Saturday, July 23, 2011
What do YOU do?
Are you a regular education teacher, special education teacher, principal or GT teacher? No matter what your position, how do you interact with special needs students at your school? How can educators help these students grow and learn? What bothers you about having special education students at your school or in your class? What changes would you like to see?
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how do you interact with special needs students at your school? I have a very LOUD personality. I make an effort to be calm and speak softly to special needs students. I also smile a LOT when speaking with them. I always respond to them even if I cannot understand what they said.
ReplyDeleteHow can educators help these students grow and learn? I think the main thing is find out what has worked for them at home and in the past, maintain that consistency. Then, I think it is beneficial to get to know their independent, instructional and frustration levels with the core subjects. That way you know where to begin and move forward from there.
What bothers you about having special education students at your school or in your class? Not being familiar with the disability or the level of disability. I tend to underestimate students at first and then gradually give them more responsibilities and learning experiences. It can also be difficult to give them the things they need which may seem like privileges to the other students in the classroom who do not understand the disability and due to student confidentiality you can't explain it to the students.
What changes would you like to see? I would like to see inclusion in an understanding environment. It is so difficult to have a special needs student in a regular classroom and not be able to discuss it with the regular students in the classroom. I feel like in many cases it would be beneficial for the students to know at least a smidge what's going on so that they do not build resentment and isolate the special needs student.
Thanks for your posts, Shayla. I appreciate your perspectives. I would love teaching with you. Regarding autism in an understanding environment: we had at least two sessions when the autism teacher came to my classroom without her students and talked about autism. These conversations helped my students understand general and specific things about autism. Some moments were very awkward for my students while working with their buddy. My students asked their teacher 'what do I do when my buddy...?" It was very helpful for all of us. We are all life long learners.
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