A Different Perspective

I wrote this last year when I was teaching first grade at Bennett Russell Elementary School...

Having a son like Luke has caused me to think about so many things. How will he be perceived? What will his experience in school be like? What will be his diagnosis? What will my future be like with a son with disabilitiies?In thinking about my own experience, I begin to think about other children who struggle in school, whether they have a disability or not. There are a couple students in my class who struggle. I find myself wondering how that must be for them. They are so sweet and so young to already have struggled so much academically. Sometimes, teachers can view these kind of students as almost a heavy weight of sorts. These students tend to be a bit more high maintenance. On the surface, they seem to have no motivation for learning, and because of this they can have behavior issues. Sometimes these students are viewed as lazy and as goof-offs. I have begun to look deeper than the surface with these students.
Imagine for a moment that your husband or wife took you to a place where you were made to play an instrument like the violin or piano. You have no idea how to play, and you are being told that you HAVE to play. When you ask why, The people just tell you "because I said so". They put a piece of music in front of you, give you the instrument, and expect you to play right then and there. You've never really wanted to play the instrument and have trouble finding a reason to play. So, you struggle because you can't read music, the instrument is just plain confusing, and you really don't have a good reason to try. You are frustrated and the people are frustrated with you. How aweful that would feel! Then, you begin to feel bad about yourself, and to make matters worse, you are put with the group just like you who have no real motivation and are struggling and frustrated. You are made to play that instrument during your 90 minute instrument block. You have an instrumental intervention specialist, and you go to a 20 minute instrument intervention group every day. All the while, no one has helped you understand the reasoning for learning to play in the first place.
You see, all of the best instrumentalists and musicians could teach you, but until you begin to motivate yourself, you will never truly learn how to play.It is the same with these students. Until you prove to them that it is worth it TO THEM to learn, they will never reach their full potential. Oh, they may learn, but may only be learning to get by. Instead, let's show them that they can learn and that the only limits on them is the limits they put on themselves.