Week 3 — Connect-with-a-child day; Week 5 — Eye of the Tiger
This is an old post, to be cross-posted over. The context was “describe a student you would like to form a better connection with:
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Student I want to connect with: D
In what ways can I connect with the student?
I’ve managed to connect with D in several ways — asking him for feedback, allowing him to speak his mind and share his perspective in each situation. I’ve noticed that mentioning my expectation and providing him a chance to choose his own way of meeting those expectations seems to help focus him towards focusing his efforts. Also, he quite enjoys engaging in idle conversation about topics of interest while I am in the vicinity as he is working on a task.
What are his learning and social-emotional needs, and how are these met (or not) in the classroom?
I’ve noticed that control, autonomy, and engagement are important motivators for D to do work. One of the ways his previous social support worker encouraged him to work and refocus whenever he became off-task would be to engage him in idle chatter while he was completing his work. Occasionally he may become distracted by the conversation, but when redirected, he would acknowledge and agree and refocus shortly. This, however, is not only difficult to achieve within my classroom (there are several med/high-needs students in my class) but discouraged, as we expect student independence. Being by his side as would an EA or personal coach/tutor would definitely facilitate improvements in academic performance, but could reinforce his preference for and dependence upon the presence of a facilitator, detracting from his development as a student capable of independent effort.
The way I interact with him seems to have struck a chord with him, as he responds well to my suggestions and encouragement. That being said, in my haste to facilitate his learning, I repeatedly forget that I also want him to develop the ability to work independently. This is an issue that I feel will be present for quite a while…
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It’s fitting that I revisit that bit, written two weeks ago. It seems like ages ago since I last put down my thoughts regarding D… and it’s safe to say that the honeymoon period has ended with him. He was heading towards normalcy (his plate was finally about to be cleared after so many weeks of hard work) and then all of a sudden, he was out an entire week with some bug… of all the kids in the class, he’s the one who had the least to gain from getting sick.
By the time he had returned to our class, he had another week’s worth of homework piled on top of what he had already owed. What little progress he had made had been flushed down the toilet with his sick leave… this time around, we’ve been noticing more defiance, more resignation, more acting out; to the point that the kids around him are starting to get really silly.
And this week had been a rollercoaster, too. Started off the week with a good perspective check — I’m doing better than I thought I did. Almost immediately afterwards, making a series of bad decisions that led to a grievous error. Navigating that culminated in a Social Studies lesson exploding in my face. Not a pleasant experience at all. On the bright side, the contents of last week gave me a lot of valuable data for my inquiry project, as I was caught completely unawares and while my guard was down I was completely run over.
Tomorrow is the beginning of a new week… and is definitely a new beginning. Transition into 80%. I’ve made it this far with the tireless hard work and bottomless patience from my SA and FA. Their continued faith in me has inspired me to keep pushing forward through those roadblocks; hopefully I may continue to blow through those blips as they arrive. Who knows, maybe by the end of this I may end up channeling Mr. Simpson. How might that look like in this day and age?