1st day of new placement

Going into this I was terrified..... middle school = lots of attitude. But as it turns out, all was well. The students were great! The teacher is phenomenal and the staff as well! I think it will be a great experience. I already sat in an IEP meeting for a transfer student. Althought I didn't know much about the child, I was able to learn a bit and discover it wasn't too different from the elementary setting. The actual schedule is however. They do a lot of co-teaching, even though the general education teacher pretty much takes the lead. The sped teacher just provides help. They don't really plan ahead, which is mostly due to the gen ed teacher. All in all it was wonderful! I am excited about my upcoming events!

End of first placement!

It's sad to say yesterday was the last day of my first placement. I am truly sad leaving. I learned so much and met so many wonderful people - kids included! It was an eye opener. Between policies and treatments. They are just so different than I expected. They don't take the initiative at times, that as a parent I believe I would want, and fight for. They do many incredible things, just some unexpected as well! I learned more about myself as a teacher than I thought I would and am happy with my progress! I couldn't have asked for a better starting out point!

Day: Frazzled!

Wow oh wow, a four day week makes for a crazy one!

Tuesday started off normal. The child who is normally in with us, came in well, did his work, received his rewards and even went to general education class without issues. During however, he got frustrated and shut down. After that he was unwilling to do anything and becuase of this he had homework.

Wednesday was awful! He refused to get on the sped bus. Mom had to drag him into the classroom, and he literally sat under the window all day. When it came time for going home he was furious because he had homework. He sat on his backpack and wouldn't get up from it. A staff member had to pull it out from under him. Once the books were in, the bag was left on the table and the child immediately went to take everything out and fling (books, papers, etc) on the floor and table. The bag again had to be taken away and then put outside so he couldn't get it. He then refused to go to the bus or even home, because he would have to work. In the end, he had to physically be put on the bus via the principal and bus staff. That same day a child came to our room in the morning and wanted to make animal noises all day. We rebuttled with louder noise that made him angry and almost to the point of tears. It turned out however that the next day would prove to be uneventful as he did not like being in that setting that way. He thought he would be able to get away with noises all day and telling adults to shut up and no one cares and they are stupid.

Today prevailed to be wonderful (until I got done with class that is). The student who is with us full time came in, did his work, went to PE, had lunch with his peers, and went home without homework! He did wonderful. Our other child (3rd grader) came in the classroom in the morning but decided he was going to do his work and wanted to be in the regular education classroom. He has difficulty in math and had to come back to us. But after learning how to do the work and cool off time, he was able to go back to class and was very excited to do so!

It seems things are working, but you just never know what a day will hold! School for me is absolutely frustrating and to a point I wouldn't have it any other way. It keeps me on my toes. It's exhausting but I know it will all be worth it in the end. There literally are not enough hours in the day for me to get all I need done, completed!

Day 27

The child came in well this morning. Seemed to be a little frazzled but very okay. He was able to complete all his work by 1:30. He did go over to one of the Aide's desk and work with her and two other students (one in his designated classroom) on Math. He has missed quite a bit of instruction but picked all the information up quickly. He did sit with them and when he started getting flustered (another teacher noticed) he quickly slowed down the situation and the child quickly got right back on task.
A child yesterday had told me of a situation with her family. I know she has a rough homelife, but yesterday was worse. She was worried about her parents arguing and their power being shut off. I asked her what she would like to do in her spare time, one thing was to color. I went home and printed off things I knew she liked and today I was able to give her a few. I tried to talk to her about how when they are arguing that this could be something she does to stay away and keep calm and keep her mind off it. I am hoping it helps....
I was able to do a lot with the teachers in the new implementation of recording... hopefully this will be kicking off tomorrow!!!

Day 26

At 9 o'clock in the morning I found myself in my first IEP meeting, where what I/special education supervisor had been doing actually meant something. This case dealt with the child who hit a teacher (yet nothing was done about it). The family is Hispanic and so the communication has been a minor issue. The family brought a family friend who was a teacher where she lived last, and knew quite a bit about the child and history. The meeting did not turned out as I thought it would (although I know it was wrong to have thoughts of how it would go). The family and the special projects leader kept trying to stress the need for a reduced test (in all subjects) that only covered the standards. They also kept stressing a functional behavior assessment. My anger came from the fact he doesn't need a reduced test. He can do all the work. He is given extra time to complete it (as per his IEP) with breaks in between (7-8 minutes). He completes the test and does quite well. He had poor grades on his progress report due to so many zeros, had it not been for the actual good test scores he turned in, he would have even worse grades, but his tests kept him afloat. For the FBA they wanted we knew the antecedent behavior - doing work. If he is given a lot of work at once or given stuff he really doesn't understand he becomes frustrated. This causes him to shut down and not work. We have the documentation saying that, but because a psychologist who met this child the day before decided so, that's what they think they need. It is so frustrating because we knew the issues at hand we just didn't know where to go from there. We knew what triggers the behavior and how to make hiim work. They didn't want to help, they would rather cut something that he can accomplish and does well. It is amazing to me that they "swept under the rug" the incident where he punched a teacher 3x and kicked him 2x. The family friend kept saying that yes it was an isolated incident, but if it should happen again the school should have a trained "team" that would cater to the child and be able to restrain him. But the issue lies in he is not dumb, he knew what he was doing and yet received no punishment. If it got him out of the classroom once, when we try to mainstreem him again, what's to say he won't do it again... he did it once and got away with it.?! Needless to say I know all IEP meetings won't be this crazy, but it was a definite eye opener as far as the school system is concerned. The rest of the day went okay. Very frustrating especially for my ST, but understandable. We were able to get most of the other children and read with them. I took over most, due to circumstances.