In a classroom that aims to be inclusive to all students, a teacher should aim for these goals and strategies:

 
* Keep records on <b>ALL</b> their students, but in particular those who you know have learning needs and those you suspect have needs as well.  (Those you suspect are of utmost importance because you will need evidence when reporting to parents and looking to get students assessed.)

* Running reccords are particularly useful and, once you've learned how to do them, easy to master.  They give you an idea of where your student is, was and is hoping to be at a glance.

*  Keep your classroom well organized and make minimal changes to the environment.  Students with needs often also need consistency, both in daily life and their surrondings.  When these things are changed or interupted, that's when problems can occur.  Anything from a temper tantrum to loosing all the confidence they've built up.

*  Strategies for all learning types.  Not everyone is going to be an auditory/textual learner.  This can be especially true with students who have needs.  They often learn better when immersed in a hands on activity.  (This is particularly relevent to ESL students.  Visual clues are essential to their development).

* Keep parents notified on what you are doing to help their child.  They will apperciate this.  (Some may even demand to know what's going on.)

* Allow repeat readings of books.  This aids in sight reading.  Memorization of a book is NOT a bad thing.

* Allow students to work with other students.  Peer learning can be much more beneficial to children than time with a teacher.  Also, it allows the student with needs to feel like part of the group, important to their growing self estem and confidence.  Peers, particularly in early years, tend to encourage classmates rather than put them down.  

* Make sure hearing and vision of students is regularly assessed! You may have a student on your hands who seems not to be listening or progressing at all when they're in one spot but do great in another.  It might not be the company, it might be a health issue.

Our first task was making a culture jamming image. Most people took adds and manipulated them but I went with jamming a concept. The picture is big so it's cut.

( Click me! )

There are a couple tshirt manufactures that are ace at culture jamming. My particular fave is Tshirt Hell though they can be REALLY crass and antiPC. Still....so good.

Another media creation that was assigned for a weekly task. THis time? A website!!!

http://www.butterflyishida.com/aus/globalsite.html

ugh, bad layout.

Where are you from? Add it to the map!

Well that was usefull....the lecture I mean. I wish I knew more about the Aboriginees but I guess that's just a matter of not being in the part of the world that they are native too.

bichan came with me to this lecture and was really impressed by it, telling me that she learn more about Australia's Indigenous people in those 2 1/2 hours than she ever did in school.

All I have to say to that is: WHAT?!?!

Do Australian students really get that little education about their native people? I mean, ya at home we don't get tons but I remember we had a big unit on Native Americans in year 7. We went to a resevere and everything, getting to see log cabins and Native dances.

Its sad really that Aussie kids wouldn't get this kind of perspective...

But anyway, into teaching Indigenous students...I think what we were told could apply to ANY indigenous culture. Considering that I want to teach around the world, some of the advice is really helpful to me. Particularly knowing your student's heritage and having a mentor of the same background avaible to them.

I wish I had the oppurtunity to meet more of Australia's Indigenous people...I've only met one and he was a scary drunk guy who was trying to pay me for sex. Um ya no thanks. Ahh, those people who got to go up to Darwin and work in the villages up there. They're so lucky!

What are Aboriginal villages called anyway? At home their reserves or settlements...hmmm. I'll have to do some research. Just for my own curiosity.

w00t! A lecture that applies to my experiences. Oh man, I was bouncing through this one so much that I had to break it up into two seperate posts.

Okay....students with special needs in life. I've had experience in this with one of my placements.

A young girl....she lives in a really rough, negavtive environment. She's got three older brothers and has to scream to be heard. Its not as bad as some kids have it I know, but its a striking example, to me at least, about what some kids have to put up with.

What I learnt from her teacher was how to deal with it. When she does something good, then its praise, praise, praise. Negative behaviours. Ignore them unless they're highly distructive and when that occurs, just nip it in the bud there and then. Typcially by praising another child who's exhibiting the behaviour you want the problem student. Gods, its amazing the progress you get out of that!

Does being an ESL student come under special needs in life? I think it would...its so hard to work with students who have a limited grasp on the language. But its rewarding too isn't it? I think I have the patience for it but I don't want to do it all the time. Its like the austism thing in the Special Needs Academic post I made.

