Reality 101: CEC's blog for new teachers

Richard: Anticipation of the future

My state has adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the lastest educational fad to equalize education by having what is more or less national teaching standards. While I like the idea of everyone in the nation finally (with skepticism) being taught and held to the same academic standards, I wonder how that will have an impact on students with exceptionalities.

I recently received a rather thick binder of the new English/Language Arts standards that also include Social Studies and some Science standards and am a bit concerned on how well this new system will work for my students. While the standards themselves are a great tool to aid in curricula planning, they have their shortcomings. They use an abundance of primary sources and really increase the rigor of p-12 academics, but I fear that based on our old way, the new way will be too difficult for many students and things will change before we get them to the level the new standards require.

Theresa: Learning to Let Things Go

This school year has felt so much different from the past two years.  There seems to be some underlying stress that is always present.  Looking around every day, I see teachers who are exhausted.  Everyone is holding onto their coffee cups for dear life in the morning, and they often get more coffee at lunch as well.  As pressure comes from all directions, administration, teachers, and students are all starting to feel it.

It seems like every year the students come in lower than the year before, and the bar for their performance is set higher and higher. All of the students in my school are expected to be “meeting” or “exceeding” on the standardized assessments. I am proud to say that we have done really well the past couple of years, and our school is no longer on probation. So now, we are working even harder to ensure that our students continue to do a great job. I feel like it is an endless job to accommodate and modify the curriculum in such a way that my students can show their growth and do well on the standardized assessments.

Allisence: What’s up with Felipe?

Meet Felipe. Felipe is one of the most adorable little kids you’ll ever meet. He has perfect curls and long, long eyelashes. Teachers and administrators he meets out in the general education world fall for his charm all the time. They come up to me and say, “Aww, Felipe is just so cute!” Sometimes, I’ll even find myself battling to be the disciplinarian when he plays around, doesn’t finish his work, and has to stay in during recess to do it.

With a little bit of encouragement, Felipe is usually very compliant and willing to work. Recently, however, I’ve noticed a complete change in his behavior. Felipe needs constant redirection for every task.  He’s less willing to work with the classroom aides. He shortcuts in line and is not willing to share, and there are times when he has simply been rude toward both adults and other students.

Jessica: Recipe for Learning

As we creep towards winter break, I have begun calling family and friends who I will be seeing on my days off. Several of my friends were in the process of buying ingredients for, or making cookies for, holiday cookie parties when I called. In case you haven’t been to one, a cookie party is where everyone brings a several dozen homemade cookies to a party. At the party, you taste everyone else’s cookies, and then you leave with a handful of new cookies, as well as new recipes to try out. I love these parties, but regrettably, I wasn’t invited to any holiday cookie parties this year. It’s not a big deal, though, because I’ve been waaaaay busier this year than in previous Decembers.

In addition to my regular job duties, I am the director for the winter program. For the past several weeks, I’ve been working with the entire student body on reading lines, singing songs, and making crafts and costumes for a winter program involving forest animals explaining the meaning of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. As I near performance night, I know there will be mistakes. The sound system may produce ugly feedback. Students may exit to the wrong side. Someone will probably forget their lines. But it is what it is. I have reached the point where I have fixed what I can and accept what I cannot fix.

Theresa: Attention where attention is due

I have this student, Juan, and there are some days working with him that I earn every single penny that is on my paycheck. Juan will push me and push me every day; we constantly battle to see who will have the power for the day. That being said I know what he is doing, and why he is doing it, but sometimes I will still let him engage me in this battle.

I have taken many approaches to working with Juan. I often try the “good cop” approach where I am as nice as can be. I will compliment him just for coming into the classroom on his own two feet (he will often take a running start and slide in on his knees!). I will say, “I like the way Juan turned in his homework and sat down at his desk. I like how Juan has his pencil out and is showing me that he is ready to learn.” This will work for a while, but when I stop praising him every 20 seconds then he begins to start getting antsy.

Richard: Halftime!

This week is going to be the last week of school for the first semester. As I put the finishing touches on final exams and study guides, I took a moment to reflect on my students over the past four months and would like to share some of my reflections with you.

My students have made some notable gains. I currently have one sixth-grader. He came to me refusing to do any work that required him to read or connect several ideas together. He also could not subtract, multiply, divide, and would get instantly aggressive at the mere mention of fractions or decimals.

Allisence: Life in the Classroom Fishbowl

My students love Connect-the-Dot puzzles, mainly because they think it’s fun and because they love numbers about a billion times more than letters. In keeping with that theme, I’ve decided to share with you 10 dots that get you from my windowless classroom to what’s become a fishbowl reality.

Dot 1: My classroom is approximately 12’x25’ complete with 2 windows: 1 skinny tall one on the door and 1 next to the door that has cage-wiring inside it so is pretty useless as an actual window.

Dot 2: My windowless classroom sits in the Osborn School District and my school district loves to partner with Arizona State University (ASU) in hopes of bettering our teaching and student learning.

Dot 3: As part of our partnership with ASU, we started participating in something called TAP. TAP stands for Teacher Advancement Program and is used as a way to measure teacher-added value, among other things

Jessica: Doorway to Another World

My general ed co-teacher planned a field trip to Pinnacles National Monument, a national park of epic rock formation. I sportingly agreed to be a chaperone, not knowing what I'd signed on for, which brings me to an important point: never agree to chaperone a field trip to a place you know nothing about.

Pinnacles is indeed majestic, beautiful, grandiose, and multiple other adjectives one might use to describe the wonders of nature. Pinnacles is also, um, high. With narrow paths. And loose rocks. It also didn't help that I recently watched the movie 127 Hours.

I hiked these switchbacks with a group of 3rd-, 4th-, and 5th-graders.

Theresa: I AM a teacher!

“Oh, you’re not a real teacher.”

“Thanks for turning in your report card pick up attendance sheet, but yours doesn’t count.”

“Since you’re not a real teacher you don’t get a new computer for your classroom.”

“You’re so lucky that you only have10 students in your classroom at a time.”

Those are just some of the typical comments I get throughout the year at my school. I feel like I really have many obstacles to overcome just in how I am perceived by my coworkers as a special education teacher. I have learned not to take too much offense when one of my colleagues or administrators makes a comment similar to those above, but it still stings a bit.

I understand that what they are trying to say is that since I do not have a homeroom I do not get the same things or have the same requirements as does a teacher with a homeroom. One of my colleagues was recently asked about her classroom, “Why do you need to use all of this space? You’re just a resource teacher.” She later called me to vent about her experience, and I told her that I wish this were the first time I was hearing things like this, but it wasn’t.