Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lily Kanefield
SERP404
The University of Arizona
Elementary School in the Sunny Side School District. In this classroom there
performing at the academic level of a 1st grader in reading, about a 2nd grade
level in math, and about a 2nd grade level in writing benchmarks. The teacher
in this classroom is Claire J; she has been working with students with EBD for
over 40 years. She is a wonderful and encouraging mentor and has giving
this classroom the students work on challenging but fulfilling content that not
only makes them better students but better people. The students in this
have school counselors coming in and out, and have reported to their
teachers many cases of abuse and other harmful situations. However, most
of the time these students are just your typical 4th graders trying to get
outbursts, he has never been constrained, and he is not diagnosed with any
aids believe there is more going on with him that is undiagnosed. I have
been invited into this classroom to analyze Anthonys schoolwork, test him
on different achievement test, and study his behavior. Her goal for me in
his aids and teachers believe that his diagnoses is incorrect and not
benefitting him in the classroom any longer. The goal for the students in this
while also following all content standards for a 4th grade class in the state of
Arizona.
emotional disabilities, study Anthony and his work in order to draw some
management in hopes of helping him move on to 5th grade next year. I hope
to get to the bottom of what is holding Anthony back from being the best
learner that he can be. This will be done by analysis of his work, testing,
research, and observation. My goal is not to have a label for Anthony when I
a student. I think that I will gain a lot of knowledge through experience and I
grow as students and grow as people, that is the environment that is created
Rivera elementary I see that there are a lot of cultural misconceptions that I
have made myself, and that many people would make if they were looking in
classroom is that there are 8 students, 4 of which when you look at them
many would call white. That, however, is not how any of my students
Americans. One day in class we were actually discussing the presidency and
president that they would be kicked out of the country. Claire, however,
informed them that they are all legal citizens and that no matter what they
that since my students are in special education that they are dumb or do
not perform at grade level. My students are all labeled with ED, therefore,
many of them perform at grade level and some of them I actually believe to
adults throughout their lives, is very advanced and above average for a
that just because they are labeled with ED means that they are always
of the emotions of people around him, whenever I sigh or look tired he will
hit himself on the head or bang him his hand on the table. He is very aware
of what feelings are and how to read them; the only thing that he is trying to
work on as far as his emotions now is how to control them. Over the past two
years that Claire has had Anthony* on the classroom, however, he is the only
My job in this project is to try and look through Anthony*s work, test
him, and observe his behavior to try and help the teachers find better
learning techniques and plans for him. The other day I gave Anthony* a QRI
of word identification, level of oral word reading, and level of oral reading
for high grade levels, he was reading at a frustrational level, which means
the material was way too challenging for him. This means that he needs
during silent reading instead of reading 4th grade level books with the aids
(which is what he is doing now). That information is not only way above his
reading level, but it is also way above his comprehension level at this time. I
took it upon myself to try and work with Anthony* during math while in the
noticed the aid who usually works with him was a little bit upset and hesitant
to give that responsibility to me. I decided it was needed even though the
confrontation with her was a little awkward, only because I notice she is not
him. When I worked on math with him I noticed he needed a lot of reminders
level work, he just needs extended time and definitely needs some cue
always tells me people are screaming at him, he often talks to himself, and
he gets very emotion (overly happy and sad) at very random points. He is a
One of my students was removed from his foster home and placed in a new
foster home, and therefore had to switch school districts. This news was very
hard for me to handle because I felt like the student was just starting to get
new classroom and has to start all over again. I also was very sad because
my class put on a poetry slam, and only two parents showed up. My student
practiced his poem over 15 times that day. He expressed that he was excited
to read because his parents have never seen him read. However, his parents
didnt show up and he was obsessively drinking water right before his
classroom is just the polar opposite from how I grew up and the elementary
involved my parents were, how many resources my school district had, and
how dedicated my teachers were. I think I want to work in schools like Rivera
diverse classrooms where you really have the chance to make a difference
on a students life and hopefully provide a safe and happy place for them to
semester I think that one of the biggest challenges that I had and I think I will
continue to have as a special educator is leaving the job at work when you
leave work. I loved working in this classroom so much, I found the job so
fulfilling and at the end of my experience I not only feel like the work I did
actually had an impact on the students, specifically Anthony*, but I also feel
like my presence in the classroom was a nice change for the students.
