Regarding paras: I'll admit that I have very little knowledge of how to work with special ed students. I believe that a para in my classroom would be a godsend. With him or her, I would collaborate, but make it clear that I am the authority in the classroom. Their help would especially be appreciated in making accommodations in lesson plans.
I will help to discourage teens from being sexually active primarily by teaching them about the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of marriage. I think teaching them a little philosophy would help, summarized by "You are human, not God and not a dog." For teaching about this, I am a big proponent of Theology of the Body. It is a program that is real and honest about the human person and the role of chastity and sex. As a French teacher, it would be odd for me to this unit on my own. However, I would be glad to team teach it with other teachers.
Foster students will be accepted in my classroom just like any other student would be. I will give them a brief pre-test to see whether they are behind, ahead, or at the same level as the rest of my class regarding academic knowledge. Working with foster students is all part of differentiating instruction. I will ask the rest of the students to help welcome the new student. Shelby's visit was very insightful for me, as I have little personal experience with the foster care system. The vast number of kid she has housed (52 in 15 years) really speaks to how unstable and difficult the life of foster kids can be.
I agree, with the part about Shelby. He was quite informative and just hearing about his experiences over the past 15 years was amazing.
ReplyDeleteI think it would benefit you to remember, that you are never alone (except with the para unless you have two...then you are still not alone because you still have a para). You can always ask for assistance if some student should ever have a question or even better yet, as you say, team teach. I mean, one awesome teacher is like...awesome, but two...woah, stand aside Darth Vadar, we have two new rulers of the universe.
I really liked your discussion on using our resources. Counselors and paras are certainly "Godsends" for us, especially as beginning teachers. Another resource that I believe is important to use is our administrators, namely our principals. Most principals have already excelled at teaching and have also furthered their expertise through schooling.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about being a French teacher not being able to teach sex education, I think this is partly false. When you teach in a private school you can make it your priority to teach abstinence. The only trick is, YOU have to make it happen. Set up meetings with teachers and parents that want to be involved and create a program that works with your schools.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about paras and that you don't know much about working with sped kids, I would suggest doing your research. There is tons of info out there that can help you modify lessons and work with students with different needs.
I agree with you that the counselor's panel was informative and that I also have very little knowledge of how to work with special ed students, as well. I really like how you described the para in the classroom, too. They would definitely be a God send. I also think that it would be odd to teach about sexual issues on my own and that I would definitely want to team teach as well, if I had to teach about this subject, especially since I want to teach early elementary. I also like all your ideas about accepting foster students into the classroom, but another aspect that I think is important is to build a positive relationship with them and their foster parents.
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