Week of September 22-26

Monday, September 22, 2014: Mindy Duckworth on Special Education:

 "...each student is a unique creation...a person who has a different set of talents, intelligences and ways of learning."

 

Today in Teacher Cadets, we began our unit on special education and we had the honor of having guest speaker Mindy Duckworth. Mrs. Duckworth works with accommodating children with special needs in the Greenville County School District. Her presentation was constructed of the important laws, rights, and services offered to children with special needs like the the different classroom types (Itinerant, Resource, Self Contained, and Inclusion), the IEP and the 504. She also explained the different types of disabilities and the certain modifications the school may have to make in order to accommodate that student.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014: Review of Important Information about Special Education:

We reviewed all of the useful information that Mrs. Duckworth gave to us. We reviewed the IEP( Individual Education Plan), the 504 and the different types of classrooms that children with disabilities may be placed in. We also did an activity to help us see what a child with disabilities may see when given an assignment. We each received a piece of paper that had numbers randomly written all over it and we were given 34 seconds to find the numbers in order starting with the number one. After realizing that the task was harder than expected, Mrs. Turner gave us a hint; She told us to fold our papers like a hot dog (vertical) then to fold it like a hamburger ( horizontal). Then she helped us to realize that that the numbers went in order of the quadrants making it easier for us to understand the second time around. We also met Pepe the puppet who would only take certain people with him on his Picnic. Mrs. Turner finally tells us that he only accepted people who were bringing things that started with the same letter as their first name. The whole point of this experience was to show that some people get concepts easily in class while others don’t get it as quickly and become frustrated.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014: Autism Special 

Today we watched a video on Autism from Hope Academy to give us some more information on Autism.

Thursday, September 25,2014: Susan Sachs from Hope Academy: 

Today we had our guest speaker Susan Sachs from Hope Academy who spoke about Autism and showed us examples of common things that children with Autism may do like:  using other peoples hands to point and throwing tantrums in order to gain what they seek because they may not be able to speak. Miss Sachs also told us more about Hope Academy to prepare us for our observations in the coming week. She told us that there were two types of classrooms: Inclusion where there are 1-3 children with Autism in a typical classroom and smaller classrooms with children that have autism.

We also received awesome bracelets from our guest speaker!

Friday, September 26, 2014: Observations/ Teacher Poster Making

Today some of us went to our observation sites at nearby elementary, middle and high schools and others stayed behind and worked on the posters we are making for our adopted teachers to remind them that they matter!

What a wonderful week in Teacher Cadet!!!

Barriers to Education

This week in Teacher Cadets we had the pleasure of having guest speaker Rona Neely come on Monday and Thursday. She is the CERRA program facilitator, the author of a children's book, a teacher of the year finalist, and the creator of Gears Youth Services. She shared with us her incredible story of overcoming so many barriers such as poverty, depression, teen pregnancy, and a difficult home life. Because she didn't have a stable family, her grandfather, Otto, and her teachers were able to have a huge impact on her life. When she became a teacher she was able to use her previous hardships as a way to reach out her students. She told the stories of Jayla, who constantly had a negative attitude towards school and a terrible home life, and Ashley, who lost her mother. Mrs. Neely said that students such as these don't need to know algebra or english; they need a person in their life they can go to for comfort and encouragement. She gave this acronym for how to CARE for students with educations barriers:

Connect
Affect
Respect
Expect

Mrs. Neely also showed us the Monkey Business illusion. In this illusion, people become so focused on the players in white that they do not notice the gorilla, the curtain changing colors, or one player leaving. In the same way, teachers can become too focused on teaching or a certain student that they miss another student's behavior. It is crucial as a teacher to be paying attention to the players in white and the gorilla so that nothing goes unseen in the classroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

On Tuesday and Wednesday we started reading articles on the barriers of education. We discussed and took notes on barriers of Autism, eating disorders, bullying, sleep deprivation, poverty, death and grief, suicide and depression, and teen pregnancy. All of these barriers are things that teachers need to look out for in their classrooms because many of these students will need a little extra care than most students. Overall this week we learned that teachers make huge impacts on children's lives, especially those who have educational barriers.

