The student who had a fidget!

 Hi new teachers,

We will all have in our classes, students who have learning challenges. We must make sure that they are able to access what we teach. We must make allowances for them. They may need to walk around the room, they may be doodling as that helps them listen better, they may use a fidget for better focus. We need to know our students and what helps them learn.

I remember in my early years of teaching in a school in India, there was a student who would use a fidget in my class. I was not aware then about the need for fidgets for students with ADD. My favourite line was, "Show me you are listening by putting both your hands on the table and by looking at me". I tried to take the fidget away from the student as I thought it was distracting him. The student was extremely upset and kept telling me that he needs the fidget and his parents know about it. 

I checked with my Learning Support colleagues and they told me that it was advised by his counsellor for better focus in class due to his ADD. I let the student have the fidget after that. However, I did not pay attention to the student's relationship with other students, if he was being excluded, if they passed comments about him, if they said mean things. 

Now when I think back, I cringe. We should know more about our students, about learning challenges, about what we can do in class to make them feel better and feel part of the class. Although our knowledge of ADD has increased and we are more aware now, both old and new teachers are not empathetic enough to changing their approach on an everyday basis. Some things I do:

1. All students are different and sometimes I show my students this through an activity. I ask for jackets from two students, one bigger and one smaller. I then call two students to the front of the class and ask them to try on the jackets. They don't fit. I then tell the students that just like they all have different sizes of jackets, they also have different learning needs. And its okay.

2. If students make fun of other students' accents, I find opportunities to talk about accents and explain how having an accent means that the student knows one more language. I tell them that it is something we have to applaud rather than criticise. 

3. When I discuss examples of exclusion, be it exclusion of the Jewish people in Germany or about exclusion of outcastes in India. I ask them to think about their actions and if they are excluding students in the class. I remember that a student remarked, "Ms.Radha, I realise that we all have a Hitler within us and we must work to remove this Hitler"

4. When I teach discrimination both local and global, I ask them to reflect on whether they are discriminating against their classmates. I tell them that writing essays about discrimination is not the goal, they must make sure they apply this to real life and are conscious of not discriminating in any manner.

5. When we talk about violence and non-violence, we talk about the violence spectrum where unkind words and gestures can cause untold misery and is part of the spectrum. Physical violence is noticeable, but emotional hurt can also cause extreme anguish but cannot be seen. 

6. We talk about the importance of consent, of intent vs. impact, of how something spoken may not be intended to hurt, but if it does, impact is more important than the intent.





Cheers!

#myp,#newteachers,#teaching,#relationships,#students,#behaviour,#school,#ib,#learning,#leaders,#teacher-student relationships, #testing, #assessments, #learning support




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