When I walked into the classroom the students were working on their portfolios for the third grade test at the end of the year. Mrs. Brown was sitting at her desk while her students sat in silence. I walked up to her desk to introduce myself and after a few minutes of me standing and talking to her she asked if I wanted to sit. I accepted the offer and went to pull out the chair from one of the computers. As I did this, she told me not to and got a student to get me the seat instead.
As we were talking, she gave me the information of how many students were in the class, that this was an inclusion self contained classroom, how many students were special education (SPED as she called them), how many had IEPs, and other information that would be helpful to learn in the classroom.
I would say that we were talking for about fifteen minutes and having a really nice and friendly conversation. However, when it came to the students she did not have this same carefree and fun personality. She is very strict with the students throughout the day. She even said to me that she feels the need to be strict with them so that they know that she is serious about what she wants from them. When the students were done with their portfolios, they were told to put their heads down on their desks. However when someone didn't listen to these instructions, she would call out their name and raise her voice telling them to put their heads down. She also continuously used the words "listen", "focus", "quiet" and "stop" during this time. When it came time to hand in their work, she would get frustrated with the students who didn't write their names and the date on the papers. Also if they forgot to bring up all their papers, she would let the student know that it was unacceptable.
During the math lesson, she became slightly less stern with the students. When she asked a question, she allowed them to answer as a class instead of just having one student raise their hand. She showed a Brain Pop jr. video to get the students engaged in the lesson dealing with perimeter. However when it came time to working independently on the do now and on the assignment after the lesson took place, she would yet again raise her voice at the students not staying on task.
Although she is very strict with the students in her class, she has been teaching inclusion for eight years and feels that this is the best way for it to be taught. She feels that the students need a strict classroom in order to learn the material and a daily routine.
The last thing that I would reflect on, is how both Ms. Brown and the special ed. teacher Ms. Cohen both commented on how I should change majors. They both said that this work is exhausting and a headache (this was said in class and in front of the students). Mrs. Brown said that she does this job because she is passionate about student learning but it is very difficult at the same time.
Being in the same school as you, I definitely got a lot of the same first impressions. My clinical teacher also told me that I should consider changing majors and that it was exhausting. She even mentioned I would get sick of it very quickly. I wonder if this is just the school that they are teaching in that make them feel this way. Also I am wondering if your students seem to be fearful of your clinical teacher when they yell? Being that you are in an inclusion classroom I would assume that the teacher would be more nurturing, but that does not seem like the case.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, the school culture is certainly not a nurturing but one which obviously and strongly subscribes to a deficit view of its Special Educations students. Unfortunately this is not surprising or new. The important thing is that you have already been able to see past this, as in being able to pin point your CT's strengths in spite of her comments. The reality of the matter is that many of us, very often unwittingly, behave under societal expectations and assumptions. If, however, a teacher can work past these biases then she is well on the road to being more effective, if fact sometimes a teacher will never fully let go of bias but nonetheless is so vested in her students that her actual teaching doesn't suffer. I would focus on the areas which you feel are not her strengths and would concentrate on what she defines as being stern. Is it effective? Could it be done differently? If so how?
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