 Hands-on training in special needs Teachers-to-be such as Dani Broe go into real classrooms to get feel for things to come
By Julie Poppen News Staff Writer The brown bag lunch discussion is supposed to be about new state standards for teachers. Judging from the participants' glazed expressions, the topic doesn't spark much interest. When talk turns to special-needs students, however, the University of Colorado teacher-education students perk up. They put their lunches aside and lean forward. They want answers. "I never realized how vulnerable you are going to feel," CU student McKenzie Ray says. "I think that's ridiculous we don't have any training in special ed." It seems clear that just how to teach special-needs students, particularly when they're mixed into regular classrooms, has eluded some of them. Last semester, Ray and several other teacher-education students, including CU senior Dani Broe, spent one day a week observing classes at Broomfield's Mountain View Elementary School. Mountain View is known as a "center school" in the Adams 12 Five Star School District. The school houses the self-contained special-education programs, along with a program for hearing-impaired and deaf students. This is where Broe and her peers get a firsthand look at how students with special needs are educated in public schools. And it's a lot different from the education-theory classes they took earlier in their college careers. Ray laments that those classes didn't address "what to do when a kid screams out loud in the middle of class." Broe says that special education was discussed "extensively" in some of her classes, including the lengthy process teachers and school staff go through to place a child in special-education programs. "I feel like I have been prepared as well as one could be from a university classroom perspective," Broe says. "We've also discussed what our role as teachers is for special-ed and ESL (English as a Second Language) students and that there are tons of resources out there for us as long as we know where to look." One CU course had Broe helping a Korean student with his reading and writing at his home once a week for an entire semester. Some of her early introductory courses had students observing or role-playing the process by which students are placed in special-education programs and learning about the legal requirements involved. As a child, Broe volunteered at a therapeutic horseback-riding center in Colorado Springs, where she worked "with all kinds of different people" with special needs. In seventh grade, she spent her school year mentoring and offering assistance to a physically and mentally disabled ninth-grader. She feels less prepared to work with ESL students. "I haven't had a whole lot of experience with (ESL) in the classroom setting," she says. Linda Molner, who runs CU's teacher-licensure program, says Broe knows enough to get started, but she acknowledges that teachers do need different skills than they did 20 years ago. "Second-language learners had dropped out of school by eighth grade because they weren't getting served," Molner says. "You never saw the special-ed kids. They were out in the trailer."
In late November, Broe spent a day observing all the special programs at Mountain View, beginning with a gifted and talented classroom of fourth- and fifth-graders, who are working with complicated fractions. She moved onto a weekly counseling session for special-education students, where the vast range of learning needs becomes evident. Nine students with a range of learning disabilities and emotional and behavioral problems sit in a group on the floor with a counselor, their teacher and a teaching assistant. They are a playing a memory game that helps them process their emotions. Cards with words including lonely, angry and scared are face up on the floor, then turned over. The students pick cards from a new pile and try to match them to the words they can no longer see. They talk about situations that make them feel those emotions. A child named Jordan sits on his knees and fidgets despite an earlier warning to be still. "Jordan, sit on your bottom or go to the time-away room," the teaching assistant says. As the class ends, Jordan hangs back from his classmates heading for the cafeteria then admits to his teacher he doesn't have a lunch. Broe also visited a preschool classroom of hearing-impaired children. The children are playing a game to practice their communication skills. All the youngsters wear FM auditory trainers — headsets that amplify the teacher's voice and cut background noise. Broe wears a similar microphone and headset when she teaches the 22 third-graders in teacher Vince Ardito's class one afternoon. Two of the students are hearing-impaired. A sign-language translator is always in the room. Broe is giving a lesson about the weather. The rambunctious students take what seems like hours to follow Broe's simple instructions. As they cut out paper thermometers, the noise level mounts. "Guys, it is so noisy in here," says Broe, looking like a switchboard operator with the headset on. "I know it's an activity that's kind of busy. But it's so loud." In addition to handling the chaos around her, Broe must also be cognizant of where she is in the room, Ardito says. "You have to be in the habit of watching the interpreter to make sure you're not moving too fast," he says. Veteran teacher Terry Donnelly, a literacy-resource teacher who coordinates Mountain View's partnership with CU, says a recent college graduate can't possibly know how to effectively teach every single student. "They're much better-prepared in content areas than they are in dealing with management or special-needs kids," Donnelly says. "There is very little way they can become adept at that without experiencing it." This semester, Broe's last, she will be regularly evaluated as she student teaches full time at Arapahoe Ridge Elementary School, also in Adams 12, in teacher Marnie Danielski's fifth-grade class. Individualizing instruction for each child is one of eight broad categories evaluators will use to gauge Broe's performance. The class has some bilingual students, one emotionally disturbed student who often leaves class to work with a social worker, and six students who aren't technically classified as special education but are struggling and receive special services. There are two gifted kids and two kids with attention-deficit disorder — one who is on medication and another who is not. Danielski calls the classroom demographics "typical." And she believes Broe will do just fine. "She seems to do an excellent job with all the different levels," Danielski says. "She kind of has a natural ability. It's not something she's been taught." As Broe enters her final semester, she firmly believes that each student is important. In her final children's literature class at CU's Boulder campus, CU associate professor Shelby Wolf, who brought her giant white stuffed dog Nana to class, urges the teaching students to "look for the magic in all children." Wolf was crying. So was Broe. Contact Julie Poppen at (303) 892-5176 or poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Age: 22
