Very exciting! Today I was asked to come early tomorrow to do a student observation. Like we have so many times in special education, there's a new student from another state who has some serious emotional issues, who's between doctors, between parents/guardians, and who has already had an outburst before we received any paperwork. I sure hope I can help.
I also enjoyed working in my reading group. We're reading some true stories, and our first was about a man who was lost in the Maine wilderness as a pre-teen. One of my group members was finished early, so we looked him up on the Internet. We found new pictures of him as an 80-year-old, old newspaper clippings, and even a recent video clip of him. The students were fascinated. It's amazing how easy it is to add geography, history etc. to our usual assignments and how motivating that is. It seems like a "teachable moment," but I'm not sure I always have faith in them.
Speaking of teachable moments, I took a minute to tell students about the research in student outcomes; that is, students who have better work and life outcomes are the ones who know their strengths and weaknesses and are able to ask for help where they need it. I can't imagine a one-minute lecture took hold too much, but I tried. It came up when the teacher was modeling how she's good at writing, but would take longer to work on math. I don't think it hurts to walk students through things like this. Additionally, a student asked me point-blank whether this was the lowest-level reading class. I made a split-second decision to tell him the truth. I told him that it was, but it wasn't a contest, and that all of their reading skills were better than we thought. All true. He didn't seem to be discouraged, but I still felt guilty anyway. I do believe in telling students the truth.
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