Well, I’m tardy…

I had hoped to write my first day musings on the actual first day, but Wednesday isn’t that bad… particularly when I think back on just how much I’ve managed to accomplish in these first 3 days.

Day one of high school… I met my new students and was warmly welcomed by my old ones. I just love these kids! They are so smart, funny, and strong. I am so glad I get to know them.  I am teaching 7 courses this semester… math and social studies. There always seems to be something interesting going on at our school, and I know that is part of why I love it.

I’ve learned that I’m a compulsive box checker. I go to check my mail box in the copy room between every period…before school, and after… This must be helped by the fact that my room is so near to the mail room, because most people make it over there once a day at best!

I’ve planned lessons through next week, and have already entered information into various programs we use, and I am feeling quite productive. I’ve also been taught, by my students the “soulja boy” dance… The biggest mystery of which is punctuation. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out if it is:

“Superman that ho!” (superman being the verb, ho being the direct object.)

or

“Superman that. Hoh!!!!!!!!!!!”  (superman being the verb, Hoh being the interjection.)

oh well.

Now I’ll debrief you on my “big girl” school-aka-my first semester of GRAD SCHOOL! Monday, I came home after working 9.5 long hours. I logged in and was immediately overwhelmed. Its not that its going to be more than I can handle, its just that it will be IMPOSSIBLE for me to procrastinate. I have a scheduled test every week at least (sometimes 2) and until I’ve finished reading all the required chapters, articles, and abstracts, written all the papers, reviewed all the activities, I won’t be ready for it.

So it is requiring planning and focus on my part. Tonight, I took the first test of one of the two classes, and scored an 85%. I am thoroughly pleased. They allotted me 45 minutes, and I took it 8. I’m convinced that my rushing through accounted for at LEAST 5 % of my 15% wrong…

Anyway, thats all I’ve got time for, but I’ve so much more to say. I’ll write more after I squeeze my 7ish hours of sleep out of this lovely night.

This is the first time I’ve been excited to blog in several days.

I don’t know that I have all that much to say, other than I am just so excited to have a few minutes to say it! I think I’ll start by discussing what my beautiful husband and I did yesterday!

We went to the Star Wars exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and Natural History! We arrived, and had to get in the 40 minute or so line just to get tickets. We got to the ticket counter at about 1:05 ish, and said we’d like tickets to see the exhibit and the planetarium show. We were told that the earliest tickets available for the Star Wars exhibit were for the 3:00 entry time (they had entry every 15 minutes!). Needless to say, there were so many people there. So we decided to see the planetarium show first at 1:30.

It completely sucked.

I am a huge fan of the planetarium, but this was essentially an incredibly lame video projected on the walls of the dome. there was about 3 minutes of actually looking at stars. Booooo.

So, we were let out of the planetarium show at 1:55, with just over an hour to spare before being admitted into the Star Wars exhibit. We mulled around a bit in the other part of the museum (there is only 1 other part.) and it had a couple of neat artifacts. We made our way to the line to the exhibit at around 2:35 or so.

It was THERE that I met my very first Stormtrooper!

Once we made it into the exhibit, it really was quite awesome. Sure there were ridiculous amounts of people, annoying children, and inconsiderate adults, but if you could manage to get in front of one of the cases for a few seconds, it was more than worth it. The models were fantastic. I never could have imagined the scale of things like the X-wing or the Millennium Falcon:

All in all, it was a fantastic experience. I was too chicken to take my camera, these pics were taken with Dmac’s camera phone. I do promise, however, to break her out of her shell, and really be willing to let her see the world in the near future.

Tomorrow morning, I go back to inservice. I’m sure I will find the time to write some sort of report on that asap.

(oh, and a few more pics of the Star Wars artifacts can be found at my flickr stream!)

Time is starting to go faster and faster again…

I haven’t made a proper entry in several days, because I’ve been so busy. First, I had my party last weekend, and this week, I was up at school a thousand times…

You’ll have to settle for a bullet type list of whats up with me for now:

• Saturday is Missy’s Birthday dinner at Chuy’s (yum)
• I’m making her birthday cake tomorrow morning.
• Sunday, I’m spending Emily’s layover time with her.
• Monday, I’m heading back up to work to meet and plan for a few inservice things that I’m presenting.
• Wednesday, I’m meeting with all the new teachers to help welcome them to the school…
• Aaaand… I’ve decided to go vegetarian for a while. I’m just not feeling meat. I will prolly still eat some dairy, but I just feel like making a change. It might be temporary, I don’t know. Daron is, however, still on the fish and chicken train, so it will take some creativity to keep us both fed, but we can do it.

That’s all I’ve got for now… 

This is my first blog about education. I will be discussing elements of Special Education specifically, so, if I happen to use any lingo, or I lose you somewhere, please comment, and point it out.

Special Education is the title for the SERVICES, not people.

Students receive special education services, if they are eligible, and those services would specifically address an academic need. Perhaps the student has a level of mental retardation, or perhaps they are dyslexic. They might have an emotional disorder, or may be in all “honors” classes, but require the use of a wheelchair.

“Inclusion” is the idea of serving the particular needs of “special education” students while they are IN the “regular” classroom. The student would be in the classroom with peers, learning along side them, and being provided accommodations or modifications with regard to the course work. I will give an example. A student with poor reading skills is in the class with all of the “other” students. The teacher, instead of simply requiring the class to read the text out loud, might assign groups who do different things for the story. One group to read short paragraphs at a time, one group to illustrate what is happening in the story, and another to perhaps act out what is happening… All of these activities will allow the students to identify the parts of a piece of literature, and to interpret the information into usable data. However, in this scenario, the learning disabled student is not only viewed as “normal” but is acquiring the knowledge that the teacher wants to pass on to the class, is working in groups-building peer relationships, and is not off in another space with an educational assistant playing with flashcards.

The assumption that must be evaluated is one that has been around for a pretty long while, now…

Separate is inherently unequal.

Now, if you believe this to be true, then WHY are our learning disabled students being separated from their peers. It has been revealed in several different studies, and probably revealed in your own life, that we take on characteristics of those around us. If all the people in your office are depressed and moody all day everyday, the likelihood is eventually, you’ll become quite grouch yourself. Speaking in generalizations, we seek social acceptance. Most people seek to match those around them, particularly teenagers! Most would rather blend in than stand out. With that in mind, if we put students who struggle with math in classes with those who are managing to get through it, there is also a social motivation to reach for the goal. Conversely, if they’re in a room with a dozen other kids who “hate math”, “suck at this” or are otherwise not inclined to succeed, than the social pull is in a downward direction… not up. The norm they’ll be adjusting to and mimicking will be that of those who are failing, not thriving.

As a final note, there will always be students who will be better served in specialized and isolated settings. However, a great majority of students are quite likely to benefit from being included. It is something that I believe we should strive for, when it would be in the best interest of the student in question.

 

(For what it’s worth, this blog is my opinion, and I make no claim to be an expert in the field. I am merely a teacher, who is continuing the studying of education in grad school, and am therefore often inspired to write about my passion.)