Field Hours

Day 1, Block 1, Math, Third and Fourth graders:

I notice that right away Ellie begins to make a game rather than working on her assignment. The teachers back is turned while she enters attendance in the computer. Class did not start on time it was fifteen minutes late to start with. Lenny is doing a lot of erasing and laying his head down and generally not on task while Paul gets his first assignment done and moves on to practice problems while the rest of the class finishes their work. Ellie wanders when asked to get a new piece of paper for her practice problems. She often looked on the verge of tears and did not talk as much as the other girls if at all. In two hours I saw her talk to other students only a few times. Paul has already finished his practice problems and has moved on, he then seemed to get bored and started playing with his shoes. It is twenty minutes into class and Lenny is still not done with the first assignment and Ellie is back to making her game rather than doing her work. At this point I have yet to see the teacher do a whole lot of anything with the students. They are making multiplication charts so the making of them becomes automatic for the TAKS test. There is a line at the teachers desk for help and Ellie should be next, but several other girls cut in line and she lets them without saying a word. I notice the teacher is gentle with all of the girls but Ellie touching, hugging a nicer tone of voice, but always keep space between herself and Ellie. Paul is having many successes today, has gotten all of the harder problems assigned correct. Lenny is still working on the chart after fifty-five minutes, he is less interested than he was at the beginning of class.

For the entire class period of two hours I see the teacher provide no instruction to these students. She has given them rote work and worksheet packets to complete or correct. I am not impressed by her. I would not run my room as she runs hers. She never got out of her seat, never checked on Lenny, or any of the students. I would have walked around among the students once I got my attendance done so I could spot those who really were having more trouble as well as I think it helps keep students focused and motivated if they see the teacher is walking among them and helping them where they need help.

At snack time I notice that Ellie and Paul kind of hang out together. This is the first time I see her talking to a student. There is so much noise I can't tell who is saying what, but they are talking.

Bock 2 Reading: Ellie and Paul leave, only Lenny stays for reading. Given practice TAKS, flips through it, lays head down, kicks feet and plays with a pencil for nearly ten minutes before looking at his practice TAKS again, then plays with something in his lap. The teacher sits by him, says nothing just begins grading papers and Lenny gets right on task. The teacher is split between two rooms and must go check on the students in the other room, while she is doing this Lenny goes right back off task. When she returns he is still playing with something in his lap and she asks him if he would like to see the principal he says no and gets back on task. I was asked to go to the other room and read the questions to the students in there (on their IEP's). All students in this group are dyslexic and quite sharp and answer the questions once they are read to them with no problem. All of them make a passing grade on it. Lenny is on task when I return to the room.

The room is very cold, all of the children are shivering. I suspect this is not a good environment for learning. Teacher says that this is as warm as she can make it. I wonder if towels could be put in the vent to take some of the chill off and promote better learning.

Lenny seams to be much more on task now and works slow, but steady. He misses most of the answers and makes corrections. During free time Lenny interacts with the other boys quite a bit, laughing and making fun of the girls.

All in all the students throughout the day have interacted with each other often and do not seem hostile toward each other or aggressive. While this group has its share of problems they all come across as good kids.

My biggest problem was with the apparent lack of instruction, both in math and in reading. I would not run my class like this at all. I understand that there will likely be times when I need to step out of the room, however it appeared to me that the lack of instruction particularly in math was less than the best the students should have been given. I wonder if this is how these teacher always work.

I understand making the multiplication chart automatic is important for these students to be able to pass the TAKS test, but it could have been done in a different more engaging way. They could have split up and raced boys against girls or third against fourth and which ever group all finished first could have done something on the board as a reward. Another possibility to make the chart making more interesting would have been to have them make their charts on the boards. Of course this would mean more work for the teacher, but the kids would get more out of it I think.

Day 2, Block 1, Reading 5th grade:
This is a more severe group. Lester has ADHD and is medicated. As class begins students are given a short time to do some free reading and check out books. Lester has a book that he flips through looking at the pictures for about one or two minutes, perhaps getting an idea what the story might be about. He goes back to the front of the book and begins to read. As he gets several pages in I notice he goes back and re-reads a page or two. This is a good strategy that he has either been taught or developed himself because once he does this something in the story suddenly makes sense to him, the "click" can be seen on his face and he laughs out loud. Lester has a hard time getting on task. After thirty minutes he still has not read the one page passage. He spends an enormous amount of time sharpening his pencil, popping his neck and getting drinks, he looks frustrated. He is the last to finish his work and misses more than half the questions.

