Blog 4

My favorite part of teaching is preparation for the school day. In my opinion, it is also the most important part. A properly planned day is the difference between engaging with a child and teaching at a child. I've been in a classroom where the teacher wasn't prepared for his lesson. He seemed distracted and just spouted a bunch of facts instead of having real world examples for the children to relate to. Yes, it filled the appointed time allotted for the subject, but I feel the kids weren't any better off for having sat through it.

The teacher I am working with currently is very prepared for the day. The preparations I've been involved in are usually for the coming week. Since it is a second grade classroom, the things I've been doing are pretty fun. I guess I should explain that I enjoy monotonous tasks, so when I say that I had fun, I mean it. What I've been doing are things like counting out beads into little bags, cutting out pumpkin shapes, and correcting papers. As much as I enjoy the tedious task of preparation, it's even more fun to watch the lesson unfold and see the children enjoying the activity you've helped prepare.

Blog 3

As a volunteer in the classroom I am not given the details of a child exact diagnosis, but it's easy to see how modifications are being made for certain exceptional students. In some cases, the student is taken out of the classroom to work directly with a special education teacher. On other occasions, the student will be helped by a parent volunteer like myself. However, the most common thing I've observed is the teacher teaching to the class, but taking special care to read the signs of the student, and gauging his or her attention to the subject and whether or not they are struggling to understand.

I've observed the teacher trying to take special care in not pointing the child out repeatedly. On occasion, she will need to pull the students focus back to the lesson at hand, but she mostly tries to teach to the class as a group of learners. I feel that this is important for all of the children of the class. It helps the exceptional student, in that it makes them feel included in the classroom. Sometimes, being the odd man out can be more of a distraction that a help. It also benefits the rest of the class, because the teacher is not needing to take time away from them in order to instruct the other child.

This way of intuitive instruction seems to work best with a teacher who is invested in her students. Much like mothering multiple children, you need to know how your child learns, the best incentives for success and the best way to gently correct and redirect behavior. All the while, making sure to meet the needs of the other children in the family, so at the end of the day each child feels included but still unique.