Qualities of a Good Special Education Teacher
By Sue Watson, About.com
Have you ever wondered what makes a great special education teacher? What separates a mediocre teacher from a terrific teacher? It's not easy to define, however, here's a list of qualities listed by parents, principals, educators and students.
Are you a Top Special Education Teacher?
1. You love your role, you love being with your students and you couldn't imagine doing anything else. You were meant to teach special needs children, you know this in your heart.
2. You have a great deal of patience and know that little steps in learning go a long way.
3. You know your students well and they are comfortable and at ease with you, they enjoy having you as their teacher and look forward to going school each day.
4. You provide a non-threatening, welcoming environment that nurtures each of the students you work with.
5. You understand your students, you know what motivates them and you know how to scaffold activities to ensure that maximum learning occurs.
6. You take each student from where they are and provide experiences that will maximize success. You're always discovering new things about your students.
7. You are very comfortable working with exceptional learners and learners with diverse needs.
8. You thrive on challenge, can easily build relationships with your students and your student's parents.
9. You are a life-long learner and committed to the profession.
10. You have a never ending willingness to ensure that all students reach their maximum potential. You constantly strive to 'reach and teach' every student under your care.
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I think most of this list is for others to judge if I fit the descriptions. I don't feel like I'm quite there just yet, but it is nice to know where I am headed, if I ever get there. I know I love my students, and I hope they like coming to school every day, and if they learn one little thing from me and I learn one little thing from them, then it has been a very good day in my estimation.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Pros and Cons--Portable Classrooms
Cons:
My portable has a very old porch and wheelchair ramp. There is a kind of dip in the deck in front of the doors, probably the result of more years of use than the structure was originally intended for, that collects water. On cold mornings, this thin sheet of moisture becomes a skating rink which makes the ramp an adventure. Later in the day, it settles into a small pond.
If it rains very hard, the small pond slowly leaks under my door, saturating the carpet all the way over to the foot of my desk. I shudder to think of the dry rot going on under there.
There is no overhang of roof to cover the porch. Kids wanting to be on time to class must stand out in the rain until I race to my classroom after early-morning meetings that invariably run right up until 8 o'clock. Kids wanting to stay dry wait in the hallway by the back of the gym, only racing the thirty or so yards to my door at the four-minute bell, or when they see the whites of my eyes. On rainy days, I rarely keep track of tardies.
My door is off-kilter. Probably again the result of the overuse of a TEMPORARY structure. It neither closes nor opens without the considerable application of force.
The main power switch to the structure is on the OUTSIDE of the north wall. There is a large handle that can be easily pulled down to rob us of power. Local jokesters have identified this bright red handle and enjoy pulling it periodically, particularly, it appears, over weekends when I have a large amount of paperwork to catch up on. I can reach it if I bring a chair outside. (I have to smile thinking about a tower of sixth-graders on each others' shoulders, working so hard to inconvenience me.)
We trip power fuses frequently, and have had to rearrange computers, printers, lights and portable heaters several times in order to balance the drain of power between the three fuses. Once again, the tripping generally occurs at very opportune moments--like after writing an IEP but just seconds before the mouse icon gets to the SAVE button.
We have ants. They have spent weeks trotting in long lines across our desks, from the windows and up and down the walls...doubtless through the cracks created by years of use and the unchecked dry rot that occurs after the rooms flood. The district pest control folks only come out when the ants are sleeping in, and they won't do anything about them unless they actually see the buggers out and about. Our building janitor cannot spray because it's toxic to a learning environment. I have to brush them away in order to work at my computer.
Our building has four-minute passing periods. It takes ME about four and a half minutes to walk, in long quick strides, from my door to the resource room on the other end of the building--and this is BEFORE school, when I don't have to navigate around and through seven hundred students, and then only if I don't have to stop at the bathroom. I only count kids tardy when I can't see them racing for my door after the bell has rung, and if they have to go to the bathroom five minutes into class, I have a hard time telling them to wait until I'm done directly instructing. It's difficult to teach with all that wiggling going on, anyway.
