Monday, February 9, 2009

Journal

I decided to start a forum for my own personal reflection in the future in regards to teaching ED in Northern California. It seemed more appropriate to post thoughts in a different place other than the blog I am currently creating for Chico State.

While attending a meeting on PRO-ACT today (which turned into an ED staff mtg, which was great) I came to a realization. I have been somewhat miffed at why there is not any consistency or some specific program in place to handle behavioral emergencies. A handful of AI's and teachers pelted our program director with scenarios and challenges which we face as teachers.

As such perplexities were discussed with the staff on hand, I wondered to myself why there was not anything handed down on how to deal with such difficult classroom situations. How could it be that the ED program has been on our campus for over a decade and I feel like I am reinventing the wheel? It came to me that the long time teacher of that class was very knowledgeable and unique in his approach towards such a challenging population. Having a behavioral modification system in any classroom as well as a token economy system is a must- and only falls second to the need of an interactive and direct instruction academic component. After hearing the same answers from school psych's and program directors, I realized that we are, despite our ignorance at times, truly behavior specialists and the experts in our fields. The tools we have at hand are only those which we can acquire through education, research and peer relationships. That knowledge carries a two fold conclusion. First, we must look for more research based answers to implement into our tool belts as educators. Second, there is simply a duty to confidently and constantly shoulder the challenges which we face in our positions as educators.

It would be a fantastic position to be able to train teachers for ED positions. At this point I can hardly claim any full knowledge of how to redirect, elevate, uplift, and pull very troubled students out of their personal quagmires to find harmony in the classroom. There are many models which can be viewed in video formats that teach proper and successful techniques but there should be one or two very clear formats being much more readily available, simple and thorough.

As a take away from our meeting today, I decided that staff in our classroom would discuss at the close of each day, a new modification to possibly implement when we are dealing with students in crisis or those with unmanageable behaviors.

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