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    Under, In, and Outside the Box: Teaching All of the Children
    Under, In, and Outside the Box: Teaching All of the Children
    Under, In, and Outside the Box: Teaching All of the Children
    Ebook148 pages2 hours

    Under, In, and Outside the Box: Teaching All of the Children

    By Barbara Barber

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    About this ebook

    25 stories of children from a teaching career spanning 40 years illustrate with humor and pathos the power of teaching with positive energy. Each child, and his individual circumstance, will help future and current teachers realize that an attitude of failure is not an option will create success for ALL children. It is easy to learn how to teach children to read, perform math problems, and write, but there are times when a student comes into a teachers classroom unready, unwilling, and unable to learn. These stories demonstrate how a teachers creativity and commitment to student success can turn the child into one who is ready, willing, and able to learn. Each chapter ends with a short list of suggestions for teachers of general and special education students.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateAug 8, 2011
    ISBN9781463434632
    Under, In, and Outside the Box: Teaching All of the Children
    Author

    Barbara Barber

    Barb Barber taught general and special education students in Arizona for 40 years. She taught children with developmental delays in segregated classes and schools and also in fully integrated settings and designed new special education programs for several school districts. She has stayed in contact with many students and their parents through the years. She is retired and resides in northern Arizona with her husband.

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      Book preview

      Under, In, and Outside the Box - Barbara Barber

      Chapter 1:

      Jimmy

      On Back-to-School night a young mom came in with her two really little girls clutching her hands. Suddenly, she looked back for her son who had stayed in the hall. I glanced up and saw an adorable chubby, bright-eyed face peeking around the door frame into his new world. There was no smile, though, and then, there was no face! Mom let go of the girls and rushed back out into the hall and the chase was on.

      It only took a couple of seconds of looking at that impish face and I knew Jimmy would be one of my favorites. I was teaching a class of moderately mentally delayed intermediate-aged students. This boy had Downs Syndrome, he had no language, he was overweight, and he obviously loved his mom a lot. He preferred the summer lifestyle: sleep ‘til you wake up, eat whatever you want, whenever you want, lie on the floor and look at magazines, go eat whatever you want, whenever you want, watch cartoons and laugh, laugh, laugh, eat whatever you want, whenever you want, go outside and make your sisters get out of the swings and then swing and swing and swing and then go eat lunch. That sums up Jimmy. He was spoiled just a bit.

      The year Jimmy started in my class was my first year of teaching my students in a total integration model with two fifth grade classes, half my students in each class. The teachers of the two classes team taught and now we would be a team of three with 70 students altogether, 35 in each room. We had had a partial integration program the year before to see where the bugs might be. Our goal was to be completely integrated but meet all of the needs of each group of students. Jimmy needed to learn to communicate, to care for his basic needs, and to become as independent and socially acceptable as possible.

      When I met with his mother to set up his goals she couldn’t imagine that her son could ever learn a fraction of what I suggested, but she went along with my ideas. She also worried very much that he would be lost in the crowd of 70 students. It may sound unbelievable, but our program was very well organized. Since there were three teachers involved, we had three adjacent classrooms. All of the academic work was done in two classrooms and we used the third classroom for times when we combined all of the students.

      Once a week my class spent the entire day in the community learning functional life skills. We had units on skating, hiking, swimming, park activities, bowling, and so on. We went out for lunch each week to learn to order, to use good manners in restaurants, and to use money. We also went grocery shopping. Each student had a list of four items and the money in his wallet to pay for them. One regular education student from each of the two classes had the opportunity to go with us by turning in all his or her homework for that week.

      Jimmy started the year wanting only to do his own thing. During any group activity, he sat and held any object he could find and watched it while he made it sway back and forth. He didn’t listen at all when we were in a group. If he were called on, he put his head down or turned around and put his back to the teacher. He did like his desk, though. When he was supposed to be somewhere else, like in a math lesson, for example, he would constantly run back to his desk. He never said any words at all. He didn’t need to, at least as far as he was concerned. I didn’t agree.

      When each morning began, the fifth graders were given something they had to do the minute they sat down: a math problem, a sentence to correct, or something to read. It was a way to set the tone immediately. My students, who were scattered around the room, one in each cluster of 6 desks, had their sticker cards, used to reinforce good behavior, and schedules on their desks, and their job was to write their names on each.

      Jimmy was unable to write his name and he didn’t trace. He had no interest in it. His card and schedule had his first name printed with a highlighter, to encourage him to trace it, but initially my goal was for him to pick up the pencil and try, which he stubbornly refused to do. Kyle, who sat next to Jimmy, became fascinated by him and made it his job to be sure Jimmy learned to write his name. I held Jimmy’s hand with the pencil and traced his name with him for the first couple of days and then Kyle said to me, Mrs. Barber, I can help Jimmy. At first, as Kyle helped him, Jimmy giggled, but from that moment on, Jimmy’s progress was amazing. I’ve always noticed that a child learns best from another child and this case proved it again. By October, Jimmy was picking up his pencil and trying hard to trace, with Kyle’s encouragement. Kyle would say, Write your name, Jimmy, while I do my work and Jimmy would pick that pencil up and scribble on his name. By November, Kyle decided that wasn’t good enough and he literally insisted that Jimmy follow the line and amazingly, Jimmy tried; by December he could trace his first name.

