“F.A.T City” was an eye-opening documentary that enlightened me about people with learning disabilities in schools. To begin, the acronym F(frustration) A(anxiety) T(Tension) was a clever name to describe the documentary. Teachers, parents and other helping profession in schools can cause F.A.T towards learning disabled (LD) students without being aware of the harm that is occurring. I really appreciate that teachers were not the only participants in the film. There were parents, a student, a LD student, a technician, different types of therapist, psychologist and other professionals in schools. The diverse participants allowed everyone to become more mindful in their role when assisting a LD student. As a paraprofessional, I learned quality …show more content…
However, comprehension has more to do with background than vocabulary. During my fieldwork, I visited a 12:1:1 class to observe a student. I noticed that the teacher used vocabulary words to explain another vocabulary word. The students appeared puzzled and started to act out because they did not understand what the teacher was trying to explain. Mr. Lavoie stated, when someone is working with a LD student, using direct instructions and background information helps them process information. If the teacher used background information about the vocabulary word, the students may have a better chance of understanding the lesson. Also, LD students have problems with their visual learning process. According to Drummond and Jones (2010), “assessment professional assess individuals with visual impairment by using instruments to meet their needs, such as test with large print-version, Braille forms and forms on audio recorders” (p. 334). Therefore, one solution to increase learning is to incorporate auditory learning. Auditory learning is a need for a LD student that has problems with their visual …show more content…
According to the film, fairness does not mean everyone get the same, it means everyone gets what he or she needs. In my ICT classroom, there was numerous times when I over heard teachers state that it is not fair that certain students have undeniable privileges. There was a student classified as emotionally disturbed. He constantly ran out the class, attacked students and teachers and became furious when completing academic task. Some teachers saw him on a skateboard gadget being pulled down the hallway. The excitement in his face annoyed teachers because they saw this action as a reward. However, the student was not being reward, he was in occupational therapy (OP) receiving his needs. Furthermore, teachers approached me complaining that my one to one student does not deserve the privileges he has due to his behavior. I found myself defending my student and feeling frustrated that his privileges were observed as a reward and not a need. The definition of fairness confirmed that I was not only defending my student, but also defending his needs. Now, I can share the definition of fairness with my colleagues to bring awareness of LD students receiving their
Perhaps if everyone realized the wisdom in the famous proverb, “before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes”, people would have more empathy for those who may seem to be atypical. The video How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop presented by Richard D. Lavoie effectively gets participants to experience the feelings and stress of children with learning disabilities. Lavoie draws his participants into the classroom experience with well developed exercises that elicit the frustration, anxiety, and tension of children with
Lavoie transforms a panel of primarily general education teachers, parents, and school faculty members into a room full of students with learning disabilities. He uses techniques such as fast-paced interrogation, anxiety-provoking activities, cognitive manipulation, and rhetorical questioning to create nearly impossible learning situations for any learner. As a typical learner, I had never
Unfortunately, a lot of parents may have a difficult time accepting their child, and coping with their needs and the responsibilities. From the book “The Elephant in the Playroom,” some families dealt with depression and physical and mental deterioration of their health. These struggles were shown in the story by Laura Cichoracki. Laura’s son’s name was Patrick. Patrick was a 6-years-old boy with autism. “I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t showering regularly, I wasn’t sleeping well” (Brodey, p. 64). I also read the story told by Susan Marrash-Minnerly, which highlighted emotions that parents face. Susan also shed light on how wonderful children with special needs can be to a family, such as her ten-year-old third grader who had autism. Susan talked about how it was normal to feel angry at times, especially with the ups and downs a child’s disability may come with. “When I look back, I want to tell other parents that a child’s future is worth grieving over – but it’s not the end of the world” (Brodey, p. 75). After reading these stories, it became apparent to me that families who are raising kids with special needs, need support, kindness, and available resources. “I was fortunate to be surrounded by other moms who understood my pain…who could be supportive and emphatic.” (Brodey, p. 67). Overall, educators can use this kind of information that was shared in “The Elephant in the Playroom” about family systems and risk/resiliency by creating lines of open communication between families. This is to connect parents together that share similar struggles. By creating open communication is can allows for the teacher and parents to be on the same page when it comes to the issues affecting special needs students and
...ven every family, so the less unfair the less unfortunate. Many privilege groups occupy many resources of the education and society, and that is the reason why increasingly more authors working on discussion education justice. However, this is the beginning of the whole tough journey.
Tomlinson & Imbeau (2010) believe that there is a strong association between opportunities in life and educational opportunity. However, Tomlinson & Imbeau (2010) argue that people often misconstrued the notion of equal access to education to mean that all students should receive the exact same pacing, resources and instruction in the classroom. Therefore creating a one size fits all education system. More importantly, differentiated instruction recognises that students are not the same and that access to equal education means that given a certain goal, each student should be provided with the resources, instruction and support to facilitate them in meeting that objective (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 12).
