(photo credit: Thanks lawson 8th grader 08')
I spent the better part of 2008 substitute teaching in SDC(Special Day Classes) classrooms in Cupertino Union School District. I started that year(2008) only being called for Instructional Aid positions all across the SDC board in k-5. I was fresh from positive experiences in elemetary school and Middle school as a sub and wanting to stay in my comfort zone. By the holidays I was getting frustrated and I was still working with different special needs kids almost daily. They ranged from gifted and blind, to obnoxious and rude and everything in between. I worked with a blind 6th grader who I got to know fairly well. I have run after kids out of the classroom and around a playground because that's what they were want to do all day. I have listened to teens talk openly about all the medications they are on. I have seen SDC teachers in their worst and best times(those are sometimes in the same day), and I feel deeply that these people are saints for their efforts and for their just being there.

I had so many deep experiences through the work I did in SDCs, often times hard won, that I started to realize that for whatever reason I was only being called for Special Ed, I was being graced with experience in a world that not many people can understand or even have regular access to. The Special Ed classroom is a site to behold. It can make grown adults shake in fear and run the other direction, and these are just my thoughts from k-5. I would rather never be left in charge of a SDC in high school if I can help it. It simply takes a very special person to be involved in helping people with special needs navigate the school system, life, and themselves.

EXC 625

My feelings and ideas that came from my experience in SDC classrooms is still and might always remain foggy at best. So much of my humanity is called into question during this period in my life that there are definite loose ends that I either didn't want to, didn't know how to, or didn't have enough time to approach. I even think that some of those tough spots resurfaced subconsciously as I approached this class and I tried to avoid it by (unsuccessfully)rescheduling. But here I am facing these thoughts, ideas, and memories while looking at them from another vantage point.
This class seems straight forward enough and I know what I need to get done and it is a welcome change in sheer volume of work there was for TED 615. I was left feeling a little bored and bothered by Prof. San Filippo's speed-reading through her power-point presentation for several hours. Frankly I can not even fathom teaching a university course in the evenings after managing an SDC class during the day. Prof. San Filippo impressed me tonight for that reason. If TED 615 taught me anything, it was that her teaching style is undesirable; "content teaching".

We are required

to include the following header questions as a framework for our weekly reflection. Seriously I am confused on the choice of questions as they seem too arbitrary, but I am going to make the most of it. I personally have 3 work sites that are currently "teacher learning areas"; National university, Hyde middle school wood shop(with Neal Wooley), and my own woodshop. My weekly reflection for EXC625 will include experiences and thoughts from all three. I have not yet seen a direct connection from my Teacher Candidacy here at National University to the space and materials I will teach in an Industrial Arts shop, so I am building that bridge wuth my own shop business model which you can read more about on this website.

What have I learned about teaching?

From the slide notes and the book, I have learned about the clinical view of special ed. All the rules and regulations regarding teaching, talking about, and working with parents and administrators and other teachers.
On Tuesday I spent the morning in Hyde's shop observing a Demonstration by Neal Wooley. He is a master of blending practical life skills and support for multiple academic subjects and held together with some fun humor and tough love. Of particular interest on tuesday was his mini-lesson about note taking. I seriously can't remember ever getting a note taking lesson in school beside my Mom in 3rd grade. Since I have spent the last 10 years keeping journals/sketchbooks so I have my own style of "note taking" that happens to be very similar to what Neal talked about. He explained to the kids that they should probably be watching the demonstration more than they should be writing notes, and maybe notes could even happen after they practice applying what they saw. Notes should be very concise and personal to the note-taker. In an academic class, we copy notes and information is pumped into the kids.
My personal note-taking practice is to make a quick sketch if I am building something. maybe jot down some ideas or forseable tough spots about the project. If it is a graphic/info piece(I have a graphic/web design background) I still start with drawing diagrams and pictures and add text notes. My problem is that I have an unhealthy scattering of my "notes" in various books and on this website. I would like to work towards a more clean and orderly process that eventually culminates on this website. My efforts so far are still scattered, but I ma pleased. You can check out my Education content here

What have I learned about learning?

I keep coming back to the concept of learning through Application. Neal repeats it all the time, and it is the core learning mechanism inherent in shop. We work with our hands and apply the knowledge we received through instruction. The product is a physical reality of your current understanding of the task.
If this is the learning-nature of shop, then I need to make this the learning-nature of my teacher candidacy.

What have I learned about planning?

In my own shop I have been building Picture Frames(shameless plug!!) I decided that if I am going to have any production value in picture frames I would need to be able to glue more than one at a time. So I planned and built 3, 4-corner frame clamps from wood that would otherwise have ended up in our landfill. Another 5-6 hours of planning and building and I should have enough clamps to start moving stock through my shop.

What have I learned about assessment?

Need to be flexible and positively project their grades when they have unfinished projects at the end of grading periods.

What have I learned about myself as a teacher?

I need to be in a shop everyday and looking at my teacher candidacy through that environment. I have learned that I need to push myself to be creative and approach teaching differently from most of my experience with teachers. When I am creative I am enjoying what I am doing, and I am most creative when I am working in a shop environment.
And there is many lessons in everything we do.

What have I learned that will help students learn?

See thoughts on Neal's lesson on "note taking" above.

On what do I need to focus and perhaps improve?

I always have room to improve my self-discipline. I often know what I want to get done, but take too long to get to it, and end up losing ground and ideas and thoughts. Execution is what I need to work on.

In what areas am I confused or need additional help?

I was thinking about the observation we need to do by next week and I spend time in a middle school shop at least once a week where I know there are kids with special needs. But they receive the same instruction that all the other kids get. I would like to use this shop experience for my EXC project, but I am not sure how to write about it.