Treating All Students With Dignity-(Laura Dombrosky Miller)
Useful Articles 1 Comment »->
Treating All Students With Dignity
As my first year of teaching comes to a close, I realize that prejudice and ignorance are alive in education. Students are expected to fit a certain “mold” and those who do not are seen as deviates from the norm and treated as such. This disturbs me as I am a Special Education teacher and I hold an interest in “those” kids, the ones who are seen as outliers and outcasts.
I just finished up my first year as an Emotional Support teacher and taught in a self-contained classroom consisting of grades 3, 4, and 5. “My” kids, as they were called, were diagnosed with a myriad of disorders: ADHD, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Specific Learning Disorders in Reading and Math. It was not easy for my instructional aide and me to incorporate all these types of students into one functioning classroom, but we managed. We saw beyond the disorders and saw these children for what they were: CHILDREN. Kids who liked swings and monkey bars. Kids who liked to eat pizza and hot dogs for lunch. Kids who wanted to drive PT Cruisers when they got older. Kids who wanted to become teachers and doctors. Kids who NEEDED love and support as well as a sense of belonging. We loved our kids. We had high expectations for them and they met them on many occasions. I personally felt that many of these kids never had expectations for themselves. No one really expected much out of them. They did not feel as if they were capable of anything. This changed for them during our school year.
Read the rest of this entry »


Recent Comments