Visiting a school for students with Learning Disabilities

If you did not know my major is actually Middle Grades Education with emphasis in Special Education and Science which means I am certified to teach grades 5-9 Science and K-12 Special Education. I am not allowed to student teach in a special education classroom overseas because special education is very different everywhere you go and it wouldn't be right to complete my student teaching in a classroom so different than what I have learned and practiced in thus far. That is another reason why I am only here for 8 weeks (half of my placement) teaching grades 5-9 Science and when I go home I will finish my student teaching in a special education setting. I had asked my teacher about Special Education at Pearson High School and how they deal with the students with disabilities. He explained to me that they do not get any special treatment or modifications on anything, they may participate in extra lessons (after school tutoring) like any other student who struggles but they are expected to make the same grades as their peers. If a student had a disability at Pearson it was hidden very well and students would not tell anyone about it. One day Shannon (the Brit student teacher) had to sort student papers into files, these papers were filled out by parents listing allergies, illnesses, and any disability their child may have or was identified as. I found these interesting because parents would write that they felt their child "might" have ADD or ADHD because they struggle focusing.. what student doesn't?

The 5th grade classroom I worked in

I heard about a school just a little further down the road than Pearson called Cape Recife; that was a school for students with disabilities only and I planned on checking it out for a day while I was here. Monday this week I walked there after school and talked to the ladies in the office and the principal explaining to him my major at home and that I was interested in observing for a day. He invited me back the next day (Tuesday) and told me he would put me in a 5th grade classroom. Tuesday morning I got ready for school a little earlier and got to Cape Recife at 7:15am. I waited in the lobby area until the principal came out to greet me and introduce me to the teacher I would be working with all day. She walked me to her classroom and explained the different students she had and her plan for the day. She set a desk aside for me and had me paste printed notes into a students notebook that had been sick the past couple of days. I observed the students, the setting, and the classroom arrangement.

She told me every single student at Cape Recife had a disability that affected their learning whether it be physical, mental, or a learning disability. She told me that most of the students in the school just had ADHD and were all high functioning. We discussed some differences between the special education settings I have been working in and the special education setting at Cape Recife. I explained the purpose of an IEP and the purpose of them and asked if the students at Cape Recife had anything like this, she told me that students had individual learning goals and some had behavior goals but after hearing some of the goals students had they definitely weren't easily measurable or specific like I have learned to write them. 

Cape Recife is a school for students in kindergarten through high school. The school had a pool, gymnasium, tuck shop, etc. but what I found interesting was that the school had hostels attached to it. Since Cape Recife is a special school for students with disabilities some students live there in the hostels. I found out that some of the students never even leave the school on the weekends, their parents only pick them up on special holidays when the hostels close and the students are required to leave. Cape Recife is also a private school meaning that students pay fees in order to attend the school which keep the school running.

The 5th graders I worked with all day

The fifth grade classroom I sat and observed in was hectic and reminded me why students with disabilities need to be placed in the general education classrooms as much as possible. If you can imagine 20 children with learning disabilities squeezed into one classroom for the entire day, I felt like the teacher spent more time getting the students back on task than actually teaching. It was a chain reaction of distractions every five minutes, one student would get distracted and off task and would cause a chain reaction around the room. Students with disabilities will never learn how to act properly and behave in a classroom if they don't have a good model to learn from or a good reward system to motivate their behavior. I think the teacher was happy to have me that day because I helped get the students on task several times giving her a break. I also walked around the room while the students were completing math problems and answered questions, helped explain the math problems, and keep them on task. Towards the end of the day I even helped motivate their behavior by telling them that if they were good the rest of the day and completed their work I would talk about America for the last five minutes of class (students here LOVE hearing about and asking questions about America).

Letting the kids take pictures with my touch screen

CHEESEEEE!!!

One thing I found odd was that first thing in the morning the teacher called out the students name by name that needed to take their tablets (pills/medication) (mostly all Ritalin). The students had to come up one at a time, the teacher had to SEE them swallow their tablets, and then they could go sit back down. One student was out of tablets and the teacher said she would call her mother to get more for the next day. Another student pleaded to not take them because he hated how they made him feel but the teacher reminded him that it was her responsibility to see that they were all getting their tablets. I found this so odd, I'm not sure if it's a younger grade thing but I had never seen the teacher calling out names of students one by one and being responsible for them taking their tablets. This threw me off a little..

Kids taking pictures of themselves with my iPad

During lunch I went outside and helped with recess duty. I helped with grades 2 and 3 recess so these students were a lot younger than what I am used to. One student noticed I was new and different and ran over to talk to me. He asked me where I was from and we began talking about America, I had my iPad out  with me because I was going to take a picture of where the kids played for recess and he immediately asked if we could take a picture. As soon as I let him take a picture several other students ran up and began playing with the touch screen and snapping pictures. They were very sweet kids and I enjoyed talking to them for the rest of their recess. I was happy I got to come check out Cape Recife for a day and see a different special ed setting that I definitely wasn't used to. The teachers here have patience levels of saints. It made me excited to get back to my students at my special education placement at home in the states.