However, it was very hard for me to hear things like students getting taken
from their foster homes, students parents being in jail and them never
seeing them, students struggling with, in my opinion, neglect, and other such
issues. I truly believe that if you are not the kind of person who gets invested
enough in these problems to feel sad and want to make a difference than
you are in the wrong field, because it is our job as educators to be an ally for
these students and make them feel safe and cared for in our classrooms,
however, I truly struggled and would stay up at nights emailing back and
fourth with Claire about the students, as I was overall concerned and looking
for any way to help them. I also think that this problem carries over to an
issue I will have leaving students behind year by year and not knowing where
their education will take them. Its hard to get so emotionally invested with
students just to realize that once you are finished teaching them its up to the
always room for growth and that your attitude as a teacher has a huge
impact on how your students behave. When working with Anthony, there
were many opportunities that I could have thought negatively about his
for him, and no matter how little growth he showed I always made sure to
celebrate the little victories with him, and even though he didnt show it, I
think he noticed this and really felt cared for. The idea of positivity in this
field is probably of the most important things you can show your students.
When you are positive that emotion rubs off on them and they feel more
This experience was one I will never forget. I learned so much about
myself, grew a lot as an educator, and really felt that my presence in the
special educator. I think that the work that I did with Anthony will have a
good effect on his education and even if it only makes small enhancements
to his experience, that little difference (and the fact that I might have had
miss my students and Claire; she is a wonderful role model. She is strong,
supporter in every single one of her students lives. I hope that when I have
been teaching for 40 years (like Claire) I am half the educator she is. I owe
Anthony. I was very excited to start this part of my project as I had previously
worked in the classroom, however, this was a very new experience working
solely with him and trying hard to help figure out what specifically is holding
math worksheets from the entire semester thus far, and tried to take
classroom. The QRI was the first thing I did with Anthony, and he was very
upset. During the QRI I noticed that he was obsessively drinking water
upset). He was sighing a lot and kept mentioning that he was extremely
tired. I felt a little bad that I was making him do this testing, however, once
Claire informed me that all the students would be doing a QRI in the next few
weeks anyways I didnt feel as bad. I allowed him to take breaks in between
each reading, and he seemed very down, however, when I asked him if
happy a little odd, however, I couldnt decide if he was just so off task he did
even realize what I was asking, or if he was thinking about other things and
therefore thats what he was talking about when he was laughing and saying
he was happy. The results from Anthonys QRI indicated that he is working at
passages for high-grade levels, led him to a frustration level, which means
the material was way too challenging for him. His math worksheets showed a
Today I was greeted with a big hug from Anthony. Something he has
never done to me, or any of the other teachers before, this was a wonderful
beginning to the day. We had a new student join our classroom today, we will
call her Jamie. Jamie is very interesting a very quiet, in some ways she
reminds me a lot of Anthony, and clearly they think so too, for the first time
every Anthony played with someone on the playground and the two seem to
found out that we lost a student. One of the little boys in our class Fernando
was removed his foster home, as the foster parent had 19 other children and
was not providing necessary things to them, and wasnt making them attend
school. This was really hard for me to digest I felt very helpless in this
situation and really wanted to reach out to the student, however, I had no
means or rights to do so. This was very upsetting because I felt like I was
to me that the life he was living was not only unhealthy, but that he has
been moved to so many different homes, that at this point he is almost a lost
cause. I hate that she said that, but it was in some ways true. Instead of
and focus all my attention on the students who were in class and how I could
help them. That being said, I had a wonderful experience with Anthony when
we were reading together during silent reading. There are a few students
who read aloud during silent reading, as they need help with more than half
the words that they read and also need encouragement to stay on task. After
reading I was sitting talking with Anthony while he worked on his story that
all the sudden he would just start uncontrollably laughing, when I would ask
him what was so funny, he would have rather odd responses, making
comments about, men doing funny things, the people are fighting and the
guy just hit him over the head, or even talking about people inside him. I
discussed this with Claire, when the students were on a break and she
expressed the same concern, saying shes unaware if he is off day dreaming
and just not in the moment at all, or if he may be experience some signs of
schizophrenia.
