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During my field observation I have experienced what I have read in Special Education in

Contemporary Society. I did not realize what I learned until I experienced it, so I can compare a

lot of what I experiences to what I have read from Special Education in Contemporary Society. I

did my observation at Jim Thorpe Elementary School, Home of the Olympians. Their school has

a wide variety of special education resources for all type of children. From speech, ELA, to

autism and many more programs. My teacher assigned was Mrs. Frey who has been at Jim

Thorpe since 2002. She started out as a general education teacher and is now working on her

special education degree. She is called the resource teacher and her main job is to help

students grade K through second who are behind in reading, writing, and math. These students

are also known as developmentally delayed.

Many states have chosen to define a developmental delay quantitatively, using a

youngster’s performance on standardized developmental assessments SPUED PG 6). Here at

Jim Thorpe they come in with an IEP or get tested with an IEP to determine if the student needs

extra time if they are falling behind. Those are not the only things she deals with. A lot of her

students have other issues she tries to help for their general education class. Other things

include behavioral, speech, discipline, ADHD, language and so much more.

My first day there was mostly observing her afternoon class. As they walked in you would think

they are just normal students. In Special Education in Contemporary Society, it describes

multicultural education as an ambiguous concept that deals with issues of race, language, social

class, and culture as well as disability and gender (SPUED P.83). Nothing physically different

about them, just normal first graders of all different races, gender, and culture. They instinctively

sat down and got their workbook to begin their work, which was learning about a letter. One

student really stood out, she loved to talk, sing and jump around everywhere. While she was

talking to the teacher you could tell, she easily got off topic and had a hard time reading and

writing the letters. This reminded me of the Federal Definition of Learning Disabilities I read in,

“Special Education in Contemporary Society”. The longer I observed her the more items were
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checked off on that list. From basic reading skills, reading comprehension, listening

comprehension, and oral expression. I really enjoy observing her and how she reacted with her

three other classmates.

Each day I saw something new in her, off the top you could tell she does have some

behavior issues. As described, emotional or behavioral disorder is a chronic condition

characterized by behaviors that significantly differ from ages norm and community standards to

such a degree that educational performance is adversely affected. The student I was observing

very much fits this description, she tends to act out and have an aggressive behavior when not

getting her way. Her main issue is violating the rules which causes such bizarre behavior within

the classroom. Later I found out that she does have behavior issues as well as being ADHD.

Mrs. Frey says that she has a lot of issues with this student, but she has come a long way.

I was also lucky enough to sit in on an IEP with Mrs. Frey, for a student I have been observing

in her classroom. The IEP is a planning vehicle that ensures that children with disabilities

receive an individualized education appropriate to their unique needs (SPL ED PG 63). We first

began by asking for consent for me to sit in the meeting, then we introduced everyone. During

the IEP the general education teacher, speech therapist, behavior specialist, the parent, and

Mrs. Frey all were involved in the meeting. They talked about her improvements with her speech

and how she can say correct sounds. She now does not write her name backwards and knows

her letters. Next, they began to work on goals to accomplish such as pronouncing larger words,

knowing her numbers, and writing her last name. These simple steps will help the child learn at

the pace they need. The parent was so happy to see such improvement.

Her child has had an IEP since she was one and she has noticed a big change at home.

She can understand most of what she says, and she sees her dancing and singing at home to

help remember when completing homework. The mother talked about how she started with

early childhood intervention and it has been progress since then. From reading special

education in contemporary Society they talked about Early Childhood Intervention. It states that
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in many instances' parents had to seek out assistance on their own Public Schools do not

routinely offer early intervention or other support (pg 30). Since her child Was an Early

Childhood Intervention, they referred her to the school district in which she found Jim Thorpe to

help her child. Without the Early Childhood Intervention her child would not be where she was at

today. She talked about how hard it uses to be and how frustrating it was on her family and

herself. Have a child with so many disabilities can take a toll, especially if you're a mother.

