brette

When I first learned that i was assigned to the Special Ed section of remedial math, I was a little disappointed–or, more accurately, scared.  I have very little experience with Special Education–the modifications, the IEPs, the ARDs, the other acronyms.  Furthermore, I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to reach the students or that they wouldn’t respond to me.

In reality, I couldn’t have been farther from the truth!  My SpEd kids are some of the most endearing:  they’re not in my class because they failed, and they haven’t developed a strong dislike for math.  They haven’t been labeled as “bad” at math (but that doesn’t mean that they remember their times tables…) and many of them listed it as their favorite subject!

We had some time after they finished their diagnostic test last week, so I gave those that finished early some construction paper and markers.  Here is one of their products:

Also, the following, produced by E:

E:  Look, Miss, I drew this for you!

Me:  Oh, why thank you, E!  It’s beautiful!!

E:  I drew a bunch of numbers.

Me:  I see that–they’re lovely!

E:  And then I put in some math symbols

Me:  Oh, I see!  You’ve got addition, subtraction, multiplication…

Another student:  What IS that?!

E:  It’s raining math.

Hallelujah, it’s raining math:

It’s amazing how different teaching is the second time around.  It’s almost like I know what I’m doing.

My classes are structured much differently this year:

• All 7th graders
• 3 classes of 20 students or less, for 2 periods at a time
• I have a co-teacher

My students are in my class because they either:  are taking the TAKS M(odified) test (and are therefore labeled Special Ed) OR failed the regular (or Accommodated) TAKS test last year.  That means that these babies are LOW.  But they have more time, more teachers, and smaller classes, which will help them be more successful.

We gave a diagnostic test this week, and I discovered that most of our students are on a 3rd or 4th grade math level.  I have multiple who can barely read or write.  Every day, the achievement gap is staring me right in the face.

It’s the first week of school, so I keep running into old students–sweet seventh graders turning into enormous eigth graders!–in the halls, cafeteria, etc.  Today, I ran into my Posted in Teach For America | No Comments »