I am going to try an experiment with my legally blind special needs child. I am going to use my ipod and audacity to record the chapter for the next unit, and see if he responds to it. My low-IQ behind reading level sighted students may benefit as well, but I only have one iPod to go around. Maybe I can convince my local wal-mart to donate to the cause. I would only need seven, and they wouldn't neccessarily have to be ipod touches,although a touch surface may help the legally blind child. I could use an ipod shuffle, its physical control interface is fairly rudimentary. Simple enough for them to stop, start, and adjust the volume.

engage

I constantly struggle with the concept of engagement with my special needs kids. I just know by the look on their faces that in the normal classroom, thanks to their limitations, they're not engaged at all, at least with normal delivery methods. i am working on a few new ways to engage them but time will tell how effective they are.

GATTO'S 9 ASSUMPTIONS

another article from Gatto, take a look if you'd like

Its called 9 assumptions and 21 facts about compulsory schooling.


http://www.spinninglobe.net/9assumptions.htm

tools and a little rant as well

Well, as far as I can tell, a good resource for a distance ed course would be something that might eliminate the impersonal aspect of the distance ed class would be a video chat system. I only know one other person from the class, so otherwise I have no idea what you look like or act like in person-a verbal description doesnt cut it. A webcam system might be impractical, but there are a few systems like WebEx that makes a video conference system doable, albeit somewhat cost prohibitive.

OK, on topic discussion over.

I am finding my job as an instructional aide more challenging and rewarding at the same time, with every passing day. I find the labelling and quantifying of students a bit on the dehumanizing side, and I am convinced that one of my students isn't actually disabled, but has learned how to play the system, as have his parents. they both have bought into the label, on different sides of the coin. One student works his butt off, and succeeds, despite being almost completely blind. It is truly touching when the students in the regular class he is in watch out for him. The other day one girl piped up when one of the other kids tried to push him for getting too close to in line "she yelled "Tay, you just be nice!! He can't hardly see nothing."

Before I started as an aide for disabled students, I must admit I do not buy into any diagnosis other than a physical handicap being a reason for accomodation. ALMOST ALL current disabilities-dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, have some sort of tie to exposure to media during time when the brain is still being developed. Essentially, watching TV while your brain is still mushy permantently wires it to respond in short bursts, generally the attention span is equivalent to the average television networks commercial break- 1 minute per age, stopping at eight. A 30 minute show has 3 8 minute segments with 3 2 minute commercial breaks. Incompetent parents have sacrificed quiet children as babies for disruptive and restless preteens. There are other things that affect a childs development- second most important would probably be diet. If you pump your kids full of sugar, your body doesnt have the resources to process it properly as a child, and you suffer the consequences. Limiting or eliminating television before age 5, and feeding a child non-processed natural foods instead of sodas candy and fruit snacks all the time would go a long way to reducing "disabilites" of those kinds.

I daily struggle with my role as an aide, and how much of the assisting I am supposed to be doing in the class, and how much they're truly retaining/learning. I really think the shifting between classrooms and attempts to mainstream students while accomodating them at the same time subconsciously trains the kids to underperform. They sit in the classroom, not really absorbing the content that is on the same level as they are, while pretending to listen and follow along. Then they split, and the teacher says "even though you sat through exactly the same info as the other kids, you do half the work" (even though, if you left the kids alone and helped them at their pace, they probably could do all ten math problems, or read the whole page in the text, or find all five terms for social studies, etc). The systematized, processed goals based instruction is failing those kids, who would be fine if you took them through it individually and slowly. We added a new student today to our group. He demonstrated a lack of effort, was behind reading level and was generally unable to focus on a task. I worked with him 1ON1 for an hour with his math, and I learned something. The moment someone actually truly gave him individualized instruction, he was fine. He gets to learn the process and suffer some consequences for not being organized (apparently he has no consequences for anything at his house, so he doesnt learn how to be responsible), and before the end of the year, he will be in the regular classroom on his own. I will see to it.

Anybody else find frustration with accomodations and IEPS?

More from Mr Gatto, NY STATE Teacher of the Year Twice.

here's an additional story- his "six lesson teacher" with an additional new lesson

http://hometown.aol.com/tma68/7lesson.htm

After the chat session last night, I realized a few things. Most people don't have much experience with systems theory, equilibrium, and organizational structure. My first MA was primarily focused on that, but within the media as an enterprise. The goals may change but systems theory is systems theory. If you want to learn more, take a course in organizational communication. Dr. Larry Albert at MSU is probably the best in the region when discussing it.

One of the ways systems keep things in check is by managing time and using symbolism to signify and elicit change in their members. The following is an interesting article by former NY teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto. It is on the underlying subconscious effect of the bell system on your students. I think you might find it enlightening.


