One thing that stuck with me from chapter 4 was the information about Autism and Asperger Syndrome. As a special education major who is very interested in Autism and someone who has worked with students who have Autism, this section of the book was very intriguing to me. I did not love that Woolfolk defined students with Autism as "not forming connections with others," and "don't share feelings of enjoyment or interest in others." (pg 154) No one person with Autism is the same and I know more than one person who has Autism that I not only have a "connection" with, but I would say, a relationship. I also have observed them feeling joy, and also being interested in the feelings of others. They just might not have been as good as expressing that verbally or in a conventional way. That description was a bit frustrating to me. I also really enjoyed looking at this chapter after having taken an IQ test and reflecting back on my elementary years of being in "gifted" classrooms. I never identified myself as "gifted" or thought I was exceptionally bright, but reading this chapter really brought back memories of some of my accelerated classes. I wonder if they were really that beneficial to me?...
Chapter 5 was all about language diversity and development as well as immigrant education. One thing that stuck with me from chapter 5 was refreshing myself on the stages of language development and some of the strategies and approaches to bilingual and ELL education. (pgs 116-117) After having just taken middle grades literacy at Trinity, these topics were fresh in my mind. I had never really thought much about the different approaches to teaching ELL students or how language diversity and development can really affect immigrant's in the school system, or how I would approach that in my classroom. I think I have learned that a lot of best practices used to help student with special needs who struggle especially with communication can be some of the best ways to differentiate for ELL students as well. I had never really heard of sheltered instruction though. I learned that it is a way to teach content to ELL students by putting words and concepts into the context to make the content more understandable. I had heard of contextual learning, but I had never heard it called sheltered instruction before. I think this is a great strategy.
Chapter 6 focuses on culture and diversity. The classroom that I am aiding in is not only diverse in ability (since it is a special education classroom), but it is also rich with ethnic diversity. Goodings Grove has a high population of Muslim and Polish students. Both of those ethnicity are present in the special ed population in this classroom. I also aided in a 2nd grade classroom while the main classroom I was with was on a field trip. In this classroom is a boy who recently moved to the district from a town nearby. He is a Polish immigrant student with an IEP who struggles speaking both English as well as Polish. He receives services for ELL and speech, but he has no diagnosis even though he has obvious social skill and aggression issues. His mother does not want him in the "small classroom" or isolated from his "normal peers." Based off of my interactions with him, I would say that he has an obvious case of Autism. The 2nd grade teacher and special education teacher agree, but he cannot be tested or diagnosed without the mother's approval. I cannot imagine this boys struggle in school with the culture shock, language barrier, and disabilities he is dealing with without much support. I don't know this mother and I do not want to judge her. I am confident she believes she is doing what is best for her son, and who knows, maybe she is, but after reading these three chapters, I come to the conclusion that we need to be doing our best to meeting student's needs at whatever level they are at, and by not having a diagnosis, this boy is unable to receive all the services he needs...
To end, I love what Wollfolk said in chapter 5 when she said, "You can't choose personalities or parents for your students..." (pg 233) How true is that? And despite not being able to choose those things for our students, we can just do the best with what we are given and try our best to have them leave our classrooms having made progress. Students are more resilient than we think and I like to believe that no matter how small the impact that my influence in their life may have, it is still an impact and hopefully a positive influence.
Jessica, I very much appreciate your personal experience in dealing with people with autism. I think that Woolfolk is talking in general terms when she says they do not form connections with others, as she cites the research on which she bases her comment. I agree with you, however, that there certainly are exceptions to this broad descriptive comment.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the Muslim and Polish students who are placed in special ed. Do you think that the language and cultural barriers may have an effect on how they have been diagnosed? It's also interesting that despite our distaste for the use of labels, we need them in order to get the proper services.
I also believe you can have a connection with some who has autism. The ice cream shop I work at, a girl with autism comes in every sunday with her mom. she is non verbal but you can always see how excited she is to get her ice cream. getting to know her over the past few years I feel like I've made a connection with her. I know that's not education related but still believe you can get a connection with a person.
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