My main focus in this blog is twofold.
One, I did not record any of my previous educational experiences. Most of it I remember, minus the sleep deprived years of grad school, but I know now that I'll later want to look at what I did during this time in my life. Ergo, write a journal.
Two, though, if someone else is trying to decide whether it's worth it to drop everything and go after a dream, maybe I can help answer that question. My hope is that the answer will be positive, but as this is a work in progress, who knows?
Having said that, I've been in class for two weeks now. Most everyday, I want to leave crying. It's not that I can't do the work--quite the contrary. It has nothing to do with the professors, who all seem like really nice people. Most of the classmates are really cool, despite my description of a couple of the more noticeable ones. No, it's none of the above, but is in fact the classes themselves that are becoming the problem.
My Mondays:
K-6? Literacy:
Class begins at 11:30, after the prof, Dr. S, has placed bowls of candy on the desks. At first, I thought it was very sweet of the old lady to provide candy; now I realize it's to keep us awake during class. In four of the last seven classes, we have watched a video tape on phonemes. Not several video tapes--ONE video. She provides the paper with headings for which we are to take notes on said video. Despite providing the paper for notes, we did not receive a syllabus until Monday of this week, which she spent all of Monday reading to us. When trying to have a class discussion, she dominates the conversation with tales of how she has fought the system; sadly, I think the system she is referring to was in the 1950s, which would be when she last taught in a classroom other than college setting.
Her biggest pet peeve is seriously the lower case letter k not being written correctly and the class not participating. My biggest pet peeve, other than being treated like a five year old, is the fact that she has yet to even ask our names and refuses to call on those of us who raise our hands--I should really start yelling out answers to her rhetorical questions in order to gain some attention. Of course, she's already proven that, despite her "warning" that class participation is a big part of the grade, she doesn't care about our participation. Or us.
Class: Teaching math to students with mild learning disabilities.
Ms. D assigned a lesson plan for the first homework assignment on the first day of class. Since she has only learned she would be teaching the class the day before, I remain impressed with her preparation. Granted, there were no comments on the assignment, but we are using them to learn how to write IEP (individual educational programs).
Wait! We're learning in that class. There's a concept. While the class isn't overly challenging to me, I have to remember that I'm not the new teacher this class is designed for and give her a little slack.
The real challenge is going to be dealing with BJ, who gasped when she realized that, oh noes!, she has to write a different IEP for each discipline the student needs one for, as well as a separate IEP for any behavior or emotional issues. She was visibly not happy.
I missed the memo that special education did not require paperwork; in fact, I thought it was partly responsible for the Amazon's decreased tress.
Next up: Behavior/Emotional Disorders.
Dr. D's first day of class met her with a meeting that ran into class time and no ordered book. As she had only been employed here for a week, she had not had time to order a book and was frustrated that one had not been ordered. That's understandable. Having an attitude with her class and verbally chastising us for this, however, is not. Homework was to read a power point presentation that she had printed out for us.
This week's class, she seemed to be in a better mood. Books arrived 30 minutes prior to class, so while few of us had them, at least they're available. She tried to learn names when she spoke with us. She seemed a little friendlier.
Then she opened the power point presentation, the same one we had read for homework, and proceeded to read it to us slide. by. slide. Why should I spend time reading and doing homework if I'm going to be doing the same thing in class? I could be doing so many other more interesting things, such as washing my hair or returning videos.
Somewhere in between page 4 and 5 of the 3-slides-per-page presentation, she sidetracked into her own experiences. At least this gave me the opportunity to wake up and quit hitting my hand with an open pen to stay awake. She told a story of a student with an emotional problem whose IEP had stated he was too dangerous to actually be in school; the school allowed him in and during the school year, he stabbed another student in the ear with a pencil, causing severe damage.
Wow. She caught my attention, but I did have a question: Where is the system of checks and balances for school systems that do not follow an IEP?
Her answer: She told a story of a student with an emotional problem whose IEP had stated he was too dangerous to actually be in school; the school allowed him in and during the school year, he stabbed another student in the ear with a pencil, causing severe damage.
No, I did not make a mistake in repeating that. She repeated the story for an answer. Maybe my question wasn't clear (though, "checks and balances" is pretty clear language): I asked the same question but in a slightly clearer way.
