Holy Observations!

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I love supervising student teachers.  For a variety of reasons. It's much like driving around town at night, glimpsing in lit and uncovered windows to see how the other half decorates.


I have been in inspiring rooms with amazing cooperating teachers.  I have been in mediocre rooms and watched my students out teach the cooperating teacher, I have been in really horrific rooms with poor model teachers and watched my student teachers struggle with the ethics, philosophy and methods in which they are trying to construct a meaningful experience for themselves.


I am left to ponder how incredibly diverse programs are, how the inequities effect students and teachers.  How it is simply the luck of the draw where all students land for their education.  It's really the same universal crap shoot at play as where we are born, what race we are, what religion our parents practice, the genetic mix that determines all sorts of things, our socio-econimic status....


Even with all of that, our country is committed to providing every one of our children with the opportunity of free and appropriate public education.  No small task.  Pretty idealist.  Absolutely righteous. 


I could now launch into the current politics of it all, but let's not go there.


So, back to the diversity of programs, teachers, districts, and philosophy.


It's 2011 and I had so hoped that special education room assignments had progressed farther than they have.  Too many of the programs are down long and winding, darker hallways tucked in the back of school buildings.  They are usually as far away from the office as possible.


One such room is the old shop facility at a middle school.  It is a huge space.  OK, yippee!  Not in a closet or locker room.  It has windows.  Yippee!  It has a concrete floor, huge ominous pipes and exhaust vents twisting throughout the uncovered ceiling.  Any kiddo with anxiety about spooky things overhead would be totally freaked out in here.  The acoustics are bad, divider walls are filing cabinets and book cases.  Adults and kids are in and out of there constantly.  There is no place to hang some cheer, interactive bulletin boards, art work, student work.  The teachers in that room are frazzled.  My student teacher was skillfully able to teach her small group in such a way that it felt cozy and safe. It was all about her, not the facility.  She is a keeper.


Another setting is a not that far from all the goings on of reg ed.  It is a middle school self contained CDS room.  Kiddos with significant challenges spend the bulk of their day in this room.  It has its own bathroom, as toileting is an issue.  It has a connecting room for spreading out, it has a SMART board, and get this!  The powers that be allowed the teacher to design and request what she needed for her room!  Say what????  You read me right.  She, the teacher, wanted each of her students to have their own space.  She designed and ordered up little office cubicles for each student!  The walls are very low, they each have a computer, and a nameplate.  They are not used as timeout spaces.  There is a large table in the center of the room where most instruction takes place.  It is full of love and the purpose of coming to school is very clear.  The teacher is amazing, my student teacher was so amazing she moved me to tears.  


And in sharp contrast is a very dark place.  Elementary school self contained EBD.  Way in the back of  the very dark building.  No happiness anywhere in the whole building... so imagine the EBD room.  On the upside, there was ample space.  Two big rooms, windows.  Across the hall is the seclusion room.  Yep, the seclusion room.  Yep, it gets used a lot.  Let me describe the classrooms.  Two gigantic messes.  Heaps of stuff everywhere in no order, no welcoming elements, no signs that anyone at all cares.  Luck of the draw, no?  


So, while I am there observing my by nature very happy and loving student teacher, a student is in the seclusion room.  The door was open and he was chillin' out, I guess.  And then the door begins to bang open and closed.  So, what do the adults do when this obvious cry for attention happens?  They lock him in the seclusion room!  He gets hysterical, escalates, and my student teacher tries to continue her lesson over the din of adults and hysterical student drown her out. It was upsetting.  It was crushing.  It was wrong.  My student teacher finishes her lesson and allows her students free time.... things that require the use of earbuds and headphones.  Smart girl.  


She comes back to me so we can discuss the lesson she just taught.  We were alone.  All we needed to do was look at each other.  Poker faces on, but intense eye contact.  I whispered to her if she found this upsetting.  She said yes it was and that it went on all day long.  She hates the environment, the philosophy and methodology.  She tells me the hysterical kiddo in the exclusion room lost his mother (she was killed) just a year ago.  This is the anniversary month. He just had his first birthday without his mother.  So we put him in a locked seclusion room and tell him when he calms down he can come out.  Are you fucking kidding me??  


That poor kid needed hugs and whispered sweet nothings in his ear.  He needed his mom.  He needed someone to care that getting down to academics wasn't possible for him because his grief was big.  BIG.  Because he doesn't have a mom.  Because that void is so huge he cannot even describe it.  


Let's just keep on using behaviorist methods with this kid.  Let's shut  him down and teach him that nobody really cares about anything except him getting his work done quietly.


Yeah, it's a wonderful world for him.

Voyeurism

Every day that passes, I am more grateful for working through enough stuff to quit EBDland and move on to teaching at the university level.


I loved EBDland, but it was killing me.  Literally.


So, the best part of this new gig?  Well, there are many.  But supervising student teachers allows me to enter all sorts of classrooms and watch how others are managing their caseloads and classrooms.  Kinda like driving around the hood slowly late at night, peeping in lit up windows to see how your neighbors are decorating the living room.


I have seen exceptional.  I have seen deplorable. And the good part....?  I don't have to do anything about it!!!!


