Saturday May 29th 2010

Wow, it is amazing how fast this week went by before I realized that I did not post to my blog after last weeks class, brain overload. I must say that the time was well spent designing and planning a student profile and preparing a presentation on how best to service this student. It seems surreal sometimes that we do indeed have the ways and means to support all children within the school system yet we tend to only service the 'worst' case. It does not make sense to me, why not prepare and plan for all our students needs, and then our classroom would be more efficient and effective because out students would be engaged in their own learning.
I know I am idealistic but it seem an end to a means. We know that our classroom management is the key to academic success yet there are no outcomes that speak to behavior. It is the lack of student engagement and the disruption to the classroom that is effecting student learning and yet we do not have a plan that would address this ongoing dilemma; student behavior.
Sometimes it seems that the behavior is a direct result of not knowing the material, the inability to tend to the task or the lack of skill sets that would allow the student t complete the task. Anyway you look at it we have a big problem with no immediate solution in the horizon.
Case in point, a principal at an inner city school, lost his way and assaulted a student, leaving the community and the principal in a very difficult situation. The principal was immediately removed from the site and the media has deemed that teaching is such a difficult task, because of the lack of discipline or consequences for students. They know there is nothing we can do to change their behavior or engage them in student learning. Well it was society and the pressure to give students less responsibility for their own decisions that now we have generated a society of students that are expecting that we owe them a living and thy do not have to be appreciative or responsible, that is our job. As educators we have a job to create and develop independent learners, how can we do this if we do have the necessary support and guidelines in place to allow us to do our jobs.
It surprises me the difficulty that some children are experiencing in attending to task and yet we have no solutions readily available to support the classroom teachers, resource is given to the worst case, who decides the worst case, we should be providing support to all our students, in the classroom with the right solutions for each child. I now know the dilemma we are facing; resources and money. Unfortunately as more and more students are entering the school system without the required skill sets and home support and we are expected to educate them at the cost of the other students.
We always talk about the individual students and the importance of creating that identity and yet when we plan our lessons or write the curriculum we do not take into consideration the individual at all. It would seem that if we could plan for the students and their individual needs then we would assist all student in their learning and ultimately create the independent learner.