Today during my placement a lot of the normal activities when conducted when it comes to schoolwork. They also again worked with the prisms that they worked with last week. During this class I did more observing, listening, and seeing what was going on rather than working a lot one on one with the students. So much was going on and I had so many ideas and thoughts going through my head that I wondered and noticed.
First when I walked into the room the students sitting at their tables had blocks in the middle of the table. There were blocks staked to make different pictures. The students were to draw the images as they saw them and draw them as 3D if possible. They were not expected to be perfect and they were told that. They were told to do the best they could and that that was all was expected of them. To be honest I do feel like this task is something that is very advanced for first graders. With this being said I found that the students where becoming very frustrated it was as if they where even scared to just try because they did not want to make a mistake. There was even someone crying because they said it was too hard. This was very frustrating to me because they were told numerous times to try their best nothing had to be perfect they just need to do the best they could. While I was watching the students become frustrated really because they were afraid of making a mistake, and it made me think of all of the pressure in today's society to be perfect. Everyone is trying to be what they see in the media and if they can't achieve this then they aren't "good enough". What is this doing to our kids? They are afraid of making mistakes so this is holding them back from advancing any further.
One other observation that I had was one student was misbehaving and becoming frustrated and just not listening. When it was time to come to the rug he did not listen and stayed at his desk. He was asked once to come to the rug and once he didn't he was just left at the table. He was not paying attention and was actually falling asleep sitting in the chair while a lesson was going on. I just really don't understand why a teacher would do this. I understand that one student should not take away from other students learning but it almost seemed as if an effort was only poorly made to get him to try to join into the lesson. He wasn't even prompted more than maybe once or twice to come back to the rug, he wasn't given other chances to come back to the group. I know that I may not know some of the actions that have either happened previously in the day or in the school year. It is just very confusing to me why a teacher would not want their student to join back in and engage with the lesson. It seemed to me as if the student was getting exactly what he wanted.
Also a student was misbehaving so he was sent into the back of the room and told to put his head down and that he was in time out. This was while a reading lesson was going on. This is also a student with a learning disability. I am confused how taking a student out of the learning atmosphere is beneficial to that student. I am not sure what a better technique may be but I know there has to be a better why to deal with this behavior rather than taking him away from learning.
Chapter six discusses children with emotional and behavior disorders (Kirk, Gallagher, Coleman, & Anastasiow, 2009). I always wonder where we draw the line. How do we know when it is just kids being kids and where does it become harmful to the child and their peers. Chapter six talks about school shootings and how to we know when a child is prone to violence. Is it the children who are quiet and never say a word that take drastic measures such as this or is it the kids that are interrupting and lashing out for attention during class? What can we do at the younger ages to stop tragic events such as school shootings? Also is calling out students all the time causing these events to happen in the first place? What is the best way to handle disruptive students and how can we stop this cycle of violence in our schools. Within the chapter it is stated that we can identify students who are prone to violence and it can be detected at an early age. It is stated that it is important to intervene as early as possible because small discipline problems early on call for larger ones down the road.
Kirk S. , Gallagher J.J. , Coleman M.R. , & Anastasiow N. (2009). Educating Exceptional Children (12th ed. , pp.183-217). Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
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