Placement+2+Week+2+Experience

Week of March 22nd, 2010

3/22/10

Each day I spend in the classrooms with my new teacher friends and their students, I feel more and more at home. I am always so happy to be there, and even though I know some days will be tough as I learn the ropes, I am thrilled by every new discovery and challenge. It's a great feeling!

Today, I really feel like I took initiative and maybe surprised my supervising teacher a little. As we spent time in the morning discussing what lay ahead for our Monday, Ms. Stamp confided how disappointed she was becoming over a particular student's actions. For some time now, he has been asking numerous questions of his classmates and teachers. Although at first this does not seem like a big deal, it has truly become a distraction and even an annoyance to everyone involved because the questions are always silly and bothersome. For example, the student might listen to a discussion about how papers will be collected at the end of the period, then he raises his hand to ask how this procedure will be conducted just as soon as the teacher has finished explaining it!

Mulling all these details over, I decided to start taking anecdotal notes for a sort of mini, informal functional behavior analysis during each of the class periods we taught the student - keeping track of the phrasing of each of his questions, whom he asked, and any other important details that surrounded each little inquiry. By the end of the day when I shared my notes with Ms. Stamp, not only did she seem impressed that I had "gone the extra mile" for a student's sake, but she began to wonder aloud if this child might have a processing disorder instead of just being another kid looking for attention like his other teachers have thought.

Although there's still more investigation to be done before any of us teachers can tell what the next course of action should be for this boy, I think I may have just started the ball rolling in the right direction?!

Wow...I think I just made a difference in a child's life!

3/23/10

Ms. Stamp told me today that she can tell I have "the heart of a special education teacher." I could only laugh and tell her she was makin' me feel all warm and squishy inside, but the recognition and positive reinforcement (haha - for lack of a better term!) that I'm getting this semester is really making me feel ten feet tall. I like being one of a team and having the kids seek me out for assistance. It's nice to feel respected among not only the students, but also included by the other teachers as one of their colleagues too! I never expected that since I am so used to the role of student, and still feel like I'm learning so much of the time.

I am so happy to have such a wonderful supervising teacher. Her experiences - both personal and professional - provide me with such eagerness to learn and do more, if only just to have stories to tell like her. I love that she shares so many of her resources with me, too. She's given me countless teaching ideas, practical suggestions for my future classroom, and great documents that help me learn about the exceptional education world from the inside out. I am so thankful to have her and the other teachers at NMS to learn from!