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.