I have been working one-on-one with a student who has many disabilities and and IEP in place. This is one of the many cases of the IDEA law in place at the school I am volunteering in. The particular student I am working with spends most of his day in the resource room because he has a hard time concentrating in the classroom. He does very well if someone is there to help keep him on task, but to do it himself is nearly impossible.
After lunch he spends the rest of the day in his regular classroom with the other students. I know that he loves to be with other students and he is very social. There are several students that come into the resource room for extra help and then go back to their classrooms. This is following the IDEA law of trying to keep students in the Least Restrictive Environment.
The student that I have been working with is actually being moved to a self-contained classroom next week because he is struggling too much in a regular classroom environment. I know that the teachers at this school have tried to do what they could to keep him in the school. Along with the parents they have decided the self-contained classroom is the best place for this student.
In the classroom I am volunteering in for my hours, I am mostly working one on one with a student that needs a lot of extra help. He is very receptive to me helping him when I am there. I was told that when I am not there that he spends most of his day in the resource room. I don't know exactly what his disability is, but in my perceiving him, I believe he has a bad case of ADHD and some other disability along with it. I have to constantly keep him on task.
This particular student is very particular in his work. If something isn't exactly the way he wants it he will go back and fix it two or three times. He has a hard time finishing work and his teacher told me she doesn't grade his work at all. I noticed when we do assignments together sometimes he will grasp the concept and sometimes I have to explain the concept each time we move on to the next problem over again. It seems he has a hard time retaining the information.
It is particularly rewarding when you come in and see this student's great big smile because he knows that you are there to work with him each day. It can be frustrating sometimes to know that he might not get it, but knowing that he doesn't have to spend the day in the resource room and he gets to spend most of the day with his peers because I am there makes it worth going in each day!
9-14-2012
What does a teacher do all day?
I discovered in the two hours I spent in the classroom today, that a teacher does much more than just teaches! A teacher is a babysitter, a nurse, a discipliner, and much, much more. I volunteered in a fourth grade classroom where the teacher is constantly having to keep the kids on task. She said she has to be much more firm with this class than she has ever had to be in the past.
A teacher has a very time consuming and draining job. After being in the classroom for two hours I felt very drained and started questioning if this is something that I can do. I hope that the classroom I am in is just a difficult classroom. I know that some classrooms are more difficult than others and we have to learn to deal with what we have, but I come home feeling drained.
The particular student that I have been asked to work with along side the other students' in the classroom; I believe has a possible learning disability along with ADHD. He struggles with learning and holding still. This is very taxing for a teacher to deal with all day, along with trying to deal with a classroom full of students with varying degrees of learning styles and abilities.
