Placement+1+Week+4+Experience

Week of February 8th, 2010

2/8/10

I came to Kristy's class so excited to share the special lesson I had written especially for my student today. He has shown an unusual desire to write from right to left and backward on the page, but after paying close attention to his work on previous visits I noticed that he is definitely aware that this isn't correct - he just thinks writing looks better his way. So, I created a lesson where we would do an interactive read aloud of the Jane Yolen book __How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?__. After reading, I intended to ask him to compose at least three sentences using the proper left to right, top to bottom sequencing to compare his bedtime routine to that of the dinosaur in the story. Then, in order to practice for future lessons, I had hoped to video record the lesson as I delivered it.

What I hadn't anticipated was all the commotion caused by FCAT sending my student into a tizzy over too many changes happening all at once. I decided to break the lesson into smaller parts, working at a much slower pace and only introducing the video camera today - not really using it.

I was able to accomplish getting my student to write in his journal from right to left, without the aid of me copying the morning's prompt before hand in highlighter. To me, that had to count toward my ultimate lesson objective! Later during math, we played around with the video camera by making a movie for my student to share his "100th Day of School" macaroni artwork with all his adoring fans in TV Land.

Baby steps - we'll try the rest of the lesson tomorrow.

2/9/10

Oh wow! I really don't know how Kristy does it! My best laid plans for the lesson with my student pretty much went out the window today, despite all my good teacher-in-training efforts. Since FCAT tests were still being administered today, some teachers were forced to share classrooms with others so their own rooms could be used for the testing. This meant that Mrs. Jupa's students who have Intellectual Disabilities came to visit us for several hours in the morning. My student was none too happy about all these unexpected guests in his class.

Then, at lunchtime, our ordinary lunch table had been rearranged into two separate areas for some reason. After speaking with the school janitor, it was decided that we should split the class - some students would sit in the normal location at the one half of the table while the others (including myself) would move to the other part of the table, across the room. While this wasn't that troublesome to me, my student only seemed to add this to his list of what was bugging him today.

After lunch, I was able to engage him in the read aloud portion of our lesson. He was very excited about seeing all the dinosaurs in the pictures, but once I asked him to share with me how the way he prepared for bed was like what the dinosaurs in the story did, he shut down. He said this wasn't how he always did his reading work, normally it happened in the morning and now it was too late in the day to do reading or writing practice. Now it was time for special area. Sigh! I tried my best to explain to him that he missed special area this morning because he didn't want to go to Character Education when it was time (FCAT had caused a shift in schedule there too!). All I could think was that this was going from bad to worse for this poor little guy.

Putting the lesson aside for a bit, Kristy's suggested that we try having some cool down time on the computer. Well, that might have solved all my kiddos worries, but soon it was time to go and a whole 'nother issue arose. It had started to pour down raining, once more an unexpected change in my little guy's schedule that no one had told him was coming. This ended with Kristy and one of her paraprofessionals forcibly escorting the student to the office to call his mother because he wanted to kick practically everyone he saw for making it rain! Oh boy!

For my next lesson, I still want to work with writing left to right, I just have to rethink a way to introduce it. Also, I hope for a smoother, less stressful week - maybe one without rain! Hahaha!

2/11/10 Even though today isn't a normal internship day for me, I made a special trip over to the elementary school anyway. Kristy offered to let me sit in on one of the boy's IEP review meetings so I could see a bit more of the inner workings of the Exceptional Education department. I was really excited!

I made sure to arrive at the school a bit early so that I could make my way to the classroom first to see if there was anything I ought to be debriefed on to prepare for my part in the meeting. I was a little disappointed, however, when Kristy shared with me that her student's mother had declined the chance to attend the meeting. The mom only had to give her consent over the phone for the meeting to continue and her son's IEP be updated as necessary in her absence. Kristy had to write this over and over again in all the spots on the paper work to document the mom's choice.

The meeting took place in the Vice Principal, Mrs. Virginia Scott's office. Kristy and I were the only other people there. Since the mother didn't attend, all that needed to be done was to document on all the IEP paper work that it was reviewed on today's date since no changes were being made because the student hadn't yet achieved mastery of his current IEP objectives. Then, lots and lots and LOTS of copies were made of all the different forms in the folders Kristy kept - some copies went to the mom, some went stayed at the school for documentation purposes, and some got sent to the county offices for additional documentation. I couldn't believe the amount of signing and copying that went into just one little meeting! Imagine how many more copies might need to be made if changes in the IEP occurred! Oh boy!

I was a little sad that I didn't get to learn more about the IEP itself from this experience - I'm wasn't sure what to expect, but I sort of hoped to see more of the process than just a lot of copies and signatures being made :o( Maybe that's how it really is in the real world though?

Other than that, I learned that in a normal situation when the parent does attend the meeting, they must receive two important pieces of paperwork. The first is a "Notice of Procedural Safeguards for Parents of Students with Disabilities." That tells parents of all the legal safeguards they have available if, for example, they don't like how their child's IEP is being managed or if they want a hearing because they disagree with the way the IEP goals are being implemented perhaps. The other paperwork the parents have to receive is called the "John M. McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program." This pamphlet explains to parents that if they don't think their child is receiving quality education in their current school placement/program, then the student has the chance, through scholarship because of their disability, to attend a school in a different area or district, or a private school so they can receive a quality education.

Besides the overwhelming amount of documentation that I noticed and the interesting paperwork that had to be provided to the parents, I shared with Kristy that, even if the parent or guardian did attend the meeting, I wondered how they could follow all the technical teacher-talk and state legislation jargon that the meeting was all about. Both the Mrs. Scott and Kristy seemed befuddled by what went where and who needed to see documentation of what changes or signatures, so how could a parent make any sense of the whole experience? Besides that, when the majority of these students come from "less than educationally positive" homes, it's no wonder this student's mom decided not to attend the IEP meeting!