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?