Yesterday's speaker in PE, Gary Barber, had a profound influence on they way I think about education and students with differing abilities. I would really like to read his book when it comes out and I have about a million questions to ask him about creating different learning environments for students. Clearly I had a biased opinion but I have never been a fan of the private school system and was surprised that he (who's taught at SMU for a long time) would be the person giving a presentation on how to teach students who have differing abilities. I never saw the typical private school teacher as being the person who teaches, acceptance, not just tolerance. It made me aware of biases of my own.
I think he has a wealth of experience and knowledge in both coaching and teaching. What amazed me is that he managed to go through almost the whole presentation hardly speaking about PE, instead of thinking of this as a disadvantage it really made me think of my teaching approach overall.
Basically his presentation made me want to learn a lot more about things like ADHD, Autism, Cystic Fibrosis, and Down's Syndrome. I want to give all my students the best chance to learn, no matter where Im teaching. What I learned most from this presentation is that problems and differences transcend economics, race, beliefs, communities and sex.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Gary's presentation was probably the best idea Irene has had all year. He covered a very delicate topic with great professional knowledge and with ease. He made it clear that the classrooms that we will be teaching in WILL have a certain number of children with special needs. Whether it be a learning disability, physical disability or a behaviour problem, it is vital that we as teachers support these children, and like brandy said, give these students and all students the best chance to learn.
Through my summer camps coaching basketball, we've had many children’s with disabilities and I always try my best to cater to their needs. The hardest thing is explaining to the rest of the children what the specific disability is. Because the children I teach can be quite young it's important that they are aware of a certain camper’s disability. Not in any way do I want to single someone out but I think it's an essential aspect of children with disabilities being accepted by their peers. If children have a better understanding of a peers special needs, he or she is more likely to accept and interact with that child. At least this is what I have found with my past experiences.
I think that this presentation opened my eyes to something that I had never really been exposed to, which is the varying levels, and components of learning differences. For example the term ADD is thrown around way too much, and is simply "cured" with Ritalin or similar drugs. Gary pointed out that it is important to treat learning differences as individual and specific to the child. This is cross curricular and involves teachers being in contact with parents about children's behaviours in the home and classroom to identify the specifics of a child's learning pattern. There are so many facets of brain functions and helping children who may have difficulty in one way or another involves those in their lives adjusting stereotypes to individual perceptions so that the child is treated as need be.
I found Gary’s presentation to be very informative and opened a door for me to learn more about teaching children with special needs. Brent stated that it is important to explain to the other children about their student who has individual needs that differ from them. I totally agree that children tend to be more accepting of students when they understand their background but from what I have heard from recent research is that special needs children need to learn how to talk about their challenges. I am not saying that you should teach students to state their disabilities like I have Autism but instead stating the challenges that they made have difficulty with. For example: Bright lights hurt my eyes, I wear a baseball hat in class because it blocks the light and helps me concentrate. By having students tell their peers this answer will help the children in the class understand why this child may have special privileges and this way it prevents students from being categorized as special. This will not only help you avoid the issues of singling kids out but it will also help special needs children to learn to cope with their disabilities and prepare them for the future.
Although I have a different PE class and didn't see this speaker we also had someone come in and talk about how to deal with disabilities in the classroom, specifically PE. One of the main things I found to be informative was the concept that most people would rather be successful that the same as everyone else. This being said, it is important to know how to adapt your lessons to fit everyone in the class. Also doing some research on a given child with special needs at the begining of the year will help you as their teacher understand what level of help they may need. Being able to include students with disabilities in all classroom activities, even if they are doing the task a little differently, is an important skill to have
I really enjoyed Gary's presentation the other day in gym class! I have not had any classes so far that deal with special needs and I was therefore really interested in what he had to say.
I thought that what Gary said about acceptance is very important! Also like Gary said, accepting children with special needs is not just helpful for that individual, but is also helpful for all the children in the classroom, because they start to learn about compassion and how to include people who are different from themselves in activities.
After his presentation I also started to realize that I don't know much about special needs at all! I think finding out about your student and talking to their parents will be a huge help, but I'd still like to have a little more knowledge about this subject before I teach.
I really hope that we'll get the chance to learn some more information about this topic in our program. I also would be really interested in reading his new book.
Over all I thought it was a great presentation, I wish he could come back for our next gym class!
Gary's presentation the other day on accommodating students with special needs was definitely very useful to myself, and I'm sure my classmates, as I have not been informed on this topic to a depth that he went into. Gary not only informed and updated us on the facts and some statistics of children and students with special learning needs but he incorporated and included real life experiences of his own to give us a glimps of what it is like to have these students in your classroom. I feel it is important for us as future teachers to have knowledge on topics such as these because we will most definitely be encountering similar situations and must be prepared to be able accommodate them to the best of our ability. I, myself knew and was told that we would have students with mental and physical learning disabilities in our classrooms but was never instructed or informed on how to actually deal and meet their personal learning needs. I felt that with the time Gary had he was able to give us only a brief (but useful) introduction to a very lengthy but important topic in the field of teaching.
I'm sorry that we did not have Gary as a visitor to our class, too. However, I can reflect on the participation of a girl in a PE class that I observed/co-taught with the other cohort. A students came into the class with her intervenor. We didn't learn until afterwards that she is completely deaf and has only peripheral sight in one eye. The other students were extremely delicate and understanding with her and she showed them affection and interest in a number of ways. When I first thought about accomodating students with disabilities in P.E., I imagined only those students with motor, communicative, or behavior-based disabilities. This year, however, I have learned a little bit about how the teachers at that school incorporate tasks which develop motor skills into their core activities. I also learned that the E.A. for the student I mentioned assisted her homeroom and special education teacher in a number of ways, in implementing physical education IEPs. I think that understanding a little bit about some of the challenges that students face has motivated me to learn more about physical development and to reflect on how I have learned motor skills. I feel very fortunate to have taken classes with Rick Bell. He has taught us to ask questions of ourseves, to purposefully plan lessons to accomodate various levels of development, and to not overcomplicate things. The refreshing and satisfying parts of teaching will definitely be those times that we do have the opportunity to support and encourage students in things they are interested in and need to succeed.
I too was very thankful for Gary's presentation. Although students with special needs have been mentioned in all of our classes, we had not had anyone go into depth about how to help these students. Gary really made me want to do some research into the different learning challenges so that I may better understand how I can help each individual student. Each year when I am assigned my class, I will definitely research any children that I have with learning challenges before the year starts. I think it is important to find out about the specific disability, but even more important to find out which symptoms the individual student has and brainstorm ways that I can alter my lessons or assignments for the student.
It would be very useful to have some resources on hand where we could go to ask questions and get some ideas. I would love to go to a workshop about learning challenges and learn more about this topic.
I totally agree with you Brandy! I never that there was a high probability that we would have a special needs/disabled student(s) in our classrooms. I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to absorb all the info he sent our way.
I especially liked the strategies he suggested on dealing with ADHD and autistic children. An exploding volcanoe? Who would have thought? I wonder though, where we could put this volcanoe as to not disrupt the class. It would be pretty disruptive to have a student get up in the middle of a presentation to change the volcanoes eruption phase. Did I misunderstand the goal behind this?
Our classes should really have more of a focus on learning disabilities if there really is that high of a percentage of students who suffer from these syndromes.
Post a Comment