Over the summer my vision for my ideal alternate learning environment materialized. This is unbelievable really. Five years ago I was hired into the teaching profession. Five years ago I started to create my ultimate classroom, my dream program, my perfect job...in my mind. Now it's absolutely my reality. If you have read "The Secret", this would be your prime example of the Law of Attraction.
My classroom has a learning space that includes a trio of leather couches to create a relaxation corner, an art corner equipped with airbrusher, a shop bench with tools, a projector with tables for learning, fifteen ipads, laptops, an amazing full kitchen with all appliances, and a washer and dryer. I came in to look at my room in the middle of the summer and crew people were scattered everywhere working on different sections of my classroom masterpiece. All I could do was stand there teary-eyed and gasp. My daughter was embarassed by this so we had to leave, but I still feel that same emotion most mornings when I walk in my room. I am incredibly thankful, and I now know without a doubt that learning space, and how it is arranged, incredibly impacts how successful a teacher can be in bringing students to the next level.
Immediately, my classroom enabled me to challenge my students in new exciting ways. We are already up to two hours of brain work a day. By brain work, I mean work that challenges my students to step out of their comfort zones. All of my students who can read are reading a sentence to a page a day outloud. They are all embracing art projects and experimenting with small engine mechanics. They are cooking and cleaning, memorizing, working with the technology, and embracing changing their behaviors. Our next big project is airbrushing the hood of a car that we are buying from pick-a-part. I am overwhelmed with a feeling of pride and I cant wait to see how far I can bring these kids this year. Not only socially and academically, but also emtionally.
I had a profound realization on Halloween night of this year. This was the first Halloween that I have not accompanied either of my kids out trick-or-treating in sixteen years. As I waited for their return, I realized that this was the end of another chapter of my life. I would have to think about what my next step in life was, and I would have to start looking at myself in a new light. Then something extraordinary happened, the moment I thought about myself as a person needing guidance, I felt an overwheming amount of pain pumping through my veins and all over my entire body. This was a pain I had not felt in over ten years...and I cried.
In the three weeks since Halloween I have fully embraced my need to emotionally heal. When you are in love with an addict you experience pain on a daily basis. My need to protect myself and my children from this pain built massive walls around my heart. When I built these walls I wasn't aware I was building them. In my head I was super strong and I had learned how to be at peace with my husbands addiction. In actual reality, all my pain is burried behind walls that protect me from all feeling and make me appear strong. What I have started to realize about pain is that its actually a poison energy that materializes and then is flushed away through tears. If there are no tears shed, there is no poison released. Either you release it many years later, as I am doing now, or it manifests into some level of mental illness.
Last month I saw my students as little people who needed me. I was born a helper, and I fall in love with people who need me. However, since I discovered my walls and I am beginning to stand outside these walls, I see my students as trapped. This puts my teaching on an entirely new level.
Last week I sat on a tabletop, and as my students were carving out stencils to airbrush, I announced that I was starting Naranon. Naranon is a group meeting for people who have been affected by addicts. My students were immediately interested. I spoke from my heart and explained exactly what I was going through. I explained that in order for me to get better, to heal, I might first have to get worse....I had to mourn. Then an extraordinary thing happened, my students, while witnessing me taking down my walls, began to take theirs down too.
One student spoke of his drug addicted step-dad and the abuse he has endured. He told us about the love that he has for his mom and his hatred for the man who keeps coming back and dragging her into addiction. He told us that those years when he was supposedly being rescued by fostercare were the most painful years of his life. He said, "I needed my mama". His pain was so vivid and I pictured a couple bricks falling off the top of his emotional wall as he spoke. He finished with acknowledging my walls and saying that he doesn't think he can feel either.A girl spoke of the abuser that put her in the hospital and the fact that he was being released from jail this month. Another boy told us his mom did heroin while she was pregnant with him and he never has met her. Not one student interrupted another, all students were engaged, and the emotional level in the room was so incredibly high.
