Teaching Hope: Disillusionment Reflection

"I started my day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. I end my day with an ongoing pledge to Ema and other students to give them hope to hang on to, to acknowledge their being, and to honor their heroic efforts to graduate from high school."

This quote was from entry 81, where a special education teacher strives to help Ema, a high school senior with dyslexia, graduate from high school. As I read this I wonder to myself how I would handle having not just one, but maybe five to ten students like Ema in my class. Students who have specific learning disabilities with IEPs what I must abide by and differentiate my instruction for. So as a teacher I not only need to make sure each and every one of my general education students are preforming well and engaged, but also that several students may need specific instruction that needs to be integrated into the lesson. It sounds near impossible to be honest. However, if that is my duty, and that is what will be expected of me (most importantly by the students), then that is what I will do.

As hard as we may try, and as bad as we want to see students succeed, there is only so much we can do. Entry 83 is a sad story, although unfortunately there is truth to it. When I become a teacher, I want to be able to have a connection so strong with my students, that they will want to do homework and work hard. I want them to feel like they will disappoint me if they do not do it, not that it will be no big deal. Listening to what this teacher did, and what Erin Gruwell did with her students, it makes me want to have a similar approach. I want to be able to pull aside a student into the hallway when they are not preforming well and tell them just that. I want to be able to have a serious conversation with a student and tell them that I expect more from them because I know they are more capable then what I am seeing. When you pull them aside from their peers and make it a one on one situation, as long as you have previously build good rapport with them, you should be able to make a meaningful impact on them and their work ethic. I want to be the fun teacher, but not the teacher that everyone thinks is a pushover. Students will work hard and I will expect that of them. Although I have strayed a bit from my original point, the fact still remains, there will be a student that is being impacted so strongly outside of the classroom that their work inside the classroom will be negatively impacted. There is nothing we can do to stop those outside forces--only continue to have high expectations.