Pros:
Visiting district bigwigs apparently don't fancy walking that far just to wait, standing in a puddle in the rain, while I try to open my door for them.
My portable has a very old porch and wheelchair ramp. There is a kind of dip in the deck in front of the doors, probably the result of more years of use than the structure was originally intended for, that collects water. On cold mornings, this thin sheet of moisture becomes a skating rink which makes the ramp an adventure. Later in the day, it settles into a small pond.
If it rains very hard, the small pond slowly leaks under my door, saturating the carpet all the way over to the foot of my desk. I shudder to think of the dry rot going on under there.
There is no overhang of roof to cover the porch. Kids wanting to be on time to class must stand out in the rain until I race to my classroom after early-morning meetings that invariably run right up until 8 o'clock. Kids wanting to stay dry wait in the hallway by the back of the gym, only racing the thirty or so yards to my door at the four-minute bell, or when they see the whites of my eyes. On rainy days, I rarely keep track of tardies.
My door is off-kilter. Probably again the result of the overuse of a TEMPORARY structure. It neither closes nor opens without the considerable application of force.
The main power switch to the structure is on the OUTSIDE of the north wall. There is a large handle that can be easily pulled down to rob us of power. Local jokesters have identified this bright red handle and enjoy pulling it periodically, particularly, it appears, over weekends when I have a large amount of paperwork to catch up on. I can reach it if I bring a chair outside. (I have to smile thinking about a tower of sixth-graders on each others' shoulders, working so hard to inconvenience me.)
We trip power fuses frequently, and have had to rearrange computers, printers, lights and portable heaters several times in order to balance the drain of power between the three fuses. Once again, the tripping generally occurs at very opportune moments--like after writing an IEP but just seconds before the mouse icon gets to the SAVE button.
We have ants. They have spent weeks trotting in long lines across our desks, from the windows and up and down the walls...doubtless through the cracks created by years of use and the unchecked dry rot that occurs after the rooms flood. The district pest control folks only come out when the ants are sleeping in, and they won't do anything about them unless they actually see the buggers out and about. Our building janitor cannot spray because it's toxic to a learning environment. I have to brush them away in order to work at my computer.
Our building has four-minute passing periods. It takes ME about four and a half minutes to walk, in long quick strides, from my door to the resource room on the other end of the building--and this is BEFORE school, when I don't have to navigate around and through seven hundred students, and then only if I don't have to stop at the bathroom. I only count kids tardy when I can't see them racing for my door after the bell has rung, and if they have to go to the bathroom five minutes into class, I have a hard time telling them to wait until I'm done directly instructing. It's difficult to teach with all that wiggling going on, anyway.
Pros:
Visiting district bigwigs apparently don't fancy walking that far just to wait, standing in a puddle in the rain, while I try to open my door for them.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Arithmetic
The school year has now been in session for 50 days. That's 48 student contact days, one inservice and one "data" day. If a teacher's day is to be 7.5 hours long with a .5 hour lunch, that means I should have put in 350 hours to date. According to my records, I have put in roughly 565 hours so far this school year. That means I have effectually donated 215 hours of my own time to this job, this school and this district. (For the record, that's 21.5 hours per week, or an extra 4 hours per day.) The district is paying me about $43,000 a year for 180 days of work, or 1,260 hours. That comes out to just a little over $34 an hour. By that calculation, then, I have given this discrict over $7,300!! If I had picked up even a minimum wage job instead, at $8 an hour, I could have earned $1,700 for those 215 hours, which would have neatly covered the $700 I've already spent on supplies, books, rewards and manipulatives AND given me about $500 extra per month to put toward rent, car payments, student loans and my VISA bill.
I think I need to have my head examined.
I think I need to have my head examined.
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