IDEA: Students with Disabilities.

This is a topic that I have a great deal of passion about. I have seen IDEA in action in the schools I have done my hours for pertaining not only to this class, but in many other classrooms I have interned in for the past 2 years. In my classroom right now, it is kind of hard to see specific learning disabilities with children that are so young. My kindergarten class is wonderful and I love all the students in it. The parents had to fill out a substantial amount of paperwork when they registered their student for school, and had to have a meeting or two with the classroom teacher, and what the school calls the "Skill Building" instructor. They help devise a plan for their childs/students learning to best suit their needs. There are 3 students in my class who have a hard time in the classroom, and 2 or 3 times per week they will go with the skill building instructor to another room in the school, and work on things that they may be falling behind in.
For example, we were working on spelling certain focus words about a week ago, and once we looked over the students worksheets they turned in, Mrs. Bennett made a few notes concerning those students that have been having a hard time with spelling, and reading, to give those notes to the skills lab. I thought it was such a smart idea to not waste any time to work with these students. The next day, 2 of those students were taken to skills lab to work on those words, and a few other things they had been working hard with. I have a lot of sympathy for learning disabilities because my own little brother has one. He was born premature and so his cognitive and mental skills have developed slower than a lot of the other kids his age. He had a hard time learning how to walk, and speaking came a little later, and even now kids his age are wrestling with each other and being rough, and he still has a little skip when he runs. He is such a smart kid, and when I was considering going into elementary education, my parents encouraged me to help him at home, and I couldn't be happier I did. He has taught me so much, and so have the students in my classroom. Not everyone is at a runners pace, or even a brisk jog, some students are just walking along and doing it one step at a time.  IDEA is such an amazing principle, and I don't think we would have created the education system for these students without it.

My little brother Fischer catching drops of rain in Hawaii