But ya...ESL kids. Its amazing how differnt the things you teach them are to what you teach the English speaking students. Looking through the ESL books, its all survival skills...like what do these signs mean and what's your phone number stuff. I've found that were they lack in literacy then make up for 100% in maths. They LOVE maths! Its crazy. I guess that's because numbers are numbers no matter the language.

Hi....can we discuss my nerdiness? I damn near jumped out of my seat when push up boxes were mentioned. I'VE SEEN THOSE IN ACTION!!! Omg, and they work so well. The young boy I was working with when the teacher introduced me to them...he was SO excited by them, knowing that he could figure things out with them. Unfortunate though, that they were only really good for 3 or 4 letter words (or so I was told). There's something thrilling about knowing about something before the lecture and stuff...does that make sense? I've spent a good deal of time with Special Needs students...mostly Austic kids. That was my job from high school right up until I came to Australia. I spent 6+ hours a week with a young Austic girl, working as her tutor and mentor. IT was greatly rewarding and she remains very dear to me, like a little sister but could I do that full time? HEeeeeeeeeeeeeell no. No way. Too tiring and draining. Yes I have the patience and the drive to work with these students and have them succeed but I also have an inate laziness that makes me rather work with "normal" students. I wouldn't mind having any special needs students in my class but as an aide for these students or working in an austic school? I'd loose my mind. Still....it was always rewarding to see her achive for what she'd been striving for. Particularly if it was something on par with what her classmates were doing. She was always so proud of that.

What using Mulriliteracies means to me! Featuring the Rainbirds by David Metzenthen and Sallu Rippin

The critical literacy lecture that Chris presented us with was amazing for the mind, I can't read or watch anything now without critically analyzing it and  looking at it from various perspectives. 

I did take issue with one of the things that he mentioned however.  I'm sick to death of media and academicoutlets slamming on Disney!  A friend of mine <lj user=unhappyending> recently made <a href=http://unhappyending.livejournal.com/684817.html>this post</a> which thrilled me because her points coinside with mine, particuarly the notion of the damsel in distress.

Yes, the vast majority of the early Disney movies may have played out this way but the more contemporary ones like Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Lilo and Stich, etc, have <b>strong</b> female leads who are determined, if nothing else, to do what is right in their eyes.

My biggest disagreement with Chris's comments about Disney was the lack of visible minorities in key roles.  Again with the 'in the past' point.  Yes, for many years Disney charactesr were either white or animals, but that's so not true within the past 15 years or so of Disney movies.  Chris was having us critizie the lack of black or African-American characters when there is a whole slew of ethnic characters presented!

Aladdin --characters are all Persian
Mulan --characters are all Chinese
Pocahontas-- half the cast is Native American
Jungle Book (An OLDIE!) -- human characters are Indian
Lilo and Stitch -- many characters (including the human leads) are Polynesian
Hunch Back of Notre Damn -- gypsies

I could continue but that gives you know opportunity to think up anymore.

While I think critical literacy is all good and important to the classroom, I think it was a mistake to focus on ONE thing to be criticizing.  While you're focusing on that, you're missing all the other points that disagree with that one thing.

Yes Disney has a lot of white characters and no blacks, but they do have a whole range of other ethnicities well represented.




And we're not even getting into the live action shows and movies that Disney produces.  Take sometime to research the Family Channel and you'll see just how few blacks there are there.

Hi there!

If you're reading this, you're either one of my flist (friend's list) members, a classmate from Deakin, one of my assessors or just a poor unfortunate soul who stumbled on by. It really doesn't matter however, because I welcome all of you. This lj (livejournal) is my final project for my ECJ 713 course...which goes by the formal name of Visual Arts, Language, Humanities (HSE): Education.

This final assessment was up to us and we were given several ideas to run with or allowed to come up with our own. I love blogging and my personal lj has been my favourite online haunt for over 5 years, so it felt only natural for me to present in this fashion.

What you're going to find here are my reactions to the lessons and lectures we've had since our return from 2nd prac (starting today actually! Hee!) as well as the ICT tasks we were assigned in those 6 weeks from the beginning of term to the day this assignment is due.

You'll see blog entries (duh!), images of culture jamming, photostories, global maps and links around the net.

I hope you enjoy your stay here and feel free to leave comments. The anoymous posting is on so you don't need an lj account, just a valid name and email.

Cheers!
Janine