Last night I was out to eat with my family (that is what happens after cutting your finger on the mandolin while making pickles) and a student approached me smiling and waving. I smiled back and asked her how she was liking the Jr. High. She laughed and reminded me she was still in 6th grade and that she is in my class this year.
YIKES! I know that I have 600 students and that I have only seen her class twice but wow... I felt awful!
I was talking to my husband later sharing how I spend so much time in her class period "dealing with" a few high needs students (code for unable to follow directions, stay on task or be respectful) that I didn't even realize who all the other kids in that class were.
Today I was reading through my feedly account and this great article from Connected Principals was waiting for me. It is about a teacher and her preconceptions about a students. It got me wondering if I was approaching my T8 class with the same attitude.
I also got to thinking about something a friend put on facebook this week. She grew up in poverty and her status update was just her sharing that "as a child of poverty, the idea of being anything she could dream of was unrealistic. She was so focused on surviving that there wasn't time to dream of the future." It got me wondering what my high needs students might be surviving outside of school.
Funny how things happen when they do... here is to a new week with new viewpoints!
Great article! Thanks! I too have students like "Billy", way too many... I always try to find out as much as possible about a student's situation to help me understand better why they act the way they do... it really does change your perspective and how you deal with situations involving them. Everybody needs to step back sometimes and look at the whole picture... :)
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