Week 15

Last blog post reflection.Wow, time has really flown by! I cannot believe that I have only one more week left of student teaching. At the start of this placement, I did not expect to be so upset when it was done, but I am. I have really grown to love my teacher, paraprofessionals, and students. I will miss this.

This past week was a wonderful week. I learned a lot about what some of the challenges are that special education teachers face. My teacher has moved classrooms a lot since she has been hired in as a special education teacher. She also has had her fair share of paraprofessionals as well. I have learned how stressful it can be not knowing where you will be the upcoming year and who you will be working with. I also have had some good conversations with my teacher about what it is like to be a new teacher working with staff. I was able to hear about some of her challenges her first few years and get advice as to how to prepare for new school years and working with new staff.

Another thing I learned this week was how important it is for students to have community outings. We have many field trips and community outings for these students and it is sad to learn how little most of these families take their children out. This week I planned a trip to Walmart to look or needs and wants. I provided a list of items for a scavenger hunt in Walmart looking for things the students would need or want in a certain scenario. Each student was paired with a staff member and ran around the store looking for items. It was a good experience for my students to learn how to navigate the store, ask workers where items are located, and learn about different items in the store. They had a blast! We also had a chance to go to the zoo. At the zoo they learned how to take turns, wait in line, and learn the names of animals. We also talked about the needs and wants of various zoo animals. It was awesome to see them grown and enjoy their time!

What I hope to learn next week is what it is like for my students when they are pushed into the general education classes. I would like to follow them to some classes and see how they handle them. 

This week was great. My staff threw me a surprise wedding shower! How lucky am I? I feel so loved and blessed by them all! I hate that this is my last blog post and my last week ahead of me. I have so many mixed feelings, but I know that the people and the things I have learned will carry over into my new job in Florida. I cannot wait to see how God uses my experiences for his glory!

Week 14- Foundations Learning Outcome

Trinity encourages culture in the classroom. 

"Because our Mission in Christian higher education is not limited by ethnic or cultural differences, we consciously seek to develop a multiracial, multinational, and multi-denominational community." (Trinity Christian College mission statement)

This mission to have culture in the classroom is something that is well known at Trinity. I think in every education class that I have taken at Trinity, they have encouraged us to love diversity and encourage all cultures in the classroom.  "Here at Trinity, we promote diversity..." has been said numerous amounts of times over the course of my four years here. This concept is very important and I often find myself in classes thinking, "I love different cultures and I will of course promote diversity in the classroom." Although my heart has always been there, I  have found myself  wondering how I can use this concept of cultures in the classroom. I am a white, middle-class, monolingual-English speaker, who has been raised in a Dutch CRC community my whole life. Sure, I can buy the diverse books for my classroom library, suggested in my Children's Literature class and have a diversity day, but how can I know exactly how to use this concept in real life, in a real community without living it first?

To answer this question bluntly, you can't.

Field experiences opened my eyes to what it really meant to encourage cultures in the classroom. Many of the schools in this area have Polish-speaking students and Arabic-speaking students. This was a huge eye opener for a Dutch CRC girl. 

I found myself realizing that buying the diverse children's books and have a diversity day was just not going to cut it. 

The truth is: culture matters, but people are people.

What I mean by that, is that students want to you to show interest in them. They want to be loved and feel special. Getting to know my students interests was huge in my teaching and field experiences. 

This past semester Trinity opened up an opportunity for me to student teach at Rehoboth Christian School in Rehoboth, New Mexico. This was a huge culture shock for me. Majority of this schools population is made up native students from the Navajo and Zuni tribes. The exact percentage of natives in this school population is 70%. I taught 6th graders and I encountered many cultural differences and learned so much from the students. I had a few students who were not as understanding and were frustrated that this white girl from Chicago was going to be teaching them, but by the end of my time there I can honestly say that these same students were the ones who accepted me into their family and were bringing me native tea, foods, and sharing stories. Why? I showed interest in my students and their cultures. I asked questions and told them I wanted to learn more. Getting to know my students as people was the biggest and best way to encourage culture in the classroom.

The truth is: culture matters, but people are people.

I honestly do not think I would have been able to understand exactly how to encourage culture in the classroom, like Trinity suggests unless I had been able to live it out in my field experiences. I learned the absolute most from Trinity through the experiences they were able to provide me outside of lectures and classes,. I learned the most in real classrooms and in real schools. For that I am grateful.

The concept of encouraging cultures and diversity was such a different experience for me, when I actually was given the chance to practice it in real life experiences. 

Week 13

This week was my first week of full time teaching at this placement. It wen very well! Full time at this placement entails me teaching group, all 7 reading centers, and being in charge of the classroom in terms of where the paraprofessionals are going and what they are doing and the schedule for the day.

This week I taught two group lessons about "needs and wants". I used two different reading materials in order to help teach the students what a need is and what a want is. The book took us through different scenarios such as, "Jack has holes in his socks. He wants to buy a video game, but what do you think he needs? SOCKS!" This booklet was quite helpful for the students to have practice identifying needs and wants. I also did a SmartBoard activity where they had to circle the pictures that were needs and cross off the pictures that are wants. In addition to this, this week I taught reading centers to all seven students and came up with new ways of reaching their goals.

