special needs in the classroom

When you look up special needs you get the following definition. Special needs: (Noun) particular educational requirements resulting from learning difficulties, physical disabilities, or emotional and behavioral difficulties. There are so many different types of special needs children may have that teachers must keep in mind when making lesson plans. It's especially hard to create a lesson that is not to challenging for the children who struggle to learn but at the same time challenging those who understand the material well enough. I believe children with special needs should not be made to feel like they are any different. That is why I believe inclusion is so important, it's like you are giving these kids a sense of belonging. That is an important factor for younger children's development especially. In my future classroom I would make sure all my students knew that they are all special and were put on this world for a reason. Next I would make sure that I understood more in depth what special needs any of my students have. Then I would talk to someone who specializes in this sort of  area and ask for any advice they may have. Then I would talk to the parents and with the specialist and hopefully together we can come up with a plan. After that I would make sure to put my students in pairs by how they are understanding the material. And after that is complete I would put a pair of students who struggle with a pair of students who comprehend the material together and that would be a group or table. You see this way the students who understand can now teach the other students how to do the material. I believe students learn best through eachother and can also help boost their confidence. This is because children are no longer afraid of asking questions since their friends are the ones "teaching" them. This also gives the teacher more time to work individually with the students who have special needs. This also gives those students who understand the lesson something to keep them entertained. I do believe that speacial needs and gifted and talented students all in the same environment may be hard. Just because it's hard doesn't mean that you should give up it just means you must find a way to bring balance into the classroom. You should never stop trying to get your children engaged and wanting to learn. The minute students sense this they will believe you are giving up and that is very dangerous especially for tougher children's development. This is why I would make sure to always motivate all my students and make sure their parents are involved in their education. I believe that special needs students just need extra help and the gifted and talented students just need challenging work that will catch their attention.

What is creativity?

I recently watched a TED talk from Sir Ken Robinson "How to Change Education" I will expressing my ideas over this video in my blog this week.
  When you search up the definition of creativity you get the following: Creativity (noun)- The use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of artistic work. Creativity to me is the freedom to express oneself in whatever way they can. Creativity is extremely important in education, sadly it is not encouraged instead it is suppressed. In his video Mr. Robinson says " children have a vast appetite for learning and it only dissipates when we educate them." This got me thinking of why that statement is so true. You see in today's world we teach our children to get them ready for a test. Our educational system revolves around exams and squanders any trace of creativity a students might have. We teach them to think like everyone else in black and white. This is why we have so few people who appreciate art or any form of creativity. Mr. Robinson also says " To teach you don't need to know everything...you do need to be able to excite people about the material and fuel creativity." Kids are so desensitized to creativity and passion that when we try to get them to use any form of creativity or passion they fail or end up trying to copy the example the teacher made. We have for as long as I can remember taught kids to become sponges just soak up information. Often people ask themselves "why are we Americans ranked so low on our high school graduates." Well we take away any chance of kids wanting to continue their education. I have so many teachers who try to let us be as creative as we can. Yet at the same time the same amount of teachers are also killing any chance of having creativity in the classroom. I have a teacher who lets us be as creative as we want. She lets us use Pinterest and has us do fun activities every once in a while. I use to hate school, I mean I was on the verge of dropping out of school. Then I started seeing this teacher do all these unusual things to get kids involved in learning. That class encouraged creativity and let us use it to our best abilities. I suddenly found confidence and a passion for education, so much that I decided I wanted other kids to feel the same way. I decided that I was going to be a teacher and change how we view teaching. I want to encourage students creativity every possible way. I have kids come up and show me these beautiful drawings and I tell them how beautiful they are. Then I ask them what they drew about and they tell me it's a part of the story or a funny story that happened yesterday. You can just see the passion and creativity being incorporated slowly but surely. Soon they will get older and there won't be as many drawings on the walls because they are busy studying for a test. Soon there won't be any more time for making their project creative because they have eight other classes who also asked for projects. We need to start encouraging kids to be creative. We need to take a break from all these assessments and just focus on letting kids learn from one another. Mr. Robinson brings up the topic of flipped classrooms. Ever since I heard of this idea I have become obsessed with somehow getting it incorporated into our school. I strongly agree with Mr. Robinson about building our education system from the ground up. Think of our education system like a house. You don't build the houses roof first right? No you start off from the ground and work your way up. The same applies to education we must start off from the basics. This means getting creativity incorporated into all grade levels and keep encouraging them. I believe that by having flipped classrooms for older students we can begin to slowly but surely see a change in education. Students have time at school to learn from one another and encourage eachother. I also love how Mr. Robinson says that education is personal. What this means is that every child is different. Yet we treat all students the same and expect the same outcome from them. Our system is extremely broken and we need to find a solution fast. We need to get teachers who encourage students to be free. We need to stop undermining education when it is the most important profession their is. We need to get kids passionate about their education. Like Mr. Robinson says " you don't teach a child to speak...you encourage them and help them." We shouldn't teach our children to want to learn, we should encourage and help students find a passion for learning. The only way to do that is to get more creativity flowing into the classrooms. To let students express themselves in their work. To stop basing our curriculums around assessments and instead base it off of things students will use in life and carry with them forever. I have so much respect for teachers out there who want to teach differently but can't because the government won't let them. I know that when you signed up to be an educator this is not what you signed up for and I appreciate your effort to try and bring in creativity.

Here is the link to the video incase anyone wants to watch it.