I realize I have not posted much in the past few months, but you can 't blame me because I'm a new teacher still learning the ropes, and I'm really really busy. But maybe that's a good thing. I am not one to accept failure. I enjoy a chance to take on many challenges. The level of focus required helps me stay sharp. However, the last few days have shown to be a valuable critique on my teaching style. And that is that I rely too much on myself and not on a curriculum.
The only advantage to this s that since i have so few students, I can meet them right where they are and help them build skills specific to their needs. On the other hand, I have to be present in order to implement it, the students don't quite know what's coming, and everything becomes too subjective.
How do I overcome this critique? Well, it is easier to add flexibility to structure than to add structure to chaos. So I'll find a social skills curriculum and accommodate it to my students. A LOT has happened this year, and it seems to have been a long year already. But I know that when June comes, it will feel as if the year has ended far too quickly.
Showing posts with label evaluations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evaluations. Show all posts
02 February 2011
19 March 2010
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.
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.
27 January 2010
"He Just Responds to You"
"He just responds to you." This statement is a cop-out to me. For some reason, I get a different response/reaction from the students I work with than anyone else does. Is it simply because some students respond differently to women and men? No, I don't believe that. Is it that men relate differently to children than men? No, because I've seen exceptions on both sides. What I DO think is that I do not take anyone's student evaluation as completely true. The Scientific Method teaches us that any phenomenon can be repeated. If it cannot be repeated, however, it is not true; not to me anyway.
One example is from a student I worked with at a junior high school acouple years ago. He was diagnosed with Angelman's Syndrome and was new to that junior high. We were told by his previous school that when another student in the area has a meltdown, this particular student (we'll call him Trevor) would get upset. In this classroom, we had several students who would have meltdowns, and Trevor would run to a corner and either cross his arms with a pouting face or he would have a small tantrum where he would need to be consoled. Even though this behavior was observable, why did I have a hard time believing that it was true? Here's why: When staff would eat lunches with the students, if anyone did anything funny, or to get a reaction, Trevor would try to mimic their behavior in order to get some attention as well. Back in the classroom situation, when another student was having a meltdown, Trevor tried again to steal some of that attention when I was sitting and working with him. I firmly told him to sit back down, which he did laughingly. He was attention-seeking, and it was a disruption in a classroom when others NEEDED added attention.
A more current example is a student I work with now who has Cerebral Palsy coupled with Mental Retardation. I was told that he has a short attention span. I was told this because he would not sit and listen to someone read him a story; one of his learning objectives is to perform a task for 5 minutes. The students I've experienced with attention issues have trouble even focusing on anything, even activities that they want to do, or enjoy doing. I do not believe that this student has an attention-span issue. Instead, I think he has learned ways of getting out of what he doesn't want to do, and that he has a restless body. This student (Let's call him Jon) will sit and listen to me read him books for the entire Sustained Silent Reading period (30 minutes). Other teachers have trouble getting past 3 pages with him. Why is this? Is my voice just that soothing? Does he just respond to me? No. If you believe a student has attention issues, why would you try to get him to focus with extra stimulation? I watch the other teacher try to read to him, and they do it with other books all around him on the table, and after a coulple pages, he either grabs a new book, or starts turning the pages in the one being read to him. This is why I was told he has a short attention span.
I worked with a student once who had to make a strong conscious effort to be still for 5 seconds. When I read to Jon, his table is clear of distractions, and I do not let him grab the books from me. This is who he will sit and listen to me read for as long as I am willing to read to him. My approach to students can be different; does that make others wrong, or me wrong? Of course not! There is nothing special about me or my methods. I just want to make sure what I was told about a student is true. Telling me that a student "just responds" to me is a cop-out for an inability to being a creative educator; at least it is in my book.
One example is from a student I worked with at a junior high school acouple years ago. He was diagnosed with Angelman's Syndrome and was new to that junior high. We were told by his previous school that when another student in the area has a meltdown, this particular student (we'll call him Trevor) would get upset. In this classroom, we had several students who would have meltdowns, and Trevor would run to a corner and either cross his arms with a pouting face or he would have a small tantrum where he would need to be consoled. Even though this behavior was observable, why did I have a hard time believing that it was true? Here's why: When staff would eat lunches with the students, if anyone did anything funny, or to get a reaction, Trevor would try to mimic their behavior in order to get some attention as well. Back in the classroom situation, when another student was having a meltdown, Trevor tried again to steal some of that attention when I was sitting and working with him. I firmly told him to sit back down, which he did laughingly. He was attention-seeking, and it was a disruption in a classroom when others NEEDED added attention.
A more current example is a student I work with now who has Cerebral Palsy coupled with Mental Retardation. I was told that he has a short attention span. I was told this because he would not sit and listen to someone read him a story; one of his learning objectives is to perform a task for 5 minutes. The students I've experienced with attention issues have trouble even focusing on anything, even activities that they want to do, or enjoy doing. I do not believe that this student has an attention-span issue. Instead, I think he has learned ways of getting out of what he doesn't want to do, and that he has a restless body. This student (Let's call him Jon) will sit and listen to me read him books for the entire Sustained Silent Reading period (30 minutes). Other teachers have trouble getting past 3 pages with him. Why is this? Is my voice just that soothing? Does he just respond to me? No. If you believe a student has attention issues, why would you try to get him to focus with extra stimulation? I watch the other teacher try to read to him, and they do it with other books all around him on the table, and after a coulple pages, he either grabs a new book, or starts turning the pages in the one being read to him. This is why I was told he has a short attention span.
I worked with a student once who had to make a strong conscious effort to be still for 5 seconds. When I read to Jon, his table is clear of distractions, and I do not let him grab the books from me. This is who he will sit and listen to me read for as long as I am willing to read to him. My approach to students can be different; does that make others wrong, or me wrong? Of course not! There is nothing special about me or my methods. I just want to make sure what I was told about a student is true. Telling me that a student "just responds" to me is a cop-out for an inability to being a creative educator; at least it is in my book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)