Her answer: She told a story of a student with an emotional problem whose IEP had stated he was too dangerous to actually be in school; the school allowed him in and during the school year, he stabbed another student in the ear with a pencil, causing severe damage.
I gave up.
Next time: Reading, Curriculum, and LD.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Real world expectations vs. Real world time wasters
I spent my afternoon with a nine year old and a six year old playing Scrabble and reading books. The youngest is learning phonemes and how to use sounds to read; the oldest is trying her hardest to not learn multiplication tables. The girls wanted to play, so after telling the oldest she would be the score keeper and that I would help out the youngest, we were set.
The oldest dominated the game (I helped both of them), and the youngest was bored after an hour (that was 30 minutes longer than it took me), but it really was successful. "Tines" turned into an opportunity to teach the youngest about forks; an extra "ge" became an opportunity for the oldest to morph "tin" into "tinge." Double and triple word scores? A chance for our stubborn score keeper to use multiplication.
This isn't that exciting to others, perhaps, but it's cool to see the different ways little things we as adults enjoy doing can be used to help the little ones learn. And honestly, it's a helluva lot more exciting than 4 of my 5 classes (online doesn't count). In the last week, one instructor has read straight out of the book ver batim. Another has read to us from a power point presentation she gave us to read for homework the week before--ver. batim.
I'm accustomed to real conversations, analyzing essays and authors and questioning procedures, infering consequences, and asking a lot of "Why?" So far, no go. If this is the instruction that teachers are receiving, then I better understand why our educational system is going to hell in a handbasket, NCLB be damned. For the record, I don't think it's all the students' faults.
Tomorrow I'll go into more detail; for the moment, I'm going to bash my head against a wall to prepare for tomorrow's "lecture" that will probably be more of the same anecdotal evidence that so far has done absolutely nothing to assist any of us. I'm not the only one feeling this way, as evidenced by the student sitting two desks behind me who, upon exiting the row, threw her books down and hissed, "This class is a waste of time! We've been talking about the same crap for the last two weeks."
She's not exaggerating. I know there's lots to be said for theory vs. practice, but in this case, I think we all want more theory before we are, in a few short weeks, thrown into the practice.
The oldest dominated the game (I helped both of them), and the youngest was bored after an hour (that was 30 minutes longer than it took me), but it really was successful. "Tines" turned into an opportunity to teach the youngest about forks; an extra "ge" became an opportunity for the oldest to morph "tin" into "tinge." Double and triple word scores? A chance for our stubborn score keeper to use multiplication.
This isn't that exciting to others, perhaps, but it's cool to see the different ways little things we as adults enjoy doing can be used to help the little ones learn. And honestly, it's a helluva lot more exciting than 4 of my 5 classes (online doesn't count). In the last week, one instructor has read straight out of the book ver batim. Another has read to us from a power point presentation she gave us to read for homework the week before--ver. batim.
I'm accustomed to real conversations, analyzing essays and authors and questioning procedures, infering consequences, and asking a lot of "Why?" So far, no go. If this is the instruction that teachers are receiving, then I better understand why our educational system is going to hell in a handbasket, NCLB be damned. For the record, I don't think it's all the students' faults.
Tomorrow I'll go into more detail; for the moment, I'm going to bash my head against a wall to prepare for tomorrow's "lecture" that will probably be more of the same anecdotal evidence that so far has done absolutely nothing to assist any of us. I'm not the only one feeling this way, as evidenced by the student sitting two desks behind me who, upon exiting the row, threw her books down and hissed, "This class is a waste of time! We've been talking about the same crap for the last two weeks."
She's not exaggerating. I know there's lots to be said for theory vs. practice, but in this case, I think we all want more theory before we are, in a few short weeks, thrown into the practice.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Dear Fellow Student who feels the need to bring her child to class,
I appreciate that it must be difficult to have children and be in school while your child's school has not yet begun. I understand that sometimes there is a need to bring your child to class because of this and honestly, I don't have a problem with that.
However, is it necessary to be ten minutes late to class every single day? I'm amazed that you accomplish this for almost every class; you were late for the 11:30 class, which may be because you had to drive behind a tobacco truck or someone who mistook the 55 mph speed limit sign for 25. Why, though, were you ten minutes late for the 4:00 class that was postponed until 5:00? Did you drive the hour long commute home? Or is it planned?
