If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…

If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

-Shel Silverstein







Let me start from the beginning…

Deciding to start on a master’s program is a very tough decision both financially and academically.  Did I want to start school all over again?  What was I going to study?  Where was I going to go to school?  What impact would it have on my then 3 year old daughter and husband?  After many sleepless nights and long discussions with my husband, we said “Go for it!”  The next step was deciding on a school.  I stumbled upon Michigan State University’s on line program and thought it too good to be true. It truly wasn’t, so I started the lengthy application process and got accepted.  All I thought was I can’t look back now. It is only forward for me.

So forward I will go…

In the summer of 2008 I started my first two classes Technology and Literacy for Students with Mild Disabilities and Classroom Management in Inclusive Classroom.  I was scared stiff.  Was I master’s material?  Would I fail miserably?  Was I really ready to do this? What if my work wasn’t master’s material?  There were so many what if’s.  I logged on my very first day of class and kept telling myself that I can do this.  I was most excited to take the classroom management class, because I felt I needed the most growth in that area of my teaching.  The one thing that sticks out the most to me is the PBIS concept.  According to the www.pbis.org/schoolwide.htm#StepsInvolved (PBIS website) PBIS is defined as “Teaching behavioral expectations and rewarding students for following them is a much more positive approach than waiting for misbehavior to occur before responding. The purpose of school-wide PBIS is to establish a climate in which appropriate behavior is the norm.”  This struck a chord with me because discipline needs to be not just one teacher in one classroom’s problem.  It is a school wide problem and needs to be addressed from the beginning.  Positive reinforcement needs to start with our smallest school aged children. This class reminded me of the struggles all kids face in schools and how to handle the really tough situations.      

The technology and literacy class informed me of all the different types of assistive technology available to students and teachers.  There is a wealth of technology out there.  Students are faced with challenges everyday and with assistive technology the challenges could be lessened.  Assistive technology can range from pencil grips to specialized keyboards or talking computers.  Most of the technology can be specifically adjusted for each student. 

These two classes were very eye opening and met my expectations for what I thought I would learn.  I walked away with very useful and applicable knowledge.  I applied the classroom management information into my classroom; cost limited my abilities with the technology usage.  I did use some assistive technology ideas.  After theses classes I took some time off and didn’t return to school until the spring semester of 2009.

I took a sigh of relief and before I knew it was January of 2009 and I was gearing up for school again.  During this semester I took Concepts on Educational Inquiry and Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom. I was anxious to get started, but I was still reserved because it was new professors and classes.  The Educational Inquiry class was a completely different format than what I was use to.  This class was all done individually.  There were eight units that needed to be completed within the semester.  Each unit consisted of various readings in books, articles and web sites.  Typically it was about 500 pages of reading and after the readings a paper needed to be written.  I read about famous people in education and the process of educating youth.  Once everything was read, written and turned in the next unit would unlock.  We could take as much time as we needed with each unit, but still needed to remain on a schedule.

Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom was formatted much like the classes I took the summer before.  This class focused on how to teach all types of students.  Mainstreaming is how classrooms are designed and this taught me how to meet the needs of all students from gifted to severally impaired and all at the same time.  I learned how to balance and accommodate all the different learning styles and abilities within a classroom.  All students have the right to learn and it is my job to teach them.  I learned about the autism spectrum and more about assistive technology. Teaching is about helping children, but also thinking about the environment in which we teach them.  This class focused on that as well which is something most teachers take for granted.  All the teachers I know, myself included want their rooms to be “CUTE” but we don’t think about how distracting all that stuff could be to some students.  This brought forth the concept of a white wall with absolutely nothing on it and I don’t know of any classrooms with a white wall.  My sites were set high on how to change my teaching style and teaching environment.

As much as I wanted to take time off I had to trudge forward to the summer of 2009.  Teachers aren’t supposed to go to school in the summer, but away I went. 

