Hey All!
It's been a minute! Kindergarten is not for the faint of heart and any K teacher that blogs is a better time manager than I am. Well, my days as a kindergarten teacher have come to an end. I got a call in July asking if I would be willing to fill a position at my campus in the SpEd department that they were having trouble finding the right person for. I'm not one to turn down an opportunity to try something new, so I said yes, right on the spot. So, my new title has taken me into very uncharted territory. I teach Resource RLA to 2nd and 3rd graders. I also teach Resource Math to 3rd graders and I do inclusion services for RLA and Math for a 1st and 2nd grader, and just Math for an additional 2nd grader. My caseload isn't a lot, just 13, but its about all I can imagine handling right now.
This summer, before I even knew this position existed, I read a book called Personalizing 21st Century Education, and like most things that call for education reform, it fired me up. I like to think that our life has stepping stones that lead to different moments, and this stepping stone led me to accepting my new position so quickly. The book was all about getting rid of grade levels and the August to June schedule we have kept for so long. Students work on devices and in groups of peers on their academic level. Teachers are facilitators of different groups of students, monitoring mastery of standards and adjusting the content to reach the individual child's needs. Each student is on a path that fills the gaps. There is no retention, no resource/inclusion, no gifted and talented programs, and no age groupings (other than looking at maturity levels of our younger students. We aren't putting 5 year olds with 12 year olds.). Students work on their path to success individually. This was one of those, "Whoa!" moments for me. Why do we group by age? Why does retention have to be this horrible thing that we have to walk on eggshells about. This new design checks so many boxes for me. On the flip side of our struggling students, this would challenge our more advanced students constantly, and keep them from having down time. All teachers will say they meet every student in their classroom the best they can, and that is absolutely true. The kids that keep us up at night though, are our struggling students. The ones who aren't quite getting it. The kids who have mastered the content you are working on gives you a sigh of relief, not panic to extend their learning every single day. That is a problem for those kids. They need to be extended everyday, but in a class of 20 multilevel students, that just isn't practical. If you do small, fluid, ability based groups, you eliminate that issue.
This would be an incredibly hard change for our society. We have already seen the impact changing how we teach math had with non-educators. In general, they criticize and reject anything that doesn't look how they think it should. Our world has changed and this model of education no longer fits the needs of our children. Our kids have global access and the internet offers answers to almost anything they question. They need us to help them navigate their learning and bring out the very best in them.
So, all this to say, this new position has really given me the room to experiment with this model, since my children already have IEP goals and it is a small class size. I think that is what I am most excited about this year. The chance to try something new and impact our students in a great way. I'll do my best to keep the blog updated in this ever changing world of Special Education.
Sincerely,
Amber Sparks
