Those of us who work in the field of disabilities and learning difficulties do so for a wide variety of reasons – ranging from deeply held convictions about equity and equality of access to education, to the effects on us personally of family experiences of disability, through to the need to make a difference or even it was the only job available when I applied. Personally, as I continue to pursue my Ed.D I hope to discover ways to help children with disabilities who attend public schools as inclusion students in general education classrooms. I believe that assistance begins with the teachers who work with them. Therefore, it is important to create professional development opportunities that address differentiating curriculum.
Although teaching is often described and experienced as important, rewarding and satisfying, those who actually do it rarely describe the work as ‘cushy’. A teacher’s daily experience is one of high expectations, challenging demands and considerable scrutiny, with recent policy focus on the performance of individual teachers and assessments on student performance. Student diversity is a particular challenge and students with learning difficulties, disabilities and/or social disadvantage require considerable, skilled input to achieve or approximate current benchmarks and standards. In today’s context therefore, teachers are advised to adopt practices that are effective with a diverse student’s and are of course sustainable.
I have enjoyed reading the blogs of my classmates, in particularly Novellete and Leigh Sparks. I learned a great deal from reading the perspectives of Novellete's experiences working with young children in Jamaica. I hope to further explore topics in Education in terms of general education teachers who work in inclusive classrooms. I hope to gain their perspectives on what strategies they use to differentiate the curriculum for these students, and what professional training's they are exposed to, to help these students. I am also interested in further exploring brain development in young children, as parents need to be aware of the importance of working with their children to advance them academically from birth.
References
I have enjoyed reading the blogs of my classmates, in particularly Novellete and Leigh Sparks. I learned a great deal from reading the perspectives of Novellete's experiences working with young children in Jamaica. I hope to further explore topics in Education in terms of general education teachers who work in inclusive classrooms. I hope to gain their perspectives on what strategies they use to differentiate the curriculum for these students, and what professional training's they are exposed to, to help these students. I am also interested in further exploring brain development in young children, as parents need to be aware of the importance of working with their children to advance them academically from birth.
References
Brotherson, S. (2009). North Dakota State University Extension Service. Understanding Brain Development in Young Children. Retrieved from: https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/famsci/fs609.pdf, September 25, 2016.
Hargreaves, A. (2001). The emotional geographies of teachers' relations with colleagues. International Journal of Educational Research, 35: 503–27.s
Kelly, I applaud you in trying to help the gen. ed. teacher with inclusion students. I have 3 autistic children in my Pre-K classroom and I have never been trained on how to educate them. I have gone by my intuition on most skills and learned through them what they can and can not do. They are all highly functional and I have learned I can teach them as I do all my other students and then just go back and give them individualized time.
ReplyDeleteI have also seen other teachers struggle with special needs children in their classroom and they have basically ignored them unless they have an outburst. I need training as do my fellow colleagues. I think all students should be mainstreamed if their abilities are able to and these children at my school who are not getting their needs met are being done a disservice. I do not blame the educators who have these students and I am sure they are doing the best they can at the moment, but I do think training is needed for any educator who has a special needs child.
I enjoyed reading your post throughout this course and hope to meet you in another course in the future.
Leigh Anne Starks
Kelly, I have gained respect for you and your working with children with disabilities. This subject has always been touchy for me because I really dont have the necessary expertise to work with children that have special needs. I always wanted to explore how I as an educator can gain tools that could help me in teaching these children. I do teach these children and I never limit them because if their disabilities, but I want to become better. Reading this article has given me inspiration. Thank You.
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