One boy whose walls are the thickest I've ever sensed walked by me as we finished talking. He spoke assuringly, "Ive got some huge ass walls. Im gonna go drink a bottle of whiskey to my head now." I touched his shoulder and he turned to look at me. Our eyes locked, and in that moment that I was staring into his eyes, we saw eachothers pain, and he challenged me. Through his eyes he said, "I dare you to knock these walls down"....and I said, "Game on".
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Friday, 25 May 2012
LETTING GO- May 2012
I stand at the front of the classroom and watch as my students simultaneously melt down. I am teaching basic math skills. One girl stares at me blank faced, a boy starts drawing bubbles on his whiteboard, another starts playing with tools. Two boys start to argue, another boy puts his forehead into the desk. The boy that was playing with the tools swears loudly and storms out of the room. A girl attempts to give me an answer then yells at the boys, another boy turns on some rap music....he closes his eyes...I close my eyes. Once again, the students that I love with all my heart are turned against me in defiance against learning academic material. I have been taught, through the system, that I must teach academics or I do not have a properly functioning classroom. I would argue that it is the academics that is the only thing sabotaging my very close, rich and loving learning environment.
Since day one of my program I have been overwhelmed with the idea of individualization. How do I embrace each student's needs and develop individual programs while still planning my day and running a classroom? I planned and I re-planned...I scheduled and I researched. Then I realized it isn't about planning at all. Individualization is actually not plannable. I have focused for four months on knowing each student inside and out. I know where they've come from, I know where they are, and I have plans for how to get them to where they need to be. I now start planning my day the second the first student walks through my door in the morning. I know their interests and I know how to move them forward. My spontaneous day plan is based on who is in the room by 9:30am...and I roll with the punches.
The result of my new found individualization is a very successful student driven classroom. I am the motivator and the positive speaker...I hold the means to get the job done. I never shut down an idea. I embrace the moment, and I make their ideas come to life...even if they didnt even know that they had an idea in the first place. A student mentions that he wants to build a nitrate remote control car, and we're at the hobby shop within the hour buying car parts to make it happen. Another student wants to paint his bike, within hours we have spray paint and the whole class is 'expertly' spray painting bikes and classroom furniture . Non-artists are all of a sudden lost in the world of canvas painting and graviti art. A boy who can't read, yet can build a bike that runs on a gas engine, is now fixing broken bikes in the classroom. Another boy succeeded at getting his learners license, while the class cheered him on. Some students literally 'do nothing', but they're happy for the first time in their whole school career. Their need to acheive socialization and feel the warmth of a 'family' has been met, and if thats enough for them, then thats enough for me. Acceptance is key. Success is key. Baby steps.
Last week I was out playing hacky sack in the smoke pit during break and one of my student's drove up. She motioned me to come over. I couldnt read the expression on her face until I was almost at the window. I saw the corners of her mouth start to curl, and her eyes were sparkling....she got in! I screamed very loudly, and everyone in the smoke pit turned to see what all the commotion is about. We hugged and she wiped tears from her eyes, my extreme happiness definitely caught her off guard. She just nailed an interview to get into a local university program called TASK...which will latter her into the workforce. Four short months ago, she saw this program as something that was way out of her comfort zone and completely unacheivable. I remember she laughed at me when I mentioned it. Now she sees the skies as her limit.
As a class we have been perfecting and handing out resumes for a couple of weeks. Two boys have landed jobs and have started working. Another boy, the one who has been building and painting our classroom nitrate car, begins his work experience doing auto detailing in an autoshop next week. Another is set up with a summer job playing sports with the aboriginal youth in our community. I have only two students without concrete plans for after graduation. However, their mindsets are now goal oriented and focused. One boy who I have been working with for five years has always been dead set, for as long as I've known him, on selling drugs with his brother after grad. Now, he has his SIN card and is planning, and activiely applying for jobs in construction. I tear up every time I think about it...it really is so incredibly huge...breaking the cycle.
