Chapter
Two
Something that really stood out to me after reading this
chapter is the organizational skills that teachers need to have when striving
for inclusive teaching. I found myself becoming quite overwhelmed thinking of
the amount of information I will have to keep straight in my future classroom.
If I want to become the kind of teacher that I intend on becoming I am going to
have to take time to get to know my students personally and academically. If
they are not thriving in my classroom, like Ms. Sauvé, I am going to have to
figure out why. I was shocked at the amount of work Ms. Sauvé needed to go
through to discover what Andy needed. Lucky for us, there are so many resources
to aid us in this organization. This chapter touches on the role of resource teachers,
principals, parents, in-school teams, psychologists etcetera. I also found it
very helpful to see a situation in which the ADAPT strategy became very useful.
I still feel that meeting my student’s academic needs is going to pose a huge
challenge in my career as a teacher, but I am thankful for the systems and
strategies that this chapter highlights to help me meet those challenges with
more confidence.
Another highlighted theme of this chapter is
communication and its important role in the education system today. From kindergarten
to graduation, students go on an educational journey through many different
teachers as well as multiple schools (depending on the area). To ensure that all
students are properly cared for I would assume that healthy communication needs
to be established between teachers, parents and even schools. If an exceptional
student is constantly having to be re-evaluated each time that they walk into a
new classroom, I think that some changes need to occur. Of course re-evaluations
are necessary to an extent, but there should be a level of understanding
towards their needs as they move up from grade to grade. That is why I love the
systems that this chapter discusses, such as the in-school team. With a group
of people all communicating, an assembly of people is created who know a
student specifically. Information is than recorded about how to create an
educational environment where a specific individual can thrive. Recording
information is a part of teaching that I never had really thought about before
reading this chapter. I have thought about teaching strategies, different
students, challenges I will face, but not recording information about what
works with my students and what does not. It seems after reading this chapter
that keeping a detailed of my student’s challenges and needs would be very
helpful. That way I can remember what is specifically working with a student
and I can pass on this information to the next teacher that will have that
specific individual in their classroom the next year. All of this would of course
be done in confidence for the purpose of creating a continued environment of
inclusivity and progress for that child.
The section that mentions specific challenges for
secondary school teachers really caught my attention. As a high-school teacher,
my role in inclusive education will be different compared to an early-years
educator. In the early-years of a child’s education the teacher is more on the
look-out for potential exceptionalities that their students may have. By the
time these students are in high-school, those who are in need of an IEP will
already have one. My challenge is to adapt and accommodate for every student in
my classroom, no matter the curriculum. My challenge is to take the complex
curriculum of my grade 12 English class or my grade 11 drama class and make it
applicable to everyone. Once students get to high-school, the goals are more
concrete and rigid, this creates a greater responsibility on the teacher to
make sure that each student is faced with an academic challenge, but a fair
academic challenge. These issues are also brought up when talking about Barbara’s
academic challenges and SMART IEP’s.
Discussion Question: In
your experience have you found that schools communicate with each other when
passing along an exceptional student? Should they or Should they not? Why or
why not?
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