My Most Impactful Experience In The Classroom

8:20-8:40: As if instinctually, a majority of the kids file in, address me with mildly enthusiastic “good mornings” and pull out their math homework for review. I create a science vocabulary poster for the experiment.

8:40-9:00: Student X and Y join our class from the Special Education program in order to join community circle and participate in community circle. I sit next to him and help him participate in the game.

9:00-9:15: Ms. Dickey enters the room and takes over as Ms. Ma leaves for grade level collaboration. I observe the very different methods of setting expectations, particularly Ms. Dickey’s proud confession to the class that she uses a point based rewards system. Motivates good behavior, the reward is a special game that the students

This experience was perfectly timed with the readings assigned for Thursday. During “Enrichment” these students who are often isolated from other children are incorporated into the classroom for art, theater, dance, and music. I saw how art functioned in the classroom as a medium for promoting positive social interaction. I watched as the students in Ms. Ma’s class delegated activities to one another, but gave these students free creative license and encouraged their ideas. As I walked around the room observing and asking questions about everyone’s brown paper bag experiments, student Y came up and grabbed me by the hand. He personally escorted me across the classroom to explain to me his contribution. He had been decorating the inside of the building that the children were creating. By looking around the classroom he had added a clock, a door knob, and he asked me to get the globe down so he could add one to the “living room.” He chose blue for water, green for “jungles” and red for “airplane” (pathways). In this setting he could express his artistic talent and creativity, and receive positive feedback from his peers. He was beaming with pride, and his joy filled me with such exuberance. This simple moment taught me so much about the potential of art and inclusion in

Just as we saw in Meier, the teacher who has a limited understanding of the individual personality and needs of a student in a Special education program often result to reprimanding the student. Robert was suspended on multiple occasions, when he was merely mirroring other children’s behavior, he did not understand the connotation of the words he used. Like Robert, the boy Jay described in Broderick’s text is another mainstreamed student, who results to defensive inappropriate language when he is attacked verbally by another student. The teacher cannot be everywhere at one time, and only hears the use of obscenity; in an attempt to regain control he/she uses the same ineffective punishment system they would use on other students. This is a common “social interpretation” as Broderick describes it, or misinterpretation of student interaction, that disregards the conversational context. Differentiating instruction is proposed as part of the solution for the inequity, neglection of diversity, and exclusion in schools around America (196). Although somewhat preachy conclusion about democracy was not appealing to me, Broderick et al make an incredibly valuable suggestion that standardization of education fails in all pedagogical programs. In my school site, when the students who are typically segregated are incorporated into