Special Education - Tuesday January 29, 2008

Today I walked for two minutes to get to my assignment for the day which was at Potter Street Elementary in Bainbridge.  It was very cold this morning, although the remainder of the day turned out to be rather warm, high, in the low 70's.

The class in my charge today consisted of eleven children and also a "special-ed" class.  I was told "special-ed" means they can have a learning disablility or a behavior disorder.   At first, I was reluctant to take a "special-ed" class, but this class came with two para-pros to assist me with the daily routine.

I wondered why a kid named Kenzie is in this class because he was well behaved, well-mannered, did his work, had very nice penmanship and did everything he was supposed to without a bit of trouble.  I did not have to plead and beg him to do his work.  He seemed perfectly content sitting there writing all the numbers from 1 to 100.

Malik, on the other hand, had a real hard time sitting still, could not stop making a strange noises and I could not get him write his sentences.  He would take an entire line to write one word no matter how many times I tried to show him how to keep all the letters the same size.  He meant no harm, although he seemed to forget why he goes to school.

It ended up being a nice day.  Having eleven special-ed children in one  room wasn't so bad.  They did not seem to be anymore fidgety and restless than other kids their age.  I think for the most part it has to do with their ability to do school work at their grade and age level.

Overall, they were the same as many other kids, trying give the "Sub" a hard time and trying to push the envelope to see how much they could get away with, without being sent to the principals office.