Students with learning disabilities can learn; each student has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. Educators must continue to focus on the strengths of each student and building on them, creating a stronger student and person. Identifying the weakness is at the core of getting a student help with their learning disability, but after this initial identification and placement, the focus should shift to the strengths and adjusting the student’s schoolwork to reflect these strengths. For instance, if a student is weak in reading but has wonderful group interaction skills and is good with his or her hands, the students' reading tasks should then be shifted to reflect these st...
Students with high incidence disabilities or HID are the most common in schools. The group of high incidence disabilities include students with emotional, behavioral or mild intellectual disabilities as well as those with autism, speech or language impairments and attention deficit disorder (Gage et al., 2012). Students with HID are usually taught within the general education classroom. There are either co-teachers or a resource teacher that takes the students out of the general education classroom for short periods of time to work in a more individual, structured environment (Per...
Two years ago, I embarked on a journey that would teach me more than I had ever imagined. As a recent college graduate, I was thrilled to finally begin my teaching career in a field I have always held close to my heart. My first two years as a special education teacher presented countless challenges, however, it also brought me great fulfillment and deepened my passion for teaching students with special needs. The experiences I have had both before and after this pivotal point in my life have undoubtedly influenced my desire to further my career in the field of special education.
Students have the ability to read grade level text but continue to demonstrate difficulty with comprehension of information because they are unfamiliar with the vocabulary of learning. This problem appears to occur more frequently in English learners (EL) and Students with Disabilities (SWDs). Students benefit from specific and explicit vocabulary instruction (Hattie 2000).... ... middle of paper ...
Much like parents, teachers are expected to provide a wide range of support to students on a daily basis. Therefore, it is important for teachers to include emotional and social support to every student especially those who are dealing with a disability. This week I had the opportunity to interview a teacher at the site for which I intern and she discussed with me the many ways in which teachers provide support to their students that are in need of certain accommodations.
At times throughout your education you learn about families who have children with special needs – you may say to yourself “wow! being that parent must be so challenging” followed by expressing feelings of gratitude for the life you live, and then moving on with your life taking things for granted. However, this assignment places you directly in the shoes of such families. You get to really see how brave, strong and loving these families are. These families teach you that people are people all the same and no disability can label or determine a person’s life – it is part of them, not all of them. If someone were to say “I’m sorry” to Ms.Vo for having a child with a disability, she would laugh and say “why? I’m not”. Listening to Ms.Vo’s journey and observing Tammy will undoubtedly help me in my profession. You get to know a broader range of amazing individuals and hearing and viewing the needs of Tammy permits me to think of ways I can accommodate children who may have special needs in my classroom. For instance, maybe a child with special needs could use multiple visual aids and warnings before cleaning up and transitioning or maybe they need some form of leadership role like Tammy appreciates, in order to help them engage better among the class and their peers. This experience has also provided myself with a more broad knowledge on the many different resources that are available to the public and to a multitude of families, to which I can keep these resources provided and use them to further assist the families of the children in my future classroom. It is one thing to see on a PowerPoint the difficulties families can face when raising a child who has some type of a disability – whether its from medical bills, to finding resources, money or stress – but it is another thing to go out and experience and observe a chunk of a family’s life who have children with disabilities,
There are a few strategies to help a learner with comprehension difficulties. As an educator one has to keep in mind that the learners are adults and have prior knowledge so when teaching them the material used must be relevant to their lives. The strategies mentioned can be used on little ones all the way up to adults. It just depends on the material being
Demonstrates Fairness: I had many teachers throughout elementary and high school who demonstrated fairness in the classroom. At the time, I did not understand that fair doesn’t always mean equal. I would wonder why teachers spent more time with certain students, but now I understand that the teachers were assuring that all students were given what they needed to succeed.
Reading is an essential skill that needs to be addressed when dealing with students with disabilities. Reading is a skill that will be used for a student’s entire life. Therefore, it needs to be an important skill that is learned and used proficiently in order for a student to succeed in the real world. There are many techniques that educators can use to help improve a student’s reading comprehension. One of these skills that needs to be directly and explicitly taught is learning how to read fluently for comprehension. “To comprehend texts, the reader must be a fluent decoder and not a laborious, word-by-word reader” (Kameenui, 252). Comprehension can be difficult for students with learning disabilities because they tend to be the students that are reading below grade level. One strategy is to incorporate the student’s background knowledge into a lesson. This may require a bit of work, but it will help the students relate with the information being pres...
This course not only gave me the knowledge I needed to understand students with learning disabilities, I was also able to empathize with these students through active participation in the sensitivity activities. Participating ...