This week I learned that being the teacher role can be uncomfortable at times. I felt uncomfortable telling my paraprofessionals what to do during the day. The only thing that made it work okay was that my paraprofessionals like me and we have good rapport. They would tease me about my new role and call me "teacher". We laughed together about this new role and they encouraged me through it. I learned how important it really is to build that rapport as a teacher with your paraprofessionals. Another thing I learned was to never underestimate your student's abilities. The Speech Pathologist brought in the game headbands for the students to play. How this game works is the students strap a picture of an item to their forehead and the other students use describing words to help the student to guess what picture is strapped to his/her head. We brought in "peer buddies", who are 5th grade general education students from the school to come and play the game with them to model the game and behaviors. It went AWESOME! The students picked up on the game quickly and were using amazing describing words. The next day I was working with a student who always has difficulties with generalization in my reading center. This students goal is to be able to describe items. He loved the game headbands, so I bent the picture cards and put it on my forehead and had him play the game with me. It was basically the same thing we had been doing, but I had the picture on my head and we called it a game. The student did AMAZING! This was an awesome teaching moment for me!

Next week I hope to learn more about the various roles of my PT, OT, and Speech Pathologist. They come in teach week to our classroom and spend time with students. I want to watch them work with the students to learn more about how to best teach my students at the reading center. This week, I noticed that one of my students says the "s" sound whenever she needs to say the "sh" sound. I talked with the Speech Pathologist and I hope to learn what she is working on and transfer the same instruction to this student in my reading center.

Next week I will be full time again and I am planning my own field trip (community outing) with the students to practice "needs vs wants" in the community. I am excited to have the opportunity to plan my own field trip!

Week 12

This week was a short week because of job interviews in Florida and spring break beginning. I am really starting to feel comfortable in my placement and enjoy the students a lot. I taught all 7 centers this week and video taped a few. I had to get a giggle out of the students reaction with the video camera. All of them were in awe of it and had lots of questions, so it was difficult getting them on track for the lessons. I have found different motivators for students and it has been very helpful. One student likes to work for drawing a picture. another student will work for gum, and another will work for iPad time. It has been good learning all the various motivators and how to best meet my students needs.

Like I said, I made a quick trip to Florida to have an interview with a school down there. All my students were excited to have me back and ask me questions about the school in Florida. What a fun bunch of students I get to work with.

My last day of the short week ended on being observed for two lessons. I was amazed with the stuff my teacher had said about me. I never really knew if she thought I was doing a good job or if she enjoyed having me be a part of the team. Apparently she is very happy with my work and what I have been doing in the classroom. This was very encouraging.

Something I have felt challenged with this past week is not necessarily related to the students, but more so the staff. My teacher is very open about her lack of religion and she often speaks of her bad experiences with Christians. I have felt my faith challenged here. My teacher is not disrespectful, but she is very bold about her lack of religion and it puts me in difficult situations at times.  In my opinion, the work place is not a place to talk about politics or religion, but I have been put in situations where I have had to say something. It has been a challenge to know how much or little to say or do. I just keep praying for staff and showing my love for God through my actions and words. I pray that this will reflect my heart and that it will be something positive for them all.

Next week is spring break, so school will not start back up until April 4. When I arrive back, I will be teaching all 7 centers and beginning to add group sessions in my teaching load. I am very excited!

Week 11

Monday-

This Monday I was able to teach 6 out of the 7 reading centers. I added on a few more students to teach. I am having a blast doing the centers and it is good to seen the growth each day and week with these kids. I am thankful that the students have been so willing and comfortable having me take over the center as well. I have only had a few issues with generalization. The student that I really struggled with generalization last week did amazing when I had my cooperating teacher observe me. GO FIGURE!

Tuesday-

The students did not have school today, but we had a PBIS professional development training. It was good to learn more about PBIS and how to implement it in the classroom. My classroom I am in is one of the only STAR classrooms implementing it right now, It was interesting to learn the pros and cons about it and be able to see it in my classroom.

Wednesday-

This was another community outing day. We went to Reavis High School for their abilities fair. The abilities fair is a group of students from the High School who have disabilties presenting things that they are successful and interested in. This was so awesome to see and have the students go and ask them questions. A few of the tables had information on resumes, books, Disney, and nutrition. My students favorite was the performance done by three students. They sang songs from Byonce, One Direction, and Kiss. They put on a huge performance and gave their histories. Such a cool experience! After this, we went to Burger King to practice requesting by order food. This was a fun end to a day and the students got to play in the play place there.

Thursday- 

Today our social work station paraprofessional was sick, along with many students. The flu is going around in my classroom. I had the opportunity to teach all 7 social work centers for the day. This was a fun experience because I learned about a different center and what the students do there. I also was able to see more of their accomplishments and I had a lot of fun teaching!