It has been an incredible experience to then process with my student teachers.  It is invigorating to analyze, ponder, reflect, and problem solve.  It is amazing to watch the next generation of teachers come into their style, evolve, and collect the good, the bad and the ugly and sift through it all in their efforts to be really good teachers.  


Unfortunately one of my student teachers is in the worst possible situation.  In one room there are 6 teachers.  It is arranged very poorly, it is very unwelcoming, there are some real safety issues in there.  Ld teacher working in small pull out groups has to teach over the din of hour long meltdowns.  I mean full on screaming!  And the administrator said, "Well, that's just special ed."


Are you cussing kidding me?????  What kind of school leadership is that?  Sacrifice quality learning environment for the LD kiddos?  Really?  This same administrator hands out much less harsh consequences to special ed victims of special ed peer attacks than she does if a special ed kiddo attacks a reg ed student.  So, special ed kids don't deserve quality learning environments?  So, special ed kids don't need to feel safe?  So, special ed kids don't need protecting from other special ed kiddo bullying?


Oh yeah, I am furious.  Oh yeah, I can't let this one go.  Not sure how I will address it, but I will.  


So grateful I stopped the insanity of crossing over the the dark side.

Whew!

Sorry I have been out of it for so long.  That certainly was not my intention or preference.  


As mentioned before, Movie Man was having a most challenging transition to middle school and Superman was presenting a bit more aggression than usual and was expressing some new found emotions.  I have a real love-hate relationship with Superman evolving.  You gotta take the good with the bad and as he claws through another layer of Autism (which I love), he has so much to process and put in some sort of order. It usually is not a pretty transition (which I hate).


Now let's move on to my career change.  LOVING IT!  Love, love, love it.  What the hell was all my fuss about?  No, let's not go there.


I am having a blast teaching advanced methods to seniors ready to student teach next semester.  I was nervous for the first few weeks as I was not teaching as I noted some of my peers were.  They are way in the world of academia and research and I am.... well, I am not.  At first I felt really self conscious (although I have total autonomy), I was nervous that I wasn't brainy enough.  I took a long hard look at most of my fellow professors and thought about what they offered and where they came from, how much public school teaching they had done before becoming tenure track professors.  


And I concluded that what I have to offer is of incredible value.  18 years of real experience in the trenches.  with real kids, in real situations, with real teachers, with real parents, with real frustrations.  That knowledge base is irreplaceable. And the whole point of making this career change is to make a difference in the way special education teachers in training are trained, to offer up some real strategies and stories that will empower new teachers as they enter this incredible profession. 


OK, PLUS, I want to make sure that my own kiddos have a better chance of always landing in good special ed programs.  I am that controlling, yes, I am.


Anyway, I am having a blast doing it my way.  And the feedback from my students has been incredible.  They express gratitude every single day.  They are relieved.  They are hungry to better understand, to fill their bags of tricks with good stuff that works, to be given permission to cut loose, follow their instincts.


They are even beginning to embrace my goal for them to become independent thinkers, to question research based methods, to expose themselves to the vast amounts of great information and resources, and to throw out what they don't want to use and embrace trying new things and making it work for each and every one of their students.


I am also so adoring being a student teacher supervisor.  It is a great form of voyeurism, no?  I get to sit in a variety of classrooms in a variety of school districts and just sit and watch, and then I get to process it all with my very talented student teachers.  One placement is dreadful with a capital D.  It has been a blast to work through it with my student teacher, to empower her, to help her in ways her cooperating teacher is not.   I love watching the kiddos in each placement, learning how different districts offer different solutions for all sorts of issues and challenges every district faces.  


I think what I want to do with this blog is to chat with you all about what I am seeing and how we are all finding solutions.  I also hope that you all will comment as we go along and that you will let me know what you think is most important for teachers in training to understand before they student teach.


It's good.  Really good.

A New Year, A New Role

I now have one 2 hour class session and one 2 hour student teacher meeting under my belt.


And I believe I am in love.


I believe I made the right choice.
I know I made the right choice.


I wasn't so sure while I was in syllabus writing hell.  And it was hell.  


The last few weeks have allowed me to make some great and noteworthy observations.  Although not new to these sorts of observations, I still found them worth pondering.


1.  When you are new to an organization, members of that organization make a lot of incorrect assumptions about what you know and who you know.


2.  When you are new to an organization and have questions, and feel some urgency about getting answers,  the peeps already familiar don't feel your same urgency and because they are really busy getting the school year under way they don't respond in a timely manner... if they respond at all.


3.  It's scary starting anew, but man, is it exhilarating!


4.  We are not doing a good job in teacher training programs.  The students are starved for relevant information, practical strategies.  Theory only takes you so far.


5.  After gathering information about student needs, I realize the original timeline and topics to be explored need adjusting.  I feel very strongly about giving my students what they need.  They know where they feel unprepared.  They know what they need to become effective teachers working with their preferred population.  Well, they sort of know.  How can they really know?


6. Training students to become independent thinkers and inquisitive learners when they are used to simply getting assignments done so they can  check them off the to-do list is going to be no easy task.


7.  I love having a captive audience!  My goodness, isn't it great to be able to finally tell it like it really is and hope to effect some change in practice, philosophy and beliefs?


I am looking so forward to a weekend full of planning.  


I have a renewed hope about what I can do on behalf of kids.  I was so afraid I would not feel this way once I left my direct service role.


Whew!