To Teach or Not To Teach...That is the question?

 As in any classroom, we have a diverse group of students with many different individual needs.  The two biggest that stand out to me are our multiple ESL students, and our group of special needs learners.  This makes for an interesting day, where no single lesson plan is going to support or help our general ed students, or ESL students, and our students with special needs.  Instead I am pretty sure that my cooperating teacher makes no less than four separate learning plans for each day.  Before I discuss these differences though, I do love that she always starts the day with commonality (which in usually music based).  I think this is so important to find teaching moments that appeal to ALL the students so that "groups" are not formed and that they continue to feel like a classroom community. We are lucky in our class that we have three aides as well as the teacher.  I know that this is not normal and most classes are lucky to have one aide, but three...

 How grateful I am for the rulings of the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Lau vs. Nichols.  Without this judgement I would not have some of my favorite students in my class.  We currently have four ESL students and they are just delights.  All of them are native Spanish speakers, who are at differing levels of understanding with English.  As a result I have watched my cooperating teacher make changes to her lesson plan to accommodate their needs.  The first thing she has done is obtain  software that helps the ESL students learn English.  While other students work in the writing program Lexia we help our ESL students with their program.  I also enjoy the fact that she has learned that these four students love music, and will learn English quickly through song.  Every morning we sing the same songs over and over that give the days of the week, months, and counting and these four students sing the loudest of them all.  She will ...