The Six-Lesson Schoolteacherby John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991

Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn't what I do at all. What I teach is school, and I win awards doing it.
Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:


ha ha fooled you. read the rest at this link...., but come back to comment here.
http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html?seenIEPage=1

here is a longer link, an article he wrote called "against school"

http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm

what do you think about a state-wide two time teacher of the year winner writing an article called "against school"

Also, you can read his book "The Underground History of American Education" online at his webpage http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

Online Courses and Other things

The most recent phaedrus post mirrors, in my own experience, what happens with a lot of people who are new to technology and have to take an online course. The article also mentions the obvious point that those most in need of an education, do not have access to the newest way that most of our educational resources are being devoted toward. We need to meet those students where they are, not force them to come to us. Free GED courses, taught in person, during odd hours because most of the people who need them don't have the education to land a traditional 9-5 job, are a god-send and one of the main reasons that in-person classes will never die. What we need to do as teachers is, just like the instructor who taught the dyslexic man to read by thinking visually, is to ASK THE STUDENT the 5 W's and the H, about their own education. If they only want to get enough education to fix cars, then point them in the direction of the nearest GED Center and a training/tech school such as Universal Technical Institute, or their own nearest community college. If they want to do more, we address those needs as they come up. Not everyone wants or needs a full college degree to get what they want out of life. While there are a lot of media and creative positions being developed in the new economy, somebody's still gotta be around when those people who are being creative have their car's transmission go out, their A/C freeze over, their toilet backs up, etc. I worked at a school a few years back where every kid hated traditional reading and writing but could diagnose problems with vehicles just by the sound it was making. I began to feel like the traditional model was doing them all a disservice. Maybe we can modify some of the voucher programs people talk about to, lets say, at 16, the student can opt out of the last two years of school, get a certificate, and then go on to a tech school. It is much better than forcing them through the high school meat grinder and then having them so turned off they either drop out when they hit the legal age and get on the government dole, or worse. Let them do what they want, and be productive, break the generational cycle of ignorance rampant in many of our rural areas.

My students

I have one goal with this semester we are currently in, from a personal perspective. Survival in 685, and a workable grant proposal in my other class that will allow me to get some money to purchase some much needed equipment for my classroom. I have been exposed to the smartboard, and I really don't think I would be able to fulfill my teaching style as well as I could without it. I'm a connected kind of guy, I use multiple methods to get my point across, and the smartboard seems to be the nexus of the next wave of instructional technology. It would really improve my engagement in the classroom, but at the same time, I realize that its just a modern whitewash of an old tech standby, maps/charts/paper/pencil/chalk/chalkboard. The only techie-ness about it is that it makes all the old stuff appear new.

On another level, I have one other goal for this year. To help one of my students, Josh, see better. He is legally blind, can only see about 5%, and what he does see is b/w. He has a device that helps him see a little better, a camera attached on a level about eighteen inches above his desk, tied into a flat-screen monitor that allows him to write and see fairly well. Its not perfect by any stretch, but using it, he is fairly well able to function. Until, of course, someone stands, leans forward, or raises their hand in the path of the camera. then he's sunk, and I can see his demeanor physically change when that happens. It upsets me, and I'm going to fix it. I also want to figure out a way to allow this device to run on battery power. First, though, an extra set of articulation joints should allow the camera to be moved UPWARD, so he can be over the kids in front of him. I have an uncle who runs a welding/machinist shop. we may be able to come up with something, putting our heads together, to improve the design. My father in law suggested a different kind of mount for the camera housing as well.

the following link details Josh's machine. http://www.clarityusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=38 if you think you might be able to help me out or have a suggestion for improvement, drop me a line.

I haven't read the syllabus for this course, and I've only really been communicating to Dr. Lowell, so those of you out there who are wondering who this guy is and if he is dead, as Mark Twain once wrote, The rumors of my demise are overstated. I suppose since everyone else has put together a critique of the class I should do the same. I think this course has a lot of potential. I am learning a lot, if even just from reading the interesting articles. I have an extreme distaste for the methodology used at times, I spent too many years in the private sector working with people and fixing the problems of people who were "always on" and "always connected" to where the information overload and the neccessity of connection to everything all at once while getting no real depth of knowledge burned me completely out. Having to keep track of 23 different people at 23 different times with daily assignments that seem to have no correlation between the others at their present point in the timeline of the course is extremely frustrating, but as long as I take it one day at a time I am ok. The problem with taking it one day at a time is that I really only have two days to do the coursework. I work two jobs, and I am very active in my church, so the only real days I have to do anything are friday nights and saturday mornings. To look in feedreader and see 350 unanswered posts is incredibly discouraging, but I can't exactly tell the three sections of university students I teach, plus the two fourth grade and two fifth grade classes I work with on a daily basis "I have to catch up on an article for a course I am working on" at the same time. I am afraid that I will end up dropping the ball on this course like I did with a course or two with my MAT program. I will get used to the daily grind eventually, and work out a happy equilibrium, but I am one that wishes that like most of my other online courses, I would just get a list of 16 blackboard discussion prompts, a term paper rubric emailed via MS Word, and be done with it on my own time. The post about sylvia martinez mirrors EXACTLY what I want to do with my classrooms, should I ever get the opportunity to be a fulltime high school teacher again. The analysis of a traditional classroom and its efficacy is a neccessary one, as it appears that the larger the district, the larger the outpour of public funds, with increasing diminishing returns- Metro D.C., DETROIT, et al, I am looking in your general directions. I think I am done ranting, now.