July 8, 2008

The other teachers and I have decided to implement learning stations--this is due primarily to the proscribed classroom setup in the Voyager lesson plan we're using for the summer. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of this particular Voyager lesson--ancient Egypt. I am all for inquiring into and celebrating the global community--and, perhaps for this reason, I feel like an entire summer unit about ancient Egypt seems rather inapplicable. The Egypt described in this book is nothing like modern Egypt, nor do I feel that Voyager does a good job contextualizing this for the children. Give them a sense of temporal progression, for goodness sake! I remember when I was a kid, and I learned about ancient Egypt, it took me a good five years or so to realize that Egyptian people didn't write using hieroglyphs or worship sun gods anymore. I can't remember if the way I learned it was anything like how these kids will be learning it, but I can only imagine the confusion it'll cause.

Jojo keeps causing disruptions during the class. They're never such uncontrollable behavior problems that the whole class goes into an uproar, but it's definitely distracting Jojo from participating in the lessons. All of the teachers, though we haven't yet received IEP's or anything of the sort, assume that he has MR. When he does participate in class discussions, his responses are often unintelligible (i.e.-"Jojo, what how old was King Tut?" "(animated mumbling)...firetruck!"). The other kids laugh, or look a little confused, but have so far never been cruel or condescending to Jojo, which is a wonderful thing. Nevertheless, it's been difficult working through these issues and still trying to include Jojo in the class discussions. When I'm leading one of the learning stations, I still try to ask him questions (1. He might actually have something to contribute. 2. It'll keep him attentive, at least.). We'll see what modifications we'll make in the following days.