It's your grade, though, so I shouldn't be too harsh, except when you're late, you pull your suitcase/backpack into the room, causing more noise than should be possible. And you have your child, who you then need to settle in. He's in the 3rd grade, but still you find it necessary to give him coloring books and crayons from your backpack.
Here's an idea. Give him a backpack and let him be responsible. Cut the apron strings. His future wife will appreciate it. Seriously, I've had parents with children younger than him attend classes and they were responsible for their own entertainment. Guess what? It worked.
But your excuse is that he's dyslexic. How do I know this? Why, you've felt the need to discuss this in every. single. class. We have five classes on campus together and you've mentioned this, in detail, in every single one. Listen, I understand that he's your inspiration for entering the field of special education and that you're proud of him. Here's a secret, though: all of us entering this field have something for inspiration. You are not special in this. Special education is not a field someone enters because it seems easy, or because it pays so well, or because there is no paperwork involved. On the contrary. But there are at least 8 other people who have to listen to you tell the same story over and over and over, every day, in five different classes. We're tired of it.
(You have yet to post on the online class's discussion board. The instructions tell us to use our own experiences as well as what the book writes. Experiences in this case refers to in the classroom, not what classes and special schools your son has attended.)
One more thing. Remember that there are 8 other people trying to achieve this same degree (though sometimes the classes have 25 students)? This means that maybe, just possibly, we'd like to hear about something other than your son and his experiences. We probably are more interested in hearing about, say, how to teach math than we are interested in hearing you discuss that you didn't know your son knew where the year is located on a penny. I know I'd love to learn more about mathematics in particular because that is the one subject I have the least amount of experience in. If you monopolize all the time, though, you're shortchanging us and really, that isn't fair.
You don't need to get a babysitter; feel free to bring your kid to class. He seems nice and he's fairly quiet. But really, all of the attention does not need to be on you.
Signed,
The chick who wants to learn about something else.
I appreciate that it must be difficult to have children and be in school while your child's school has not yet begun. I understand that sometimes there is a need to bring your child to class because of this and honestly, I don't have a problem with that.
However, is it necessary to be ten minutes late to class every single day? I'm amazed that you accomplish this for almost every class; you were late for the 11:30 class, which may be because you had to drive behind a tobacco truck or someone who mistook the 55 mph speed limit sign for 25. Why, though, were you ten minutes late for the 4:00 class that was postponed until 5:00? Did you drive the hour long commute home? Or is it planned?
It's your grade, though, so I shouldn't be too harsh, except when you're late, you pull your suitcase/backpack into the room, causing more noise than should be possible. And you have your child, who you then need to settle in. He's in the 3rd grade, but still you find it necessary to give him coloring books and crayons from your backpack.
Here's an idea. Give him a backpack and let him be responsible. Cut the apron strings. His future wife will appreciate it. Seriously, I've had parents with children younger than him attend classes and they were responsible for their own entertainment. Guess what? It worked.
But your excuse is that he's dyslexic. How do I know this? Why, you've felt the need to discuss this in every. single. class. We have five classes on campus together and you've mentioned this, in detail, in every single one. Listen, I understand that he's your inspiration for entering the field of special education and that you're proud of him. Here's a secret, though: all of us entering this field have something for inspiration. You are not special in this. Special education is not a field someone enters because it seems easy, or because it pays so well, or because there is no paperwork involved. On the contrary. But there are at least 8 other people who have to listen to you tell the same story over and over and over, every day, in five different classes. We're tired of it.
(You have yet to post on the online class's discussion board. The instructions tell us to use our own experiences as well as what the book writes. Experiences in this case refers to in the classroom, not what classes and special schools your son has attended.)
One more thing. Remember that there are 8 other people trying to achieve this same degree (though sometimes the classes have 25 students)? This means that maybe, just possibly, we'd like to hear about something other than your son and his experiences. We probably are more interested in hearing about, say, how to teach math than we are interested in hearing you discuss that you didn't know your son knew where the year is located on a penny. I know I'd love to learn more about mathematics in particular because that is the one subject I have the least amount of experience in. If you monopolize all the time, though, you're shortchanging us and really, that isn't fair.
You don't need to get a babysitter; feel free to bring your kid to class. He seems nice and he's fairly quiet. But really, all of the attention does not need to be on you.
Signed,
The chick who wants to learn about something else.
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