Friday- 

Friday was a pretty normal day. I taught all 7 reading centers so that my teacher could have time testing a few students. I loved this! I finally got to teach all of the centers. We also found out today that we will be having a new student come to our classroom at the beginning of April to join us. This new student has Down Syndrome. I am very excited to meet him and see how we will incorporate him into our day.

Next week is going to be a CRAZY week. I am being flown down to Florida for an interview for a teaching position for next year. My teacher is flexible and has been very supportive through this all. I am getting prepared to take over all the centers next week and be observed on Thursday. We will not be having school on Friday because it is the start of our Spring Break. 

I am really started to feel useful and a part of the classroom. I am happy and excited to continue to get to know these students and teachers. I am thankful for how God works through our situations and lives and is constantly their for us. God is so good!

Week 10

These are 6 of my 7 students and they are adorable. This week Friday we went on a community outing to the Planetarium downtown. We do a lot of community outings with this class, so this is one of the many I am sure that I will have the chance to be a part of. The reason we chose to go to the planetarium was because this month they are learning about he sun. Exploring the planetarium, they had the chance to watch a show about our planets and our sun. We played in the various rooms that were all planet, star, and sun related. The kids loved it and actually learned a lot from being able to see and experience it. On these community outings, the students are paired up with an adult partner. I got to hang out one-on-one with one of the students (the one in the green shirt) all day long. I had a blast getting to know him a little better and building that rapport because I had some difficulties with generalizing with him this past week.

I have always heard of generalizing, but I had never experienced it until this week. I had observed my teacher work on IEP goals with one of my students and he worked great and had almost all of the items mastered. I took over this past week working on IEP goals with this same student. He appeared to know nothing when he worked with me. After some frustration, I asked my teacher about it. She explained that some students have issues with generalizing, so they may not be able to do a certain task with a certain person because it is not who they learned it with. Some can do the mastered skill at their center, but not at their desk because it is not where they learned it. She told me not to be upset because she even has difficulties with this when she takes over other centers that she normally does not teach. This was so frustrating and sad, but it helped me get into the minds of my students just a little bit more. Structure and repetition is huge!

There were a few points during this week that I felt frustrated. I know that in this placement, things are going to be different for me. I understand that when I take over full-time, it will look much different than when I took over full-time at Rehoboth. I have to keep reminding myself  of this because I often get antsy in my placement. I am not the type of person who likes to sit around, play with toys, and observe. I am a "do-er". I like to be busy and constantly be working. I often find myself sitting around waiting for students, the students take a lot of breaks in the day (which are VERY necessary), and there is not as much for me to do because there are so many helping hands in the classroom. This is hard for me. I also will constantly be asking my teacher if I can help in more ways or do more for the classroom and she usually does not have anything for me and says that it is all taken care of. I want so badly to feel useful and feel like I am needed, but I do not.

Next week, I plan to take over teaching  two more centers, so that I am teaching 5/7 centers. I look forward to working one-on-one with more of the students.

Week 9

This is my second week in this classroom with these students and paraprofessionals. It has been a very different experience for me and I am struggling at learning my place in the classroom, how to support the staff and students, and how to be a special education teacher. With saying that, I am learning a lot about special education and I know that God has placed me in this classroom for a reasons. I can already see ways that this placement is going to make me a better general education teacher.

Monday was a very different day. One of our students who had severe behaviors was transferred to another classroom due to the safety of the students in my class and the general education students in the building. The classroom atmosphere was strange because we moved this students stuff out and had to move some of the stations around to spread out the classroom. Needless to say, the change was hard for the students. All week they would go to the wrong stations and were asking where the other student went to. I could see how change was very hard for these students. At the same time, I got to see many more of the students open up and relax because they finally felt safe in the classroom, which was awesome to see!

This week I did a lot of "pairing". I did a lot of playing with the students and building rapport. I have learned that pairing and building rapport with students who have autism is really hard to do, especially when they have a hard time communication socially. I have been learning what students like and what they do not like, which I think will help me a ton when teaching. My philosophy has always been the better you know your students, the better you can teach them. The problem is, it is so hard to get to know these students! 

I had the opportunity to start working with two of the students at the reading center. I have begun working on their IEP goals and the teacher has helped me begin working on this with them. It has been a lot of fun working one-on-one with the students and learning more about what they know and what they are working on. For the other students, I have sat in and observed my teacher working with them one-on-one, learning about what their IEPs are and how the teacher teaches them.

I also had the opportunity to sit down with the Social Worker this week and go over the behavior plans for two of the students in the class. I had to sign off on some papers and I now feel a little more comfortable knowing what some of the behaviors are in the classroom and how to handle it. Even though, I am not aloud to restrain students or get hands-on with behaviors. 

This week was a much more positive week for me. I feel like God did prepare this placement for me, even though it is not exactly what I want to be doing. I know that I am here for a reason and I am growing and learning about things that will help me in the future. I am surrounded by an awesome staff who really care about the students and are very knowledgeable. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn, grow, and be stretched.