These once floundering, socially outcasted, 'societal write-offs' are now changing their destinies. It just took someone to accept, listen, believe in, encourage and materialize their ideas. Funny, it actually isnt about mainstreaming or academics at all. I just hope there is enough kleenex at graduation because I have fallen head over heals for these amazing, strong and complicated children. Its letting them go that is going to be the difficult part.
Since day one of my program I have been overwhelmed with the idea of individualization. How do I embrace each student's needs and develop individual programs while still planning my day and running a classroom? I planned and I re-planned...I scheduled and I researched. Then I realized it isn't about planning at all. Individualization is actually not plannable. I have focused for four months on knowing each student inside and out. I know where they've come from, I know where they are, and I have plans for how to get them to where they need to be. I now start planning my day the second the first student walks through my door in the morning. I know their interests and I know how to move them forward. My spontaneous day plan is based on who is in the room by 9:30am...and I roll with the punches.
The result of my new found individualization is a very successful student driven classroom. I am the motivator and the positive speaker...I hold the means to get the job done. I never shut down an idea. I embrace the moment, and I make their ideas come to life...even if they didnt even know that they had an idea in the first place. A student mentions that he wants to build a nitrate remote control car, and we're at the hobby shop within the hour buying car parts to make it happen. Another student wants to paint his bike, within hours we have spray paint and the whole class is 'expertly' spray painting bikes and classroom furniture . Non-artists are all of a sudden lost in the world of canvas painting and graviti art. A boy who can't read, yet can build a bike that runs on a gas engine, is now fixing broken bikes in the classroom. Another boy succeeded at getting his learners license, while the class cheered him on. Some students literally 'do nothing', but they're happy for the first time in their whole school career. Their need to acheive socialization and feel the warmth of a 'family' has been met, and if thats enough for them, then thats enough for me. Acceptance is key. Success is key. Baby steps.
Last week I was out playing hacky sack in the smoke pit during break and one of my student's drove up. She motioned me to come over. I couldnt read the expression on her face until I was almost at the window. I saw the corners of her mouth start to curl, and her eyes were sparkling....she got in! I screamed very loudly, and everyone in the smoke pit turned to see what all the commotion is about. We hugged and she wiped tears from her eyes, my extreme happiness definitely caught her off guard. She just nailed an interview to get into a local university program called TASK...which will latter her into the workforce. Four short months ago, she saw this program as something that was way out of her comfort zone and completely unacheivable. I remember she laughed at me when I mentioned it. Now she sees the skies as her limit.
As a class we have been perfecting and handing out resumes for a couple of weeks. Two boys have landed jobs and have started working. Another boy, the one who has been building and painting our classroom nitrate car, begins his work experience doing auto detailing in an autoshop next week. Another is set up with a summer job playing sports with the aboriginal youth in our community. I have only two students without concrete plans for after graduation. However, their mindsets are now goal oriented and focused. One boy who I have been working with for five years has always been dead set, for as long as I've known him, on selling drugs with his brother after grad. Now, he has his SIN card and is planning, and activiely applying for jobs in construction. I tear up every time I think about it...it really is so incredibly huge...breaking the cycle.
These once floundering, socially outcasted, 'societal write-offs' are now changing their destinies. It just took someone to accept, listen, believe in, encourage and materialize their ideas. Funny, it actually isnt about mainstreaming or academics at all. I just hope there is enough kleenex at graduation because I have fallen head over heals for these amazing, strong and complicated children. Its letting them go that is going to be the difficult part.
Friday, 6 April 2012
LEAPS AND BOUNDS- March 2012
The ability to control what you say is something I think we take for granted. I feel that I talk without necessarily thinking about what I'm saying, but I have automatic controls in my brain that prevent me from dropping f-bombs around my grandma, my boss, and the cashier at the local grocery store. These automatic controls were installed by my parents and they give me the reputation and respect that I need to succeed in life. What if I did not have these controls intstalled? How would my life be different from what it is now? One of my students admits to feeling no control over what he says, he gauges his appropriateness by the facial expressions of the people he is talking to. This has huge implications for him out in the community.
