Today I observed at the Cardinal Hayes School for Special Children to supplement my independent study on special education and art. This school was a bit different than the Anderson Center, where I had my internship. At the Anderson Center the focus is more on a product rather than the process, but the opposite is true for Cardinal Hayes. The teacher at Cardinal Hayes focuses more on having the children explore and do what they want to do. The teacher at the Anderson Center taught classes with 5 to 8 kids in each class. At Cardinal Hayes, the teacher gets to work 1:1 with students to figure out their interests, which I think is very beneficial. Another reason why it is beneficial that he gets to work 1:1 with the students is because this way the students are doing the art, not the aids. He only has one or two full classes a day. He explained to me that since it is a charter school, he has more freedom in the schedule and also in creating the entire curriculum.
Today he had one class period and five 1:1 periods. The first period was 1:1 with a student with autism and was a collaboration with the speech teacher. The student was asked what materials he wanted and what colors he wanted. He had to pick the colors and materials from his picture chart and say the words. The art teacher had a picture board with different shapes; a line, a circle, a triangle, and a square. The student had to point to which one he wanted to try to draw. This student was very excited about art. He struggled to draw a triangle and square, but once he did draw them he was so excited that he became overwhelmed.
The second period was also 1:1 with an autistic student and was a collaboration with the speech teacher. The student sat at shut himself off from the outside world. The art teacher kept asking, does he want to work small or big? The student did not respond until the speech teacher said that maybe the art teacher would help him draw a Christmas tree. At this, the student's eyes lit up as he exclaimed, "Christmas," and got out of his chair to walk over to the large piece of paper which was tacked onto the wall. (The teacher explained to me that this student is very big on holidays) The student had to say which color he wanted. Then he began to draw a giant stack of presents. The art teacher talked to him through out his drawing and commented about what he saw. He also asked the student to reflect on his feelings during Christmas by saying things such as "You must feel really excited when you see all of your presents on Christmas." At the end of the period, the speech teacher asked the student how many presents he was going to get on Christmas, and the student counted all of the presents that he drew and answered.
The third period was 1:1 with a student with severe mental retardation. The materials were construction paper crayons and construction paper. The teacher asked the student which color she wanted, but the student did not respond. He kept asking her and finally she started drawing on one of the papers. The student took the crayons and moved her arm back and forth, creating scribble lines. The teacher also tried to teach her to make a circle but it was not successful.
In each of the 1:1 periods, the teacher tried to pick a material that would interest the students, and gave as much choice as possible. I liked the personal environment of teaching in a 1:1 situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment