true growth can come when students get a variety of opposing influences in their life.  Is this possible in Special Education, when the department in any given district is around 94% female?  Not that there's anything wrong with women in SpEd, but there is not enough of an opposing force.  There are the occasional tougher ladies, but there is still a motherly quality in the way they are tough.  There aren't any fatherly influenced in SpEd, however, nor are there any big brothers, uncles, or male cousins in SpEd departments.  Why is this?  


I am not an Alpha Male, but I feel like I need to  be one in order to offset the influences in the students I encounter.  I have to become someone I am not and tap into the very dormant Choleric side of my personality in order to help my students grow.  Why aren't there any Alpha, or even Beta, Males helping the growth of our SpEd kids?  The one time I almost burned out as a SpEd para, I was getting a "Superman Complex".  I was not able to fully concentrate on any particular student I was working with, because I had to continually swoop in to save whoever was having trouble with another student in the department.  Having to leave all the time told the student I was with that they were not as important, and I had to leave them alone without their accommodations or modifications.  


Why would any man want to be the odd-man-out in a SpEd class/department full of women where he has no one to talk with or relate to?  I had a 90-Day evaluation this year where it was assumed that my trouble relating to nothing but women was because I didn't have any Black people to talk to.  I was given a suggestion of the only two other Black staff members to talk with.  Feeling like the odd-man-out was not a racial thing for me, but a gender thing.  I am not throwing out the Race Card in this situation, but it shows how someone can be misunderstood and have their growth hindered when they are subjected to one perspective.