My Best Buddy Kelly

 I was challenged by my teacher this week, (the second of my 10th master's of education course which is the Understanding Barriers To Learning course I am taking right now) to imagine there are two students with learning disabilities in my classroom. What would I do with seating arrangement (eye roll) and how would they impact my role as teacher. This is what I wrote to make the best of this pretty pedestrian writing assignment:

Two Students With Disabilities

I have worked with students with disabilities before and have read literature that included recommendations for classroom accommodations that should be made for students with physical, sensory, or intellectual disabilities and it seems the more I do either, the more my teaching style is reinforced as “disability friendly.” Like Faris Algahtani, I attribute some of my methods to constructivist and behaviorist principles (Algahtani, 2017), but I think I owe even more to a young man named Kelly who is one of the members of a family of very close friends of mine.

 Almost single-handedly Kelly taught me about challenges with recall, learning generalization, and motivation that are common in students with intellectual disabilities (Algahtani, 2017). He gave me object lessons on the difficulties with self-esteem students encounter when they try very hard but are just overwhelmed with the information teachers are trying to teach them and they become frustrated and lash out (Algahtani, 2017). He graphically illustrated struggles with social skills, conceptual skills, and practical skills that make learning more difficult for students with intellectual disabilities as well (Algahtani, 2017). Maybe most importantly, Kelly employed the teaching tactic of modeling to educate me on the various strengths that exist alongside the weaknesses students with intellectual barriers to learning have. Incidentally, Kelly has Down’s Syndrome, and he has the above weaknesses.

Kelly has many strengths as well. To list just a few, Kelly has an uncommonly developed dedication to making people laugh. He has capacities far beyond most of his peers for joy, affection, and forgiveness. When Kelly hugs you, he means it. These are strengths that short-term teachers may not discover in Kelly and without getting to know him well, some of his teachers have developed similar weaknesses as described above such as frustration, demotivation, and, sadly, self-esteem issues that cause them to question their efficacy as teachers.

Patience was the key that allowed me to unlock methods that were successful with Kelly, and I found that most work well with all students regardless of intellectual ability. For example, teaching from the known to the unknown; employing meaningful real-life contexts; increasing active participation with engaging lesson subject matter; simplifying using mnemonic techniques such as summarizing/paraphrasing/predicting/using mental images; rewarding good performance; chunking; and modeling (Algahtani, 2017). I cannot imagine any of these being very effective without utilizing time and patience to get to know the students and to find out what the “known” is; what is meaningful; what is engaging; what is memorable; what is a good reward; how big a chunk should be; or whether I am trusted enough to be an effective model for each individual student.

So if I had, for example, a student with autism and a hearing-impaired student in my class, reasonable accommodations would be made for IEP’s such as more time for processing and assessing, closed captioning on videos, arranging desks to make room for note-takers or other helpers, special equipment, noise/light/space allowances due to sensory sensitivity, repetition of answers and questions, not turning to write on the board as I speak (Aruma, 2019), and so on, but my teaching style would not change much. As for my role as the teacher in my class, it would remain the same: to get to know the students so I can pinpoint any learning barriers. How else can we overcome them?

References

Algahtani, F. (2017). Teaching students with intellectual disabilities: Constructivism or behaviorism? Educational Research and Reviews, 12(21), 1031–1035. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1160452.pdf

Aruma. (2019). Types of sensory disabilities. https://www.aruma.com.au/about-us/about-disability/types-of-disabilities/types-of-sensory-disabilities/

 

 

I love this dude!

For reference if you ever teach Kelly, anything about wrestling or Hello Neighbor will maintain his attention, he will exercise if it involves walking the family dogs or riding the bike while listening to tunes or watching something he likes. His "known" requires only a little bit of interest and care to unlock. Meaningful real-life contexts and engaging subjects also require getting to know him which will not take too much time if he likes you. Same goes for what is memorable. I found smoothies to be a good reward in the summer but that changes... Chunk size and trust is determined by how genuine you are. Kelly can tell. These things will all be outdated by the time you read this. You need to do the same research as I did. Get to know Kelly!

Future teachers be warned: This kid can be your best or your worst student! One time he looked at me, smiled, and dropped my cell phone on the ground smashing the screen! And he LOVES me! But if you ever need to recuperate from such a nightmare, you can always reference the part of this post that outlines Kelly's strengths. If you haven't yet seen them, have patience. He'll show you a student that is easy to love.

That is all.