Finally, on Friday we had a craft day!! We began making You Matter posters for our "adopted" teachers. Each poster had the teacher's name and the You Matter mantra written on the bottom. That was our week in Teacher Cadets!

The Teacher Cadets Learn About Gangs

This week in Teacher Cadets, we learned all about gangs and how to spot them and deal with them. The school resource officers came, made a presentation, told stories, and answered questions and then we watched a film called the Gridiron Gang (which was quite an inspirational tear-jerker). And all of these Activities revolved around one thing: Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's hierarchy states that there are five different levels of needs that must be filled in order for a child to learn and function properly. The first level is basic needs that must be met, such as food, shelter, warmth, and and water. The next level is the need for safety and security. The third level states that people need love, affection, and a sense of belonging. The fourth level is the level of self esteem. And the fifth and final level is self actualization, which is the development of a sense of commitment to something larger than a self cause.

On Monday, we started with our activities related to this simple chart. Monday morning, the school resource officers (Officer K and Officer Rock) came in and began a powerpoint presentation all about gangs. We learned some warning signs, some common gangs, and how to deal with gangs. We learned that gang members are people too and they deserve respect, just like any other student. The reason that children join gangs is because they have a really bad home life and are looking to fulfill the levels of the hierarchy that they cannot fill at home (love, a sense of belonging, a purpose) by becoming a gang member. Officer K also shared with us some of his personal story of when he was a gang member. 

On Tuesday, we continued with the presentation, asking questions related to gangs, sharing what warning signs we had seen throughout the day before. Officer K was very kind and we talked more about the reasons behind the joining of a gang. 

On Wednesday, we began watching The Gridiron Gang, a movie about kids in a juvenile detention center starting a football team and escaping from the gang life they had experienced all of their lives, learning cooperation and teamwork and fulfilling all levels of Maslow's hierarchy in a positive way. We continued to watch the movie throughout the week, seeing the characters gain a sense of safety, a sense of belonging, higher self esteem, and eventually self actualization. 

The true story depicted in this feature film was inspirational and emotional, leaving everyone in tears when it ended on Friday. 

Over the course of the week, we learned lots about gangs and the reasons children join them. We learned how to be better teachers by doing our part to make sure that kids feel loved and accepted when at school because they may not get the same attention at home. We, as teachers, can be the only source of love and hope in a child's life. Overall, it was a fascinating, emotionally moving, and informative week.

Self Esteem

This week in tech we cadets we focused on making our pots and personalizing them. A lot of us got very creative with our pots and I love seeing how much effort everyone put into the project. The idea of our pots came from the article: The Pot Nobody Watches by Virginia Satir which makes an analogy of self esteem to a pot that can be filled with different things by different people. What is in your pot depends on how people in your life treat you and how you value yourself. The article goes on to explain how critical it is for children to have high pots and how we, as teachers can achieve this with our students through verbal and nonverbal cues.




In the middle of the week mrs. Poole came to speak with us about the course and what assignments we would have to do as well as introduce us to the core of the class. She also talked about herself and what we need to do as teachers. We mainly focused on the first quarter project which is our autobiography. She explained how we need to really go the extra mile in our work as well as brag on ourselves and highlight our achievements. For me it also made the point that as teacher cadets we are the best of the best and how much we have managed to achieve to be accepted into the class. I'm glad she did that because I feel that a lot of us downplay our successes or worry about not being good enough when in reality were already above and beyond where we need to be.


And finally on Friday we discussed the article The Self Esteem Fraud by Nina H. Shokraii in small groups. We went over discussion questions and assessed how we feel self esteem should be addressed in the classroom. It was cool to hear everyone's different ideas and perspectives on how it should be addressed. It also emphasized how,as teachers, we are such an important part of children's lives.