Bad Apples?

In thinking about my placement, I feel like I have a very idealistic environment where my teacher doesn’t label her students bad apples and doesn’t necessarily have the pressure of placing her students on specific tracks according to large classroom. Because she only has 8 students in her classroom, she is able to work with them on a more individual basis. Even with this, she sometimes has a hard time getting all of her students to be productive when she needs them to be.  Since it is special education, she also has the privilege of being able to evaluate each student individually, since concepts like the IEP require it.

If she were forced to label her students in some way,  I believe that she would not be able to. She genuinely believes that each of her students is capable of achieving what is put in front of them though their progress is not as accelerated as students in a regular classroom, when progress is made, students are often proud of themselves.  For example, one student, who’s verbal skills are not up to par is always constantly perfecting the way he announces his words. If he does not get it in the first few tries, he will keep trying until he gets it and my teacher will wait, listen and assist until he gets it down.

She does label students according to their behavior and work habits but not in a sense that she doesn’t believe they can accomplish their goals. For example, she says that one student is completely capable of finishing what she gives him but he is “just lazy”. Her acknowledgement of this lets me see why she is always constantly reminding him about his assignments and constantly checking up on him.