      What impressed me so much was how matter-of-fact Kyle was about Jimmy’s abilities. He knew Jimmy could do it, and he did it. By the end of that first school year, Kyle had made a greater difference in Jimmy than anyone could have imagined. He began saying single words at Kyle’s insistence and he wanted to play with Kyle on the playground. That didn’t always happen, but Kyle never rejected him. By February, Jimmy was printing his first name, which we shortened to Jim, by using his pencil while following someone’s finger. We didn’t have to touch him, or hold his hand, and he could produce Jim. By the end of the year, he could print his name if told the letters, but he often made only one hump on the m. Kyle made it his business each morning to be sure Jimmy made that m correctly.

      At the beginning of the next school year, we were in our second year of the integration experiment, but now our old fifth grade friends had moved on and were sixth graders. By October, Jimmy was able to print Jim independently. Soon after, Kyle, now a sixth grader, came to visit us and asked how Jim was doing. We said he was great, but Kyle said, very seriously, No, I mean with his name. Is he making two humps on that ‘m’?

      That kind of dedication from Kyle during the previous year is the reason I could say, "Absolutely yes." Kyle beamed.

      We had a sharing time with the fifth graders in our schedule that first year. The teacher would ask for volunteers, and many of my students participated very well, but not Jimmy. He was happy and content to sit with the group on the floor, but he didn’t seem to listen and he definitely didn’t participate. When we called on him and asked him to stand up, he just turned away from us and rocked back and forth. We made some progress but mostly it was just getting him to stay seated facing the same direction as the others.

      By February, Jimmy felt very comfortable with the fifth graders and the routine, and he started to be a little silly. That was good because it was a form of social interaction, even though he found humor at inappropriate times. The other kids realized that he loved to high 5 so that became Jimmy’s way of striking up relationships. On Valentine’s Day he brought valentines for each of the students and as he passed them out, he high 5’d each student who loved it. He started becoming quite popular. Even though his giggling and his constant high fives could be a distraction, they were actually solving one of his big problems, a lack of social interaction. Soon, during the sharing time, we began to see that Jim kept his head up and he started paying attention to the children who spoke, but he still refused to stand up or say anything. Toward the end of the school year, a student had brought an article from the newspaper about a drug bust at one of the local high schools. Mrs. McNulty, my team teacher, suddenly looked at Jim and said, Is it good to take drugs? and he said, NO! We all nearly fainted. One word and we were almost in tears. All the children clapped. He grinned from ear to ear, aware of his success.

      The second year we changed this sharing time to a current events time, and students brought in an article from a newspaper to share. The kids sat on the floor and the child who was sharing stood next to the teacher. Jimmy no longer turned away; he watched each child, but he rarely participated. More and more often we were able to get him to repeat a key word from their article. In October, this is what I wrote in my parent newsletter:

      The biggest event of this week (and maybe this year) was that during Current Events one day this week Mrs.McNulty asked the students, Does anyone have a current event article to share? Jimmy (yes, the same boy who spent all of last year ignoring us when called on) RAISED HIS HAND up high, totally unprompted, and when Mrs. McNulty called on him, he STOOD UP, walked to the front, held up his article about the Phoenix Suns, and said, Ball Mrs. McNulty, my aide, Cynthia, and I were speechless. We were just speechless. Can you believe it? That’s the power of patience!

      At the home visit with Jimmy’s mom at the start of the first year, she had talked about how difficult it was for her to go anywhere with him. He was frightened in crowds, ran from her in the grocery store, and didn’t want to share with his sisters. When I told her that we would be having swimming lessons once a week all year, she told me he was terrified of the water and she couldn’t imagine any way on earth that we would get him in the pool. I assured her we would. She didn’t believe it. When I told her we would be teaching him to skate, she laughed. Everything about Jimmy was round, including his feet, so it was a little hard to imagine how we would find skates to fit, but we knew we would. Home visits are fantastic and so very helpful. It’s important to know what the parents’ concerns, fears, and hopes are. Many times I discovered, as in Jim’s case, that my expectations were quite a bit higher for the child than those of his parents.

      Let’s start with swimming. Jimmy was willing to walk around in the very shallow end, but he wouldn’t go near deeper water. If forced, he screamed loudly and got a grip on your neck and had to be pried off. For the first few weeks, we developed the routine of getting him in the suit, getting him in the shallow end, and then we let him sit on his towel near the deep end (about 15 feet away). Amazingly, by the end of October that first year, he actually was willing to sit on the decking at the side of the deep end of the pool. Our first major breakthrough came in November when he willingly gave up the death grip and held a kick board with both hands while I held him up with my hand on his stomach. He kicked and seemed to enjoy it. We were so happy. By the end of January, once

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