This semester I started by hoping it was the format I had grown comfortable with and not like the concepts on educational inquiry class.  I was pleasantly surprised when I logged on the first day of each class and found out it was the format I was used to.  I found myself enrolled in  Psychology of Classroom Discipline and Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners.

I learned so much in the Psychology class that I don’t even know where to start. I’ll pick out a few points that I have put into practice and found effective.  The 3 c's (Connectedness (significance), Competence, and Contribution (power) really stuck in my mind.)  “Significance can best be defined as the sense of being valued that an individual attains from involvement in a positive two-way relationship in which both parties sincerely care about each other.” (Jones pg 33) “Competence is developed by being able to perform a socially valued task as well as or better that others at one age level.” (Jones pg 33)  “Power (contribution) refers to an ability to understand and control one’s environment” (Jones pg 33) I had never thought about contribution as being separate and so important. I knew it was important but I thought it would fall into place if the student was connected to the teacher and classmates. Competence is the key to success. A young child who does not feel competent is likely to act our or hide in the corner. Those ideas really struck me on how if those ideas are not in place how the dynamics in a classroom would change, and not necessarily for the good.  Secondly, according to the Jones text there are three types of student/teacher relationships.

1. “Almost complete openness, in which we share a wide range of personal concerns and values with students.” (Jones pg 64)

2. “Openness related to our reactions to and feelings about the school environment, with limited sharing of aspects reflecting our out of school life.” (Jones pg 64)

3. “An almost exclusive focus on a role bound relationship; that is, we share no personal feelings or reactions but merely perform our instructional duties.” (Jones pg 64)

The #1 thing to take away from this chapter is the teacher needs to be confident! I believe that almost complete openness is truly essential to a productive classroom.  Students need to know teachers are human and make mistakes in life.  I tell my class anything they want.  I tell the parents anything as well.  This has never come back to bite me.  The confidence is very important as well.  I always say I should personally call all my first year of teaching students and apologize to them because of how bad I was.  I lacked confidence and boy oh boy did it show. I don’t think a teacher is ever completely confident because we need to grow with each new class of students we get.  If I ever stop learning, caring and be engrossed in my profession I will walk away from it forever. These two concepts alone changed my teaching the most. 

The Accommodating Literacy Learners class was a required course which typically doesn’t thrill me because I like to choose my classes based on my interests, weaknesses and what will improve my teaching the most.  I was pleasantly surprised with this course.  I didn’t realize how hard I would have to work in this class, but I did.  The focus of this class is how students learn to read and all the different learning disabilities associated with reading.  Confidence was built on how to teach students how to read especially ones with reading disabilities.  I truly needed a break after two semesters in a row, so break is what I did.  I enrolled in the summer of 2010 for two more classes: CEP 840 and TE 850.  TE850 explored all different types of children’s literature.  It exposed to all different genres, authors and styles.  Some of the books I liked and some I didn’t but at least I could justify my reasoning.  I dug deep into books for deeper knowledge and read between the lines of books.  Authors write books, but usually they write for so much more than its surface value. We read the classics who had been re-written, japanese literature, and picture books portraying slavery.  Books are composed with evey detail in mind such as the words and the illustrations.  Books are so much more than words on a pages, prior knowledge justfies our interpretations and there isn't a wrong interpretation just a different one.

Spring 2011 is my last semester which when completed I will be 9 months pregnant.  I find myself applying everything I have learned in the Capstone course.  I’m digging deep trying to remember courses, professors and everything in between.  It has been a great treat realizing how much of my knowledge I have applied to my classroom and life.  I am also taking Educating Students with Challenging Behavior.  So far in this class I have learned to work with various challenging behaviors and how to remain patient.

This is has been an amazing journey, one of which is ready to come to an end.  I have cried, laughed and cheered over the past few years, but I’m ready for the next chapter in the life book of Angie LaBay.

Angie

Source: Jones, V. F., & Jones, L. S. (2006).Comprehensive classroom management, Creating communities of support and solving problems (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn Bacon.