Reversing the automatic f-bomb was a major focus in my classroom this month. My aim is not to eliminate this word completely, but to open my student's eyes to when and where this word is approriate and when and where it is not. This is an extremely challenging task for them, most of them do not even realize that they are dropping random f-bombs constantly, and they truely do not realize how much this is negatively affecting their reputation.
The same student who last month slammed the door and left school when I turned off his offensive music, put it on again the other day. However, this time the reaction from my class was completely different. Everybody in the room turned to look at the source of the music. Statements such as, "Uh-uh" and "No way man" were uttered, and everyone smiled and shook their heads. I turned off the song and put on a clean one. Nobody argued or even disagreed. Not one comment at all. This is leaps and bounds from only a short while ago when raging tempers over the right to play offensive music in a classroom was an everyday occurance.
In PE, a student that I have been teaching and supporting for five years brought tears to my eyes. A couple years ago, a basketball game for him meant exploding in rage,being disqualified, and being sent home. During a recent intense game at our local church, this same student became very angry at an out-of-bounds call made by another student. He slammed the basketball into the floor and started to rage. I stepped in front of him and made eye contact. I told him to take a walk. Instead, he bent over and rested his hands on his knees, staring at the ground. Then he held up his hand to signal us to wait. We waited; you could have heard a pin drop...ten seconds passed. Then he stood up straight, clapped his hands together and said "Lets go!" The game resumed and I had to turn around to stop my eyes from welling up with tears of pride.
My job is essentially to make angry kids happy. The invisible bars that define society's demands on each of us seem to disintegrate in the wilderness. The crippling anxiety, fear, and anger that engulfs these teens daily is replaced with a carefree happiness. For this reason, we spend alot of time hiking small mountains, and building fires in the middle of the woods or beside rivers all over our town. As we explore trails, build fires and then huddle around them, we talk. We talk about our dreams, our goals, and our pasts. We work together, we laugh out loud, and we bond. My students don't even realize that they are effortlessly succeeding in group counselling, anger managment and life skills simulataneously.
I really have to hang on tight to every great thing that happens in order to pull myself through the tough times. A few days ago one of my studnets told me he has tried to kill himself before, and wants to kill himself now. Just a couple of hours later I was standing in his home trying to tell his mom through the drone of the vaccuum that her son wants to die. She never once turned off the vaccuum. When I got back in my car, I just sat and stared at my car roof. I slammed my fists into the top of my steering wheel and felt very angry for a moment. There's a certain sense of hopelessness to it all. Then I went and picked up my son, who is exactly the same age, from rugby practise. This is the reality.
Reversing the automatic f-bomb was a major focus in my classroom this month. My aim is not to eliminate this word completely, but to open my student's eyes to when and where this word is approriate and when and where it is not. This is an extremely challenging task for them, most of them do not even realize that they are dropping random f-bombs constantly, and they truely do not realize how much this is negatively affecting their reputation.
The same student who last month slammed the door and left school when I turned off his offensive music, put it on again the other day. However, this time the reaction from my class was completely different. Everybody in the room turned to look at the source of the music. Statements such as, "Uh-uh" and "No way man" were uttered, and everyone smiled and shook their heads. I turned off the song and put on a clean one. Nobody argued or even disagreed. Not one comment at all. This is leaps and bounds from only a short while ago when raging tempers over the right to play offensive music in a classroom was an everyday occurance.
In PE, a student that I have been teaching and supporting for five years brought tears to my eyes. A couple years ago, a basketball game for him meant exploding in rage,being disqualified, and being sent home. During a recent intense game at our local church, this same student became very angry at an out-of-bounds call made by another student. He slammed the basketball into the floor and started to rage. I stepped in front of him and made eye contact. I told him to take a walk. Instead, he bent over and rested his hands on his knees, staring at the ground. Then he held up his hand to signal us to wait. We waited; you could have heard a pin drop...ten seconds passed. Then he stood up straight, clapped his hands together and said "Lets go!" The game resumed and I had to turn around to stop my eyes from welling up with tears of pride.
