The past two weeks, I have
gotten the chance to get to know the students in the kindergarten classroom, as
well as the beliefs and attitudes of my mentor teacher and co-teaching partner.
In this time, it has been somewhat easy to identify the students in little
categories: quiet, outspoken, easily frustrated, falling behind, not being
challenged enough, etc. In thinking of my inquiry, I have been trying to figure
out what I really “wonder” in this classroom setting and it hit me just this
past week: helping an individual child (passion 1, Dana, 22). This little girl,
who we will refer to as “Ty” is the oldest child, with two baby brothers and
another one on the way. She cannot write her name, knows most of her letters
and sounds, can be very quiet but speaks when spoken to, and seems to be easily
distracted. I had the chance to work with her in the classroom setting
individually this past week and found that she seemed more focused, engaged,
and to make some progress; instead of writing “TBY” for her name, she included
more letters which were in her actual name.
What concerned me about this
child is my discussion with my mentor teacher and co-teaching partner. They
both seem to share a particular belief about this student and how much effort
we should put forth in helping her. Needless to say, my own beliefs conflicted
with theirs and I felt a little hurt. I understand working so intensively with
a student like Ty can be time-consuming, frustrating, and perhaps seem
pointless at times but, in my opinion, I think it is worth the time, effort,
and frustration. After all, for this student (in the near and far future), it
will be even more frustrating, time-consuming, and difficult for her in the
classroom setting if we do not get her meeting expectations in the areas she
should be meeting at this point in the school year. The mentor teacher I had
last semester was a third grade teacher who shared very similar beliefs to what
my current mentor and co-teaching partner feel. Last semester, I remember
feeling sad for the child that the teacher was talking about, especially since
I had been working with him individually once a week. I knew once he was
focused and actually interested in the lesson, he could make improvements, even
if they were very small ones.
Without disrespecting my
mentor and co-teaching partner, I can’t help but wonder, is it really a waste
of time to work with one student over another if that one student doesn’t make
as many gains academically as the other? I can’t help but think of what I’ve
been taught all through the ProTeach program, which is that if a student is not
progressing or understanding a concept the way the rest of the class is, it
should be commonplace to wonder (as a teacher), “What more can I do? What
should I do differently with this student to reach them?” (Dana, 10). Both my
mentor and co-teaching partner are wonderful educators with great qualities,
please don’t misunderstand me. However, I also wonder how many other
well-qualified educators share the same beliefs about some of their students as
well. My goal for this semester is to work individually with Ty as much as
possible and try different techniques to get her more focused, engaged,
learning actively, and truly caring about her learning.
Additionally, I meant to ask
my mentor teacher this but I forgot: what do students have to do (or not do) to
be tested for special education or intensive resources? Is it related to
scores, growth developmentally, grades?
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