Learn and Serve November 9th (2 hours)

Today in Learn and Serve...


Well today we just did the normal activities that we do each week. They read a story, had independent reading time, and worked with their structured reading groups.

While they were sitting on the rug doing their reading lesson I was just sitting in back observing and I began to wonder. There was one of the students with a learning disability and you can tell that he stops paying attention at times because he just cannot focus. What is challenging for him is attending to the lesson. He has trouble following what is happening, sometimes because the lesson is going too fast or at other times because he gets confused at one point and then stops paying attention all together. When you ask him where he got lost or what he doesn't understand he then has trouble communicating to you where he got lost. It is like he cannot find the words to describe what he wants to tell you. This causes him to day dream and at times distract other student. This often gets the teacher very frustrated and he gets yelled at and gets sent to his table to sit by himself. I just wonder where does the line get drawn, how far can you go just blaming it on the disability and when does it become a behavioral issue. Also how does sending this student to the table because they are frustrated to sit by themselves help them? If it truly is because they just do not understand what is going on, is yelling and sending them off by themselves really helping anything at all? I don't think so. I have no idea what the answer is; these are just my thoughts. I do not know what the answer is but I can see that what is going on at the present time is not the answer at all and it is scary that this is going on. How is this student ever going to learn, and how are his needs going to be meet if this is what is happening over and over again.

One other thing I observed dealt with classroom management. The reason that this hyperlink takes you to a teacher blog is because as future teachers I believe it is important to understand that we are going to have to work as a community of teachers. We can work as a team rather than against each other. If we come together for a common goal, to make sure our students succeed, than we will be better off. If we can see that some things worked for one teacher then we can try them. Everything that worked for one person may not work for someone else but a collaboration of ideas is the best way to work as a community. When it comes to classroom management this site shows strategies that worked and didn't work for different teachers.

My placement teacher is big on yelling and reprimanding. I do not feel that this is really the answer. I think that there are better more effective ways of dealing with misbehavior and being unfocused. I know that at times yelling may be the last resort but how do students gain respect for you if all you do is yell. There was a sub in for a little while I was there this week because my placement teacher was at a meeting. The sub used very different techniques, she used praise reinforcement and ignoring the students who w

ere not focus and misbehaving and I was able to see what a drastic difference these techniques had. They seemed to be so much more effective and didn't cause any of the students to become angry or embarrassed. I can't say that everyone should do this and that the techniques that she used where perfect, it was just my observation that in this classroom these seemed to work so much better.

The picture at the top of the page is a display that is on the walls outside of the main office at Hyde Park Elementary School. I found the display interesting. It contains a list of the standards within NY State and then had examples of student's work that fulfills these standards. I thought it was interesting because each week I go to my placement I have noticed that more work is added. This is something that I took interest in every week.

Chapter seven talks about children with communication, Language, and speech disorders (Kirk, Gallagher, Coleman, & Anastasiow, 2009). When discussing the student with the learning disability I described that he often has trouble communicating to you where he got lost and what he wants to say it is as if he is at a loss of words. I have often as observed that this student often stays pretty reserved and to himself. He is never reading with the other students during independent reading time and he often doesn't speak unless he is prompted to, he is always off task and not paying attention. I am starting to feel as if this comes from a lack of being able to communicate properly. As described in chapter six communication is essential to our participation in society. It is what links us to others and helps us form a shared sense of belonging. It is the exchange of thoughts, information, feelings, and ideas, and it requires three things a sender, a message, and a receiver.

Kirk S. , Gallagher J.J. , Coleman M.R. , & Anastasiow N. (2009). Educating Exceptional Children (12th ed. , pp. 218-249). Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.