My job is essentially to make angry kids happy. The invisible bars that define society's demands on each of us seem to disintegrate in the wilderness. The crippling anxiety, fear, and anger that engulfs these teens daily is replaced with a carefree happiness. For this reason, we spend alot of time hiking small mountains, and building fires in the middle of the woods or beside rivers all over our town. As we explore trails, build fires and then huddle around them, we talk. We talk about our dreams, our goals, and our pasts. We work together, we laugh out loud, and we bond. My students don't even realize that they are effortlessly succeeding in group counselling, anger managment and life skills simulataneously.
I really have to hang on tight to every great thing that happens in order to pull myself through the tough times. A few days ago one of my studnets told me he has tried to kill himself before, and wants to kill himself now. Just a couple of hours later I was standing in his home trying to tell his mom through the drone of the vaccuum that her son wants to die. She never once turned off the vaccuum. When I got back in my car, I just sat and stared at my car roof. I slammed my fists into the top of my steering wheel and felt very angry for a moment. There's a certain sense of hopelessness to it all. Then I went and picked up my son, who is exactly the same age, from rugby practise. This is the reality.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
CREATING A FAMILY-Feb.2012
"My grandma loves you and she's never even met you," my student said to me out of nowhere as I'm driving. He then proceeded to tell the student in the back seat that his mom was telling his grandma how I fought for him all through middle school, then fought to get him back into high school when he was kicked out, and then created a program to get him to graduation."My grandma says she has eight kids and never once did a teacher fight for one of her kids to graduate, and that's why she loves you". I replied with, "It's because I actually love you, I'm not pretending to, or forcing myself to...I actually do." He then turned and stared out the window and said, "I know". At that point the student in the back seat started to pretend to cry, everybody laughed, but it was a beautiful moment for me.
The focus of my first month of my new program, The Empowered Program, was on creating a tight knit family community that will succeed together and love each other. All ten of my students have experienced the type of abuse in childhood that initiates post traumatic stress disorder, most of them have Oppositional Defiance Disorder, some level of drug addiction, and an extreme lack of emotional control. In the first week of class, a short trip to McDonald's for breakfast ended in a class fight with a drunk man who was holding a golf club. As I pushed one raging student across the parking lot and then watched him loose physical control on a massive garbage bin, I realized that nothing was going to matter more to these kids than teaching socialization and respect. No amount of academically based material matters if a simple successful breakfast out in public can not be achieved. So I dove in head first.
On a beautiful sunny morning I took my class to the river to walk along a popular exercise trail. With their hood's pulled over their heads and coffees in their hands, my students stared at me as I instructed them to walk along the trail and say, "hello, and how are you" to the morning trail walkers. Their immediate responses were, "We are on the wrong side of the tracks, we aren't wanted here", "We look like hoodlums", and "If they don't say hi back I'm going to smash them". They were terrified, however, I persevered. This walk proved extremely emotional for me. I watched as my students engaged with the young and old trail walkers. I witnessed them become positively fueled by the responses they were receiving. As people returned greetings and stopped to small talk, my students began throwing me the thumbs up and smiling wide. I was blown away by their very real surprise at society's willingness to engage with them. Their feelings of inferiority were all of a sudden very exposed, I could almost hear their emotional "walls" falling down around them.
This trail walk led to a class trip to the mall on Valentines Day to hand out flowers to random people. My students amazed me. I watched as these very angry teenagers walked up to people of all ages, shapes and social classes, said "Happy Valentines Day" and offered a flower. The response from the public was both loving and infectious. My class talked about this experience for three days after. It may have even changed a few lives.
