Reflections Upon Day One of Student Teaching

My first day of student teaching went really well. The teacher is great, the students are great, and everyone I have encountered so far has been very nice to me. It does turn out that I am working exclusively with severely disabled students. Every one of them is probably functioning at low level intellectual and cognitive functioning. The array of diagnoses, as best as I can tell, range from autistic to mentally retarded to visually impaired. The students are learning simple reading, math, and life skills. But they are very nice kids, and I look forward to working with each and every one of them.

In addition, my assigned teacher is as nice as can be. She is able to answer every question I have, rarely loses control when stressed, and already treats me like a colleague. In fact, I consider her to be the antithesis of my old boss at the preschool I worked at. She was very impatient, and felt children should be trained like dogs (she herself has admitted both things). The stark contrast between who I am working for then and now incredible.

I will say the only downside so far is getting used to the schedule. I am definitely not used to it yet, but I know I will have to get used to. This is something I am going to be doing for many years to come.

At-Risk Watch: Poor Vision

I have started a new series on this blog that I call "At-Risk Watch". When I find a new and interesting study, story, or post that looks at 1) characteristics of at-risk students and 2) reasons why students are at-risk. The other day, I looked at the problem of early chronic absences, which would fall under this category (although I had not created this series yet).

Today, I am looking at the connections between poor vision and students who are at-risk. At Education Policy Blog, Aaron Schutz (an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) has created a post on poor vision linked to a number of stories and studies. Most people probably think this is a relatively minor problem that is usually corrected with glasses or other forms of visual modifications. But it appears that this assumption is wrong.

The most interesting study for me is the connection between poor vision and delinquency that Professor Schutz has posted.