My kids are achieving so much. It is just phenomenal. One of many examples is “Justin”. When “Justin” first came to PS 20 he was illiterate in both English and Spanish. But because of his motivation and the help of another classmate, “Maria”, he is now writing paragraphs that express his thoughts and feelings. The spelling may be wrong and the grammar less than perfect, but it is such a big achievement to be able to express yourself when you used to be without words. In the beginning of the semester I had a lot of time to work with him. However, last week I had to start putting him on computer programs and asking “Maria” to work with him so that I could equally focus on the other students. Taking this step back has allowed me to really see how much he has improved. But it has also been great because it has helped “Maria” tremendously. It has given her the confidence she lacked and helped her master skills. I could not think of a more fitting pair of motivated learners who are helping each other learn while pushing each other to keep growing.
Some of my kids are at 7th grade reading levels while some of my kids are beautiful writers. Every kid in the room has such amazing talents and I want them to really recognize that and be proud of themselves by the end of my time here.

But the ridiculous amount of pull-outs bothers me. We have such good classroom flow but then there will be 3 kids who miss all of that and fall behind. The pull-outs are meant to help the kids but I don’t think they are really helping them. I think it is more important for the kids to stay in our class, struggle a little, receive help from their community of classmates, and be an active participant. I think I would really like to observe the pull-outs and see how effective they are.

There are lots of kids in rough spots in my class and I worry that they are not getting the emotional support they truly deserve. I just wish I had more time to hear all their stories everyday. Because if there is anything I have learned, it is that the most important thing is to show a student that you genuinely believe they can achieve anything. The academics will come with time. But if they don’t get the love they deserve, they will just give up on the system and all will be lost. You have to show the child that you always have their best interest at heart.
~Yuka

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 1:54 am and is filed under ues reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.