The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I've gone back and forth this week about what I wanted to blog about. It was a pretty intense class and  clearly many of us have some pretty intense feelings over what seem to be strong stereotypes about CF and it's students...but this is a good thing. This is why we're here. We would have never discovered this had we not had the opportunity to take this class. I would probably venture to say that this would be my number one recommendation for any future students to take this class, in this school. It's real, you see the good, the bad and the ugly, not just what's in the textbook. Like so many of us agreed, many of these problems do not just happen in CF. We will see behavior issues, inclusion classes, diversity in race, culture, and disabilities in any school we're in. Sure it may look different, but let's get past the surface and see it for what it is.

The one thing that I come back to over and over these past few weeks is the relationship we have, or will have, with our students. I saw that again in the panel this week when the teachers gave advice on classroom management. I've also seen this in my observations with my cooperating teacher.  I recently attended a conference at my work and one of the break-out sessions was on Social-Emotional learning. Some of the skills I learned in that mini-session could totally be applied in my classroom and that's one of the goals of CASEL. Here is their website if you want to learn more about what this is and how it is being used in the classroom: http://www.casel.org. There are some great resources there. One of the main things I think Social and Emotional Learning helps is in building relationships. We need a bridge to our students. We can't just view a behavioral or academic issue and then jump the gap to a solution before building a bridge to reach the student.

In our Special Ed class on Friday we watched a video called Including Samuel. I highly recommend it.  Here's their website: http://www.includingsamuel.com/home.aspx. It was about Samuel and a few other students who have disabilities. The video showed the good, the bad and the ugly about inclusion. It was really eye opening, but as I watched it I didn't just think about these kids who have disabilities. I thought about the kids we feel are being stereotyped, or grouped together unfairly. I then thought, "how can we put 'these kids' in a box?" They are all different, just like you and I are. They deserve to all have the opportunity to get the best education we can offer, so does that mean we teach or treat them all the same? We, as adults, are all different and my relationship with one person will vary greatly with my relationship with another for a variety of reasons, but mainly because we are ALL different in one way or another. Yes, we have different races, ethnicities, cultures, but also, beliefs, values, learning styles. I think this is where Professor Horowitz was going with the discussion about looking a student in the eye. Our treatment of our students should not be based on what they're not but who they are and this may look different in every classroom we ever work in.

So, I think I've made it here: We have to have rules, non-negotiables, in our classroom, but I think when creating those we need to think about our students. Are any of our rules going to run into a problem with their races, ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, values, or learning styles. There is one phrase that I have heard over AND over again as a parent, "Choose your battles." Sometimes in our classroom we may need to choose our battles. Everything may seem like an important rule, but what are the ones that NEED to be followed to foster a safe, creative, warm learning environment?