Mother of children with disabilities have a sense of feeling overwhelmed, concern about

family Finance physical and in some instances mental exhaustion impaired relationships with

other family members and the impact of employment are just some of the issues confronting

mothers when their child has a disability (SPEDU PG119). Special education in the schools has

changed, for this school they base their schedule off of what they are doing in their general

education classroom. Just like the very first special education classrooms were self-contained;

students were typically grouped together and segregated from the other pupils (SPEDU PG17).

They are still self- contained but not so much to where they miss important activities in thier

general education classroom. For example, if they are doing math in the morning for an hour the

student will spend 40 minutes learning in the general education setting then more the other 20

minutes to spend some time in special education to catch up.

During my field observation I was able to sit in a meeting that the resource teachers and the

general education teachers of first graders, have every other Tuesday. They like to go over

things that they can teach their student while trying to stick to the grade level curriculum. Each

teacher has about 6 to 8 students they see on the daily, so this meeting helps see where they

stand. Universal design for learning can be simply stated as “the design of instructional

materials and activities that allows the learning goals to be achievable by individuals with wide

differences in their abilities to see, hear, speak, move, read, write, understand English, attend,

organize, engage, and remember” (Orkwis & McLane, 1998, p.9). They go over the regular

education requirements for their grade level and where the progress of the student is at. They
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make a lot of sensory games and activities that will help these students grasp the concept. The

meeting was very fun, and the teachers involved really go down to business. The passion and

ideas they were sharing was very inspiring. This meeting really brings together both the general

education teachers and the special education teachers to closer to help benefit the children.

Another student I observed was very interesting. When I was first introduced to her, I could

barely understand what she was saying back to me. Her speech and language were developed

at a three-year-old level. She talked like a child and had very toddler tendencies. When Mrs.

Frey would talk to her, she would tell this long story that I had absolutely no idea what she was

saying. Even though Mrs. Frey job is not speech and language she helps her by correcting her

words and saying it the correct way. She told me that this student has improved so much since

she first began here last year. Her speech has improved by so much and she can grasp some

of the words that she's trying to say. I've read in the book that speech and language is one of

the biggest special education classes that children are in each year.

I did not know there was a difference between speech and language that they were both the

same thing, but they are very two different parts. First speech is the expression of language via

sounds and language is a code used to communicate ideas via conventional system of arbitrary

signals (p. 363). There was a time in the classroom where Mrs. Frey did not understand what

this student said, and she threw a huge fit. Miss Frey just let her throw her fit. She says she

does this often when she cannot understand what she was saying. A few minutes later this

student calmly stopped her crying and sat back in the sea and try to explain what she was

saying once more. I could tell that they have been working on this behavior for some time now.

This teacher has such a great routine and discipline on these children that she does not

need to react in a way to where they would get out of hand. All she has to say is excuse me or

no thank you and they are back on track to where they are supposed to be. Even though Mrs.

Frey only worked on Reading Writing and math you could tell that these students have more

issues than just what they are working on. Most of them did have a speech or language issue as
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well as a behavior behavioral problem as well. It seems like each goes hand-in-hand with each

other. They tend to do things that they are not supposed to do like move around in the

classroom when they're not supposed to or over sharpen a pencil just to get attention that they

are sharpening a pencil. Most of the time Mrs. Frey is telling the students to go back to their

work or to pay attention, and the other time she's getting them to talk and use proper language.

With her it's not all work she does laugh and play some games with them and even offer a prize

if they've done well in their class. They have a list of goals and once the goals

are completed, they can choose from the prize box.

The goals she has for these students are very precise and catered to them, goals such as

complete the daily letter packet or count up to 50. Once the packet is complete, she goes

through the packet with them until they understand the letter and are ready to move on. They

have small goals that force them to work harder so they can win a prize before their time is over.

She works with in small groups, compared to the book they are known as alternative teaching.

Alternative teaching is working in small group instruction. They leave their larger classroom to

sit in a small group with Mrs. Frey. They all have the same assignment just with a different letter

or number. You can tell most of the students try and compete to finish first. If their work is

sloppy or incorrect, they are required to correct it and that can bring out the behavioral issues

some have. I love how patient Mrs. Frey is and how she knows all the tricks these students do.