Week 10 Bode

          This week I wanted to focus on something that I noticed about my teaching/classroom management/discipline. There are a select group of students in my first grade classroom that can get a bit frustrating and drive me crazy sometimes. These students get checks and a lot of them daily but don’t seem to notice. This one particular student doesn’t get that many checks because he can normally behave well but I find myself getting frustrated or short with him. This child has Aspergers. My frustration stems from the fact that its not only him who gets distracted and isn’t following directions or doing the work, many of the other misbehaving students are as well. I get frustrated when this child doesn’t stay on task or cant answer a question clearly because his answers don’t make sense. I get frustrated when I find him drawing and erasing his work multiple times but doesn’t have any writing on his paper. I finally realized I was awful for getting so frustrated, most of these incidences are happening because he has Aspergers and has a difficult time staying focused or listening to someone give instructions all day, etc. I didn’t want to feel frustrated with a child who didn’t have much control over his actions and his distractions.

I consulted my boyfriend’s mom for help; she has been a special education teacher for almost 20 years and her favorite kinds of students of ones on the autism spectrum. She loves their quirks and personalities. She was the perfect person to consult because she’d know what was going on in this little boy’s head. She informed me that this child probably needs visual directions or clues to stay focused, verbal instructions can really make them lose concentration. She also advised that having this child sit next to a well behaved one in the classroom, as an example is a good idea. After being given all this advice and much more I felt more capable of handling this student and his behaves. It’s advice and strategies like this that I feel are so important to learn as a general education teacher. I am not a special education teacher and I have only taken one class about special needs, but nothing that could prepare me for advice on how to best work with students who may be on the autism spectrum or may be hearing impaired, etc. Since I feel I lack these strategies and lessons than it is now my job to use the resources I have around me to understand and better work with all diverse students regardless if I’m only a genera education teacher. It’s important to do so because I felt myself understanding and tolerating more as I learned more about individual behaves and special needs.