July 16, 2008

Two new students arrived today: Tammy and Noah. I'm still so pleasantly surprised by how receptive the other kids are to newcomers. I remember when I was around sixth-grade age, new kids always seemed to go through a period of ostracism. Maybe the fact that our class is so small makes it much harder for "cliques" to form. In either case, they joined our class seamlessly.
Noah's performance was ok on the math assessment; Tammy performed extremely well. Both of them, especially Tammy, seem like very smart kids. I remember thinking to myself today, "In a way, it's kind of a good thing we didn't read or see much about these kids' disabilities--had we known, I'm pretty sure we would have behaved differently, whether intentional or not. With the exception of Jojo and Kevin, whose disabilities are very apparent academically and socially, I would never have guessed that we were working with special education students. Each one of these kids has exhibited a skill that he or she excels in. For that, I'm very proud of them.
I hadn't mentioned before, but Ahmed has a stutter. So far, we haven't been informed why. Ms. von Furt's guess is that if we were to see an IEP, "language" would probably pop up somewhere. However, the stutter's expression is so rare, that for now I'll work under the assumption that he just has too much to say at once. Who can fault anyone for that? Better that he participate wholeheartedly (which he does) without feeling self-conscious. I must also commend all the other students for never, ever making it an issue.
The other DC teaching fellow led the class today. It's pretty interesting to see how different our teaching styles are. While I joke around with the kids a lot, and occasionally use the "teacher voice" when needed, Ms. Zhou is soft-spoken, calm and serious. When there is an issue of misbehavior, she doesn't have to raise her voice or make herself sound snappy--somehow, she accomplishes the same exact thing I do with the "teacher voice" without really changing the volume or cadence of her voice. I wonder now: how much should I try to incorporate Ms. Zhou's teaching style into mine? At what point can I decide what works well for me, and what I could actually try to emulate? Ms. Zhou and I are very different people, but we manage a good working relationship; maybe this would be a good way to internalize our teaching styles as well.