In the Resource Room

I've started working in an intermediate resource room at one of the elementary schools in town. I work with 4th-6th graders who are categorized as having a specific learning disability. The class focuses on math and langauge arts. I've gone in four times now, and I work for 3 1/2 hours at a time. I had predicted myself not liking it, even though I am a special education major, but I really enjoy it. The teacher and the aide that I work with are amazing. They are sweet and helpful and they get me involved with the students as much as possible. The teacher, Mrs. H., even let me read one girl's IEP so that I can become familiar with it. IEPs are super-complicated but necessary by law, so it was great that she is exposing me to them. I've done a lot of work one-on-one or with only a few students in a group. Mainly giving spelling tests, doing Daily Language Review worksheets, working on reading comprehension and similar, and monitoring the class during independent work time.

For the most part, the students have received me well and they are very willing to allow me to work with them. But today I worked with a girl, C, and the experience wasn't so great. I think C has mild mental retardation and not LD, but I'm not sure. I was working with her on langauge arts type stuff. First she read out loud to me from a book that is at the first grade level (she is in 5th) and then I helped her take an AR test on it. Then we worked on a daily review worksheet followed by a packet on nouns and capitalization. I had a really difficult time getting C to attend to the work at hand. I'm not sure if she was ignoring me, taking a long time to think, or if this is just how she operates, but it was frustruating at first. I don't know where she is cognitively, so I wasn't sure how much help I was supposed to give her. I would ask her a question, such as "What do we call the person who delivers the mail?" several times and she would just stare at me and then get out a sheet of paper and start scribbling. Then when I finally got her to say "mailman" it was another 5 minutes before I could get her to write it down on the worksheet. I know she can read, think, write, etc. I've seen her do it. She works well with the other aide, but she was refusing to do it with me. I'm going to talk to Mrs. H. next time I go in and see if she can give me some ideas on how to work with C.

Sometimes I wonder if I am going to be able to teach all day every day. Sometimes I don't even want to go in for the three and a half hours. I think that is just laziness though and it doesn't really have anything to do with how I feel about my job. When I am there, working with the kids, I love it. It's fun and challenging and rewarding. I can't think of anything else that I would, realistically, rather be doing. Sure, it would be fun sailing around the world and diving in the ocean to look at sea-dwelling thingies, but can I realistically do that? No.

I am still waiting for DoDDs. Aaaahhhhh!!! I'm giving my e-mail checker a work out.

Dan asked me to be his date at his uncle's wedding in two weeks. Even though I don't really want to go, I said yes. Dan is a really fun guy to hang out with, so even though I'll feel akward and uncomfortable around people I don't know, I'll have a good time watching him act like a goof-ball. Plus, I couldn't think of an excuse fast enough for why I couldn't go, so I'm stuck.