Week 4

I wanted to talk a little about the article about Marcus. It is the one I have most related to and that I have found the most profound personal connection. It really hammers home the message about being flexible. It made me rethink some of the ideas that I had of what my ideal classroom would be. As I was reading , all I could think of was how frustrating it must be to have all these great ideas and not be able to get them across to someone else. I imagine that this is the same sort of frustration that is felt by ELL students. It also reminded me of an students I observe a couple years ago. I was volunteering at a summer school writing class for 5th and 6th graders. One student in particular had his parents come in and talk about how stubborn he was and he was unwilling to work on his writing. After watching him for a few days the CT had a specialist come in and take a look, she suspected that he had dysgraphia and just had a problem with the physical act of writing. Once they realized his problem they were able to arrange for him to use a laptop in class and he was able to keep up with the rest of the class. He became more involved and actually enjoyed coming to class. It makes me think of the quote from the article, “Don’t be so afraid of differences in kids, it isn’t necessary for everything to be completely the same for everybody all the time.” That is the advice I am going to take with me.