A also found that the students who were not labeled as special education also learned lessons from those who were. In the class I observed there was a special education child who was deaf. Each of the regular education students in the classroom adapted quickly to having a deaf peer in the classroom and they would make a point of being sure to have his attention before they moved on to their play activities on the playground. At the lunch table they made sure to include him as well.
Before observing this classroom I had thought that students this young were unable to give of themselves so selflessly however I found that they are not only able that they take it in stride which creates the foundational understanding and acceptance of the world's diverse nature.
One of the things I thought that turned out to be the case was that Kindergarten students in both classrooms needed time to get the physical energy out several times a day. I watched the teacher as she invented and used letter and number games that allowed the students to jump n place, or make loud noise as they were learning the lessons while at the same time being able to make noise and move about.
Preschool
When I was observing the preschool I began a bit behind because I had not before been in a teaching setting in a preschool.
The teacher of the class asked me to describe in a few sentences what I thought teaching preschool was like and I told her lots of playing and a little learning.
It was through this eight-week observation that I realized how much playing is about learning.
The regular education teacher asked me to develop a lesson that would help them with their fine motor skills and I developed...
The lesson I learned from that was that this age bracket has a hard time focusing for very long and I probably would have been better off using an art lesson for them to practice their fine motor skills with.
In the special education preschool classroom I found that the
developmental and physical delays in this setting are more evident or obvious than they were in the Kindergarten setting but I believe that has to do with the fact that the federal law begins helping special education students at the age of three so there was a larger age spread in this classroom than there was in the inclusion
kindergarten classroom.
The observations and experiences that I had during this observation period provided me with
insight about teaching that I never had before.
As a pre-observation teacher I had the idea that all Preschool students were on the same level and that all Kindergarten students were on the same level. I was surprised to see how many differences there are in the students in the classrooms.
I was left with the understanding that the most important thing I can do as a teacher is to understand that each
student is an individual and that each one comes with various levels of abilities.
In addition I have found that before my observations I was not a big believer in inclusions as I believe that it would disrupt the level of the classroom.
Now I realize that there are so many different ability levels in a regular education classroom anyway that the inclusion of special education students only serves to enhance the
diversity of the classroom and give students the opportunity to teach each other when the occasion arises.
