I have always viewed special placement to have it's ups and downs. From
where I am a psych student, I think of everything we study from a
psychological perspective most of the time. One of the main things I
thought of was the study that showed how a teachers expectations of
students, directly influenced their success in the classroom. with that
being said, I feel like their is a bit of a self empowering drive for
students who have disabilities but still attend regular class rooms. I
feel like this is something teachers need to be very aware of. Since watching the video in class and seeing that girl with autism accomplish so much, It made me think about her teachers. We mentioned not making special needs students mascots. So
my question is how do we go about teaching someone with disabilities in a
regular class room? To what degree can teachers and even students in a regular class room setting, cripple special needs
students?
I just feel like it is very easy for teachers to be over rewarding, and in turn lower the potential for academic growth in students.
I had a class mate in sixth grade who had mild autism. He was extremely mathematically minded, but he never put too much effort into it since he was already making good grades. When we had big tests we invited him to study and he always said he didn't need to. He did well but I feel as though he could have gotten better grades. He was praised very much not only by the teacher but, by me and the rest of my class mates as well. I still keep in touch with him, and when he moved to south Carolina he really excelled in school. This is mainly why I ask, because I started wondering how much we affected his performance by our expectations.
I don't know if the book addresses the class room environment, in regards to students as well. I just figured experience would be a better teacher on this topic.
Very interesting post. I will be certain to focus more during the class discussions on instructional strategies and effective ways to ensure we are teaching students with areas of exceptionality. You ask about the text - what have you found in your reading of it! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI can very much so agree on the over rewarding part. My brother has a behavior disability. So whenever he had a good week teachers and my family would take him out to eat, give him money, teachers would give him gifts, and etc. But at the end of the day I explained to him that I was proud, but you were supposed to behave in school. Like you said it has it pros and cons. But us as educators have to watch how we treat our students.
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