Of course, this past 30 days has not been all trail walks and roses. I also spent this month witnessing first hand the very real dysfunction occurring in the homes of my students. A mom's frantic phone call to my classroom at 9 am one morning had me rushing out to stand in my student's living room, in the middle of a family fight. I walked in his house, listened, assessed, and decided it was in everyone's best interest for me to remove this student from the house as fast as possible. This is exactly what I did. He cried the whole way back to the school.
I jumped into a fight at the kitchen table during cooking class, I very painfully introduced the law of positive attraction to negative thinkers, I played enough basketball to think I'm now good enough for the NBA, I acted as counselor, social worker, taxi driver, friend, mom and teacher to all ten of my students, and they are now saying that they are starting to see this class as a family.
On three separate occasions I was out in the middle of nowhere getting a student who works at night out of bed. I fed him breakfast and watched as his mom raged around the house throwing beer cans, in an angry effort to get him to go to school with me. When he finally did come to class, he left during art and sat outside by the smoke tree. I followed him outside and sat beside him. He was smoking a cigar. He turned to look at me, took a long drag off of his cigar, and through eyes that seemed a lot older than his sixteen years he said, "Tell me what the point of all this is." I replied with, "To learn how to function in society". He then said, "'I'm not smart. Graduation means nothing to me. I have a job at night that makes 400 dollars a month, but I need two jobs, my mom needs money. Did you know she had to sleep with someone to pay rent a little while ago?" I had no come back for this. I agree, it probably seems pointless to him.
I feel that now that I have started to create a solid class family, my job is to work on giving my program real individual meaning for each one of my students. To give each one of them a path to a better life. My question to myself is, how the hell am I going to do that effectively? Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.
The focus of my first month of my new program, The Empowered Program, was on creating a tight knit family community that will succeed together and love each other. All ten of my students have experienced the type of abuse in childhood that initiates post traumatic stress disorder, most of them have Oppositional Defiance Disorder, some level of drug addiction, and an extreme lack of emotional control. In the first week of class, a short trip to McDonald's for breakfast ended in a class fight with a drunk man who was holding a golf club. As I pushed one raging student across the parking lot and then watched him loose physical control on a massive garbage bin, I realized that nothing was going to matter more to these kids than teaching socialization and respect. No amount of academically based material matters if a simple successful breakfast out in public can not be achieved. So I dove in head first.
On a beautiful sunny morning I took my class to the river to walk along a popular exercise trail. With their hood's pulled over their heads and coffees in their hands, my students stared at me as I instructed them to walk along the trail and say, "hello, and how are you" to the morning trail walkers. Their immediate responses were, "We are on the wrong side of the tracks, we aren't wanted here", "We look like hoodlums", and "If they don't say hi back I'm going to smash them". They were terrified, however, I persevered. This walk proved extremely emotional for me. I watched as my students engaged with the young and old trail walkers. I witnessed them become positively fueled by the responses they were receiving. As people returned greetings and stopped to small talk, my students began throwing me the thumbs up and smiling wide. I was blown away by their very real surprise at society's willingness to engage with them. Their feelings of inferiority were all of a sudden very exposed, I could almost hear their emotional "walls" falling down around them.
This trail walk led to a class trip to the mall on Valentines Day to hand out flowers to random people. My students amazed me. I watched as these very angry teenagers walked up to people of all ages, shapes and social classes, said "Happy Valentines Day" and offered a flower. The response from the public was both loving and infectious. My class talked about this experience for three days after. It may have even changed a few lives.
Of course, this past 30 days has not been all trail walks and roses. I also spent this month witnessing first hand the very real dysfunction occurring in the homes of my students. A mom's frantic phone call to my classroom at 9 am one morning had me rushing out to stand in my student's living room, in the middle of a family fight. I walked in his house, listened, assessed, and decided it was in everyone's best interest for me to remove this student from the house as fast as possible. This is exactly what I did. He cried the whole way back to the school.
I jumped into a fight at the kitchen table during cooking class, I very painfully introduced the law of positive attraction to negative thinkers, I played enough basketball to think I'm now good enough for the NBA, I acted as counselor, social worker, taxi driver, friend, mom and teacher to all ten of my students, and they are now saying that they are starting to see this class as a family.
