Intern Year: Fall 2013: Week 7

            I experienced a situation where a student cried.  The student has become obsessed with earning stickers, and if he does not earn a sticker for the day, he thinks he did something bad.  However, the way the students earn a sticker is through being focused during the lesson, completing their work, and actively participating.  The stickers are not based on the academic grade.  But, his mom promises him that if he earns all his stickers, he will be rewarded with a new Infinity game or action figure.  If does not earn all of his stickers, his mom only focuses on that.  The student has become obsessed and is worried constantly about earning his stickers.  If he does not earn all of his stickers, he has a meltdown.  We had a discussion yesterday with him that he can no longer talk about or ask about stickers.  The student repeated what we discussed about if he asks about or talks about earning stickers, he will lose his stickers for the day.  Today, at the end of the math support session, he asked if he could have a sticker, and I had to enforce the consequences we discussed the day before.  I asked the student what we discussed about stickers the day before.  He explained that if he asked for a sticker, he would lose his stickers for the day.  He then had a meltdown and started to cry.  It was very hard not to give in, but I had to keep the consequences even though he was upset.  He understood what would happen.  Now, the special education teacher and general education were discussing completely doing away with stickers for him, because he has become obsessed and completely focused on the stickers.

            I was observed by Sarah Steel yesterday, and at first, I was very nervous.  However, once I started teaching it was like nothing was different.  My students and I have been working on Tacky the Penguin this week, and yesterday we completed a writing activity.  We also focused on diversity, and the students were able to recall and summarize what we did the day before with diversity.  It was so good to hear them talk about being different is a good thing, and how they are unique.  They all really accept each other and cheer each other on.  That is the most heartwarming.  They are all pulling for one another, and I hope that they keep that compassion. 

            Throughout the semester so far, I have seen the lack of writing skills the students possesses.  Every week I try to incorporate some type of writing to get the students more comfortable with the writing process.  The students all have great ideas and great discussions, but they have a difficult time putting their ideas onto paper through writing.  I am hoping with the increased exposure to writing, they will feel more comfortable and able to write.  This week, they wrote about how they are unique.  They all thought of very great creative ways that they are unique, and all of the ideas were different.  The students even “performed” by presenting their passage to their peers.  It was a great experience for them and to see them develop over such a short period of time.  I can see their writing developing with being more creative, using correct sentence structure and punctuation, and putting more ideas onto paper.  I hope to see more development over the semester.