I went to school today for my students poetry slam, which was the final
project of their poetry unit. They were all so excited, however, with
minutes into the performance when their parents didnt show up, when they
thought they didnt perform their best reading their poem, or when they got
nervous before the performance. Anthony was doing his normal nervous
poem; he was also getting into a fast blinking motion before and during his
performance. I practiced his poem with him all lunch and during specials, so
he felt very prepared, and he did amazing. Although he read slowly and
rather quiet, he read every word perfectly and even put a little emotion into
his voice (which is not the norm for him). At the end of the performance he
let out a big sigh, and said, I did it as he slowly walked back to his seat. His
parents were not able to make the performance, which I found to be quite a
shame, as I think they would have been very impressed with what he
thought my kids would be very hyper and excited for the evening and not be
able to focus at all. However, when I got there Claire informed me that both
the aids were out sick that day so it was only going to be the two of us in the
classroom. At first this worried me a lot because I am not CPI trained, so, if
there was a situation that required a restraint, Claire would have to do it, so I
would be in charge of the rest of the class. When I got there I was pleasantly
surprised with how calm, respectful, and smoothly the day went. Without the
two para-educators there, there were not power struggles with the students,
everyone was working together so nicely, and Claire and I had complete
control over the class, which I really enjoyed. Today was a very up and down
and he got to a page where a line was being measured on a ruler, however,
instead of starting at 0, the line started at different parts of the ruler so you
had to do some extra calculations to figure out how long the line was. This
was extremely difficult for Anthony and he couldnt grasp this idea. He got so
frustrated that he began to cry and call himself stupid. Claire and I were so
sadden by this and provided him with lots of encouragement and threw out
the worksheet. Besides that this was an amazing day with Anthony, he has
been working on a few books that he self illustrated and wrote, although the
content was focused a lot on killing and other interesting messages, he was
so proud of his product, and I have never seen him so outgoing. Claire let
him read his book during read aloud and he read it perfectly, and was so
tears. I was so proud of him, not only for the amazing work he did, the
wonderful performance he put on, but also for how happy he seemed when
all the students told him how much they loved his story.
Dom*, had a huge tantrum in the classroom that put him and the other
students in physical danger and caused a very traumatizing scene for the
students. Dom did not want to go to music, so he was given a zero on his
behavior chart. This would have been okay, however, one of the students
was taunting him about this, which caused Dom to get very violent, he was
chasing one of the students around to room saying, You want to fight me
bitch? He was pushing her shoving desks, and ultimately knocked over a
table. Claire put him into a constraint, however, he is a very strong child, and
so we called the office for back up, as she is unable to hold him down alone.
While in a constraint he was crying and screaming, saying that Claire wasnt
allowing him to breath and that he was hurt. This was just so that she would
let go, however, she was doing everything correctly and being watched and
assisted by two other adults. During this loud and some what intimidating
scene, the other students in the class were suppose to be doing silent
reading. None of them could focus, all very upset about what was happening
in the back of their classroom, except for Anthony. He had zero emotion or
reaction to the situation. When Dom would scream and cry louder, Anthony
would just raise his voice a little bit more while reading aloud to me. After
to the kids to make sure that they were okay and not too upset. When Claire
and I asked Anthony how he felt, it was almost as if he had no idea what
situation we were even referring to. He said he was hungry and ready to take
a nap when he got home. We were concerned, but no surprised it seems that
Anthony can block any outside noise out and this must be the reason that he
seems to always be in his own world. Other than that tantrum, today was a
pretty typical day in the classroom Sam and Jamie are now very close friends
and seem to even like each other as more than friends. On the playground
today one of the para-educators told me that some of the kids were making
fun of them for being together so much, and telling them to kiss, although it
seemed to bother them in the moment, they didnt seem to care and