Peter has LD and a behavior disorder. According to the teacher he was very angry at the beginning of summer school, she suspects it may have had to do with his older sister being an over achiever and his younger brother being in a GT program while he is in resource. Peter finished his practice TAKS test, made a good grade, and went to reading his x-men book. He interacts well with most students, he shows the girl in front of him a picture in his book and says "Good God" and goes right back to reading. The teacher provides praise when she grades his test and he giggles and seems very happy and proud about his success. During snack time he eats his snack and competes with another boy as to who can draw a video game character better. They ask other students to judge which is better and all of them choose Peters picture, and I have to admit it was a phenomenal drawing.

Eric has asbergers, but is friendly and on task, nobody is really sure why he is in summer school. He scores well on all of his practice TAKS tests, interacts appropriately with other students most of the time, sometimes has a bit of trouble reading social queues, but that is to be expected. For example another students ruffled his hair (a girl) and he took it as rough housing rather than flirting and tried to ruffle her hair that was pulled up in a pony tail. He did move around in his seat a good bit, but was never noisy during reading time.

I did not think that the teacher noticed all that was going on in the classroom. She spent more time than I would have in the hall talking to other teachers. It appears to be common practice for the teachers to leave the student to their own devices. I did like that during snack time she had conversations with them. They talked about pets, and siblings, and what they thought they might do that afternoon. I did not see any accommodations during this class. I think that assigned seating might have been beneficial in that as students completed their work they got a bit chatty and since they were sitting close to others it was easy to be chatty, had they been set with a seat between each student I think they would have disturbed the slower students less. I also would have taken an interest in what was going on with Lester and his lack of even turning a page after so many other students were done.

Block 2, Math:
The teacher is not even in the room and the class is out of control, she comes in and says "turn around and get busy" and leaves again. None of the students I had been watching are in this class, I am waiting for the teacher to come in and point out other diagnosed children. It took her over fifteen minutes to come into the class. In the mean time all of the students went wild, and who could blame them. When she comes in not much changes for several minutes.

Mike has ADHD and dyslexia. He is surprisingly on task, but as he works he wiggles and plays with other things. He never stops working for more than a few seconds. He gets his work completed and plays while he waits for others to finish.

Cory has ADHD and giggles almost constantly, is very off task and takes much prodding to get him to complete the assignment.

This is the first time I see any instruction given these students. The teacher works with them on the overhead on word problems and long division. I like her instruction on how to find pertinent information in the word problems. She asks questions and draws pictures. The students find the answers and most of them readily participate. One problem with several extraneous facts in it throw the children off so she spends more time on it trying to get them to find what is important and eventually they do. When she is providing instruction she does a bang up job. I would have provided more oversight in the beginning of class as I feel that would have made it a more productive class. The students get into a name calling match targeting race during that fifteen minutes she was out of class. This is the worst interaction I have seen among the students, up to this point they had fair interactions with each other. I'm sure that this lead to less productivity overall.

On the third day no much occurred it was Friday and again no instruction was provided to the third and fourth graders. They did rote work and once they finished they were allowed to just play. I felt this was a waste of time and an easy way out for the teacher who admitted to me that she was burnt out. I felt this really put the children at a disadvantage.

I would say the main thing I learned from this experience was that if you are going to be a lazy teacher find a different field to go into as you are doing a disservice to your students. I would like to think that I will put much effort into my instructional strategies and the delivery of them. I also plan to be a teacher that can see what is going on in my room and don't plan on being out of the classroom. I understand that on occasion I might have to speak with someone in the hall for a moment, but I would make it wait until I at least got the students going on their assignment. I felt sorry for these students and hope that the teachers give more instruction during the regular school year.

Adult Show and Tell

The story of "Amanda" and "Bobby"

Amanda told me how her son had been diagnosed with ADHD when he was only two years old because he was ill and still playing at the doctors office. Bobby was only a few months younger than my son so I had a child to compare behavior against to some extent. When Bobby was two and a half he came to live with us for a few months and he acted just like my son running and screaming and playing rough games. He seemed perfectly normal to me. He played hard when he was allowed to, but was able to bring it down when it was time for meals, travel or bed and followed directions as well as any child I have known at that age. For example if I said "Boys it's time to pick up the toys" both would look at me and say "but were having fun" and I would respond with something like "You can have fun again later, but now it's time to pick up the toys" and both boys would go ahead and pick up toys and put them in the toy box. He spent the night and weekends with us on a regular basis for the next year and a half or so and we never had any problems getting Bobby to do what he was asked and he never showed any signs of being anything but a normal little boy. He could sit and play with a toy or "read" a book or be read to with no more than normal interruptions like asking "what does that mean" for example. Just after he turned four Bobby, his grandpa, my husband and my son all came to visit me at work one evening and Bobby made a big announcement "I'm four!" at which point my son said "I'm more four, I'm four enough to go to school." Then Bobby said "No you and me are both the same four."

