Sitting in the Back or to the Side

My objective every day since I got here has been to observe classrooms and interview educational service personnel.  The interviews are semistructured, audio-recorded, 30-minute minimum interviews.  The setting has been the teacher meeting room with two chairs facing each other across a table.  The teachers are highly cooperative here and are very honest and informative about skills they’d like to improve as teachers at Karuna Home.  I don’t know if revealing results on my blog before analysis is the smartest thing in the world to do, so I’ll keep things really shallow and just know excitement is lurking!

One of the best faces.

I’ve completed five interviews and hope to complete at least five more.  I observe all different classrooms every day during class time while taking detailed, structured notes.  During the first few observations I’m a total nuisance with my laptop and gadgets, even though I’m sitting in the back or to the side.  The students at first constantly turn around and point to my laptop and make typing gestures with their fingers.  One student blows kisses to me several times and many other students will simply walk over to me and give me a high five.  Many students think it's cute to make silly faces to me and each other, always hoping I'll be their audience. After a few minutes, though, I can become invisible and really be in the back or to the side. 

Sitting in the back or to the side used to be my “thing,” especially when finding a seat in church or class, but as a special educator in a special education classroom, I feel totally unnatural and almost uncomfortable in my own skin.  At the same time, the expectations in these classrooms are entirely different in some ways than the ones in mine, so even if I did follow through with my instincts on the first few days of observation and start behavior managing or instruction assisting it would probably flop. 

This is me strolling Karuna Home.

As I observe the classes and complete interviews, as I stroll the campus grounds and take notes on schedules, ideals, etc. posted on the walls, as I casually talk with service personnel, and especially as I play with the children on the playground my thoughts are in the most literal sense possible flooded with ideas.  Sometimes I sit back and laugh about the sudden surge of ideas because the first day I stepped into my classroom as a fresh teacher I was blank with ideas.  I trial and errored my way through many problems, while fortunately always being able to rely on my formal education.  In many ways I can empathize for the teachers here without special education training, as in some ways they are experiencing what I did on my first day of teaching every day they approach their work.  But in other ways they are educational veterans, so it’s actually completely different.

The point here is that when I first heard the expectation of my giving teacher training workshops, I had a few vague ideas about what an special educator might need a refresher in, but thought, “Oh great, what will I talk about?”  Now I’m asking the exact same question, but with the issue being that there’s just too much to talk about!  The trouble now is narrowing my ideas into practical workshops that are easily implemented in a short amount of time.  I feel determined to move forward putting my ideas to practice and also a strong sense of gratitude to my professors, my coworkers, my friends, my students, my family, and my aunt Jenny.  Any expertise I may have acquired was all at the hand of my teachers in life and finally I feel like the piece of paper I complain about that I’ve crudely stapled on the wall above my desk really means something.  The piece of paper is a silly evidence of my formal education, the same formal education I’ve mumbled and grumbled about all throughout acquiring it and even sometimes after.  At this point though, man, I owe a lot to that formal education, or I guess I’m just realizing my responsibility because of it as well.  I'm not going to quote Harry Potter right here, though I know it's totally appropriate.