I am a teacher. I love my students, school and my community. I potentially have the best job in the world. I help help kids learn to read, write, understand math, develop friendships, develop character traits that their families are teaching them and help guide their future. What could be better than that?
Every morning I am greeted by a sea of smiling faces and hugs are generously offered at the end of every day. We laugh, we cry, we struggle, we fail, we succeed and we celebrate - usually. We missed the year end camp, sport's day and the water fight too!
But we did have a wonderful year together and I know my students are heading to high school with their tool boxes full of important skills, both academic and social.
So, here is my concern: Students with learning disabilities are the students with completely average abilities and intelligence but generally have one or more necessary skills which are significantly lower than the rest of their skill set. This leads to what we call the struggling learner, the student who needs a little more help, time or support to learn the skill. Much like an engine with one piston not firing just right, the car will get where you want to go, it just might look, sound or travel a little differently. So it is with struggling learners.
Fifteen, or maybe twenty years ago, these students were assessed by teachers and specialists, plans were drawn up, materials purchased and a learning assistant provided. The students' needs were met and they got where they needed to go. That doesn't happen anymore. Some of our most precious resources, our children, are not receiving the services they need to be assessed and taught in a way that is meaningful and successful for them, or our attempts to meet their needs are not reaching the mark because we don't have the personnel or the resources to do it properly. We have untapped talents and underused abilities in some of our students who need a slightly different set of tools. This is what teachers are crying about when we talk about class composition and class size, it is about finding a way to reach every child in our classrooms, and making every one of them look in a mirror and see a confident, capable learner!
Suzie Barrio
Prince George
