Special Education Today

This was my classroom last year, Room 100.

.
I am going to miss my classroom last year; my students enjoyed the privacy and there were no distractions due to hallway traffic because we were at the end of the corridor. The classroom was spacious enough for the eight computers that my students used. We had so much fun and good times in this classroom last year.
.

I have spoken with my new principal yesterday about my room and class assignment. I was transferred from Room 100 to Room 118. I am excited with all the changes that is happening now. This will be the first time that we will be implementing inclusion in my school. I will be collaborating with the 6th grade regular education teachers to help my students become successful academically. Although the inclusion philosophy is not new to me, I have never tried this. I have always been a resource class teacher and once a self-contained class teacher. The custodian told me that he will be putting 30 chairs in my classroom. Honestly, I still do not know yet what inclusion model are we going to adapt in my school, but I trust my instructional supervisor (principal) on this. We have always failed our students in the past, and I believe my principal will help us move to the right direction. Every school year is an exciting new beginning. There's always something new to learn every day with my students in the classroom. That's why I have always enjoyed this profession.

.

I was searching the internet on something about "middle school special ed inclusion" and I stumbled across the blog of "A Cohort 14 NYC Teaching Fellow". He related in one of his posts:

.

My first year of teaching has been a difficult initiation for me, most especially because I was teaching Junior High school Special Education in an inner city school here in Washington DC. Aside from their diagnosis of having learning disability, oppositional, defiant and conduct disorder, they were going through adolescence identity crisis, and they were having personal challenges with their home environment.

Back home, in a third world country, I often dreamed of using a better technology to aide me in teaching my special needs students. I was excited when I got here and saw two working computers in my classroom, which was already good for me, but not good enough if I was going to use them as assistive technology tools for my students.

Everyday, I was in constant search for ways on how to establish rapport with my challenging students, to get them to cooperate with me, and to engage them with using technology to accommodate their special learning needs. I was in the "trial and error" stage but I was determined to do what it takes to maximize their hidden potentials.

One day, I was sitting at my computer desk after class while waiting for one of my students. I gave her extended time to finish her classwork.

After a few minutes, she gave me her worksheet. She stood there reading aloud my friend’s email to me.
She couldn’t understand Tagalog.

I translated it for her. "Prices of food and other stuff are just not affordable anymore down here..."

She asked me if she could open her email from my computer.
I let her.
I asked her for her email address.
Then, I wrote her a hello message that night.

The next morning she opened her email from my desk. She announced to the class,
“Hey! Miss Angala wrote me an email!”

It was the first time that she got a personal message from a teacher.
From then on, I get emails from my students, from hello’s, to get well soon’s, to a weekend story, to goodbye’s. Some of them wrote me goodbye poems days before the end of the school year. One of their parents wrote me a thank you letter through email.

Even my husband who reads my email inbox from time to time was surprised.
He said, “I thought your students were mean to you?”
I said, “They were, but not anymore”.

That was almost five years ago. I am better equipped now, and I keep learning many new things for my professional development. We'll be back to school in less than a couple of weeks from now. It will always be challenging as it was when I was a first year teacher. Sometimes it gets worse. But I am better prepared now and have effective strategies for instruction and classroom management. More importantly, I make sure that I stay focused on the goal: Success...for my students and myself!

Most of my students already submitted their research paper project, did the oral report, and took the finals last Monday. So I was thinking yesterday of just going with them to the computer lab after playing a jeopardy game as a fun way of assessing what they learned this summer. But, lo and behold! When I entered the classroom, the DCPS summer school monitor was waiting for me and for my class to start. He asked me if it was OK to see the students do their oral report again. I was so nervous as he took out the rating sheet for teacher performance. This was a BIG surprise two days before the end of summer school. Would I still be allowed to teach summer school again next year?

While my students were doing their daily autobiographical writing (with soft classical music in the background), I pulled out the grading sheets of my students which I printed from my online gradebook and gave them to the DCPS summer school monitor. I handed him the notebook of one of my students so he'll be able to see if we had followed the pacing guide that DCPS gave for this summer, and what extra work I gave them as a learning supplement. Their notebooks also showed their quizzes, and that I had been checking their work and I was giving them feedback about how they could improve their work more.

So my students shared their excellent writings. And then two of them volunteered to do their oral presentation again based from the novel that we read in class (El Bronx Remembered). They were so confident while presenting with the powerpoint that they did themselves in class. I was so proud of them!

Afterwards, the monitor thanked me and left. Whew! Did I make it? My principal came in just few minutes before I dismissed my class. He gave me a photocopy of the teacher performance rating sheet from the DCPS summer school monitor. YES! I got excellent ratings! The monitor said before he left that I was one of the best teachers in DCPS he has seen so far.

It's true what they said. You'll see rainbow after the rain. I had been so much in pain and going through difficult times in my workplace in the past. But I had managed to stay focused, persisted and persevered, maintained positivity and stayed strong. It feels so good to be appreciated for all your hardwork.

My sincere gratitude also to my summer school principal for all the support and the motivation. He is one humble leader, who is very supportive of his staff and truly works for the best interest of the students. In my five years of teaching in DCPS, I have never worked under an instructional supervisor like him. He was relentless in doing his rounds to the teachers, personally checking on us and our students, sometimes it made me jump when he suddenly showed up on my door. He earned my utmost respect for that!

.

My family is going on a camping with our friends this weekend...can't wait for that!

.