On three separate occasions I was out in the middle of nowhere getting a student who works at night out of bed. I fed him breakfast and watched as his mom raged around the house throwing beer cans, in an angry effort to get him to go to school with me. When he finally did come to class, he left during art and sat outside by the smoke tree. I followed him outside and sat beside him. He was smoking a cigar. He turned to look at me, took a long drag off of his cigar, and through eyes that seemed a lot older than his sixteen years he said, "Tell me what the point of all this is." I replied with, "To learn how to function in society". He then said, "'I'm not smart. Graduation means nothing to me. I have a job at night that makes 400 dollars a month, but I need two jobs, my mom needs money. Did you know she had to sleep with someone to pay rent a little while ago?" I had no come back for this. I agree, it probably seems pointless to him.
I feel that now that I have started to create a solid class family, my job is to work on giving my program real individual meaning for each one of my students. To give each one of them a path to a better life. My question to myself is, how the hell am I going to do that effectively? Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Embracing the Alternate Way: Integration is not the Answer-Jan.2012
I was a teen mom and married to a crack addict. I could choose to write about kicking down crack house doors to get my car keys, sleeping with my wallet under my pillow, or visiting my husband in the padded rooms of a psychiatric ward. This would all be very shocking and actually quite interesting. However, I would rather write about embracing his struggles and pouring every ounce of my energy into finding the loop-holes in society that would allow him to succeed in life. This level of devotion to understanding the torment and truth inside an alternate mind lead me on a clear straight path to becoming a very passionate alternate teacher.
By fate, straight out of University I landed a job developing an alternate program within a mainstream middle school. The goal was integration, and at that point I really did believe that integration was not only achievable, but beneficial to the success of my alternate students. I was the only alternate teacher in my district to run an alternate program based on a direct teaching model. I integrated the kids into elective blocks with mainstream students and mediated daily between my students and the other teachers. I researched every way of teaching the middle school curriculum. I spoke of differentiated instruction to my colleagues and I did feel that my students were learning, however, I never told them that their level of understanding and functioning was barely acceptable at a grade three level.
With consistent fun and love mixed into each activity, my students were overcoming major obstacles to make it to school everyday. My program was a success, but I watched helplessly as my students left me to go to our alternate high school only to drop out shortly after. I became extremely frustrated that I was working so hard at keeping them in school only to have all my efforts erased before they reached graduation. I thought if I moved to their high school that I would be able to get each of my students to graduation. After all, that was the definition of success in school, was it not?
So I landed a job as Learning Assistance teacher at the high school. I quickly became discouraged with the model the school was running on. The entire school was self-paced and using paper and pencils only. There was no direct instruction and no use of technology. I watched the students become frustrated and disengaged on a daily basis. The kids were expected to learn the high school curriculum without any instruction and make it to graduation. If not, their other option was to drop out of school. They were choosing the latter.
I soon realized that these kids were still functioning at the same academic level that they had been at in my program five years before. Of course, they knew more about the world and their behavior had mellowed out, but their level of comprehension was still around that of an average eight year old. These kids would never reach the graduation bar because it was based on completely unrealistic expectations for the average alternate mind. We were directly feeding the welfare system by forcing these kids to feel failure everyday. They need so much more than the curriculum we have to offer them. In order for these kids to feel success in school, I was going to have to develop a brand new path to a completely different final destination. I had to redefine success in school for them.
I have now created Program Empower. This program paves a route to an Evergreen graduation that is based on personalized learning and individual empowerment. Just last week I got to look into the eyes of a student who I had promised graduation to five years ago and tell him I had found a way to fulfill my promise. The emotion in the room was incredible.
Program Empower starts Jan.30. I am feeling overwhelmed with the need to really grasp my approach. I am scared and excited all at the same. I want this to be the start of a brand new way of looking at education in my district. It really isnt about integration at all, its completely opposite, its about creating a new way; a way that has meaning.
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