The next time he spent the night with us was his last visit sadly enough. Bobby was in pre-k and was on a medication for ADHD. He was a totally different child. He stayed up most of the night and was very aggressive with my son who he had been friends with since they were little bitty guys. Bobby no longer followed directions when asked. I had some projects lined up for the day and evening as I know that four and five year olds will find mischief if not set to a task for at least part of the day. I had bought some flowers for the boys to plant and Bobby said "No I don't want my hands to get dirty" when I asked him to help us plant them. I offered him gloves then he said "I don't feel like it." I was blown away by this. I grilled hot dogs and heated a can of chili since this had always been Bobby's favorite and he ate two or three bites got up and threw the plate of food on the ground and said he was done. I was so shocked by this behavior, only a few months earlier he had been the Bobby we knew and loved, but on that medication he was like a devil spawn.

When it was time for bed Bobby kept my son up until I made Bobby come in the living room to sleep. He still did not go to sleep and since he had shown that he could not be trusted to do the right thing in my presence I knew that he would not in my absence. It was two in the morning before he went to sleep and he was back up by 5:30 in the morning, just as full of vinegar as he was the day before. It made me sick when I had to give him that pill I felt was stealing Bobby's "Bobbyness" from him.

When I asked Amanda about it she said she thought he was acting better than he used to. I was simply to shocked to reply. Bobby was familiar with our rules and our expectations so that was not the issue in this case. Bobby should be going into the third grade now and I have only seen him once since that trip. I think of him and I wonder how he is doing quite often. I hope he has regained himself.

Reflection 4

It takes more than just a high school counselor and a parent to make transition programs successful. The student absolutely must be involved in the planning and execution of the plan. Student involvement seems to be key in a successful transition. The student needs to understand what they must do to continue on the path to success. The student needs to have required courses spread out over the four years of high school and particularly need to be successful in their freshman year as not to get discouraged. I really liked the article about Arlington's college fair for students with LD. I think this is something that should be done at all high schools or at least one in every big city and one in every rural county and advertised to students in other schools within the city or county so that all students needing to may participate. I can imagine the impact it would have on planning if it were done say at the end of the year and students moving from eighth grade to ninth grade were invited to attend so that they would also have some idea of where they were headed in life. Students on this path must be taught how to be good self advocates. Social skills need to be taught as well, so that students can advocate for themselves, communicate with their professors once they get into college as well as communicating with other students. Parents rolls need to begin to shrink in that the student will need to see that they are capable of making their own choices. Parents should still help their children by providing opportunities to develop both understanding of work- pay situations as well as the development of informal support systems. The high school should have the student in mainstream classes for those required for graduation and in a special education classes for survival skills courses and study hall. Also the student should meet with a counselor on a regular basis for further transition planning.

If college is not the chosen path the student still needs to be involved in the planning. The student needs to have a light load the freshman year and all content courses are taught by a special education teacher. At least four work experiences should be provided while in high school, lasting about eight weeks each. This gives the student an opportunity to see if the chosen job is something they truly want to pursue. Job placement should occur prior to graduation as well as setting up any continuing services needed.

Successful LD students have chosen a job that is a good match for them, are self-advocates, have gained control over their life and use personal contacts to secure jobs. My brother was not successful. He did use personal contacts (his dad) to secure a job, but he did not have control over his life and was not a self-advocate. He ended up in prison because he would not or could not take control over his life. He had a "friend" that did a very bad thing and my brother was implicated in the crime and since he did not know how to advocate for himself he just took whatever the was handed to him as a sentence without saying a word. The sad part is his "friend" got off light for turning over the "mastermind" only serving a few months while my little brother is serving a full ten years he was perhaps involved in the crime, but certainly not the mastermind.

Vet techs only need two years of education to perform the job of what amounts to a nurse for a veterinarian. This is not a high paying job, but could be very satisfying which is more important than earning big bucks. The salary runs between 8.51 and 17.12 per hour. This occupation has a much faster than average job growth prediction. There are two year programs out there for vet technicians and five schools offer distance learning in the field. The job is demanding and can be in a regular vet's office or a zoo or even a shelter. This is very much a hands on job and can be both physically and emotionally exhausting. The future is bright in the field since so many are willing to pay the big bucks for the care of their animals. I know a lady who went this route and ended up with her own business that paid her well enough to send both of her sons to Harvard. This is a job that may sound limited initially, however as it leads to more and more contacts one would have a client base built for their own grooming business or pet daycare business which is quiet lucrative.