So, it's back to school, and I've spent the last two weeks getting to know my classes in their two different personalities: individual and as a whole class. And any teacher knows, a class definitely has a personality all its own. I have three very different classes. One is an on-grade level class, with some ESL support needed. Another class is what we call a class-within-a-class, which means students with special needs have been integrated into a regular ed class, with both a general ed teacher and a special ed teacher. Finally, I have an advanced skills class with the highest scores I've had the opportunity to teach in seven years of teaching.
On the first day, I made a really big deal about my advanced skills class being advanced and that I would be a difficult teacher, but that they would learn to love the class as much as I did. They left beaming.
Three days later, I was at the 7th grade back to school assembly. A 7th grader asked if I taught 8th grade because she didn't recognize me. I explained that I was the other 7th grade language arts teacher. One of my students smiled big and said, "She's the advanced skills teacher." I do in fact have this student in advanced skills, so I nodded and moved on.
At the end of the day through a discussion with the other language arts teacher, a good friend of mine, I discovered that my students all thought that I taught advanced skills all day and that she taught on-grade level all day. They were getting upset when a schedule change moved them from my class to hers, thinking they were being moved out of advanced skills. While I quickly realized that we needed to make sure that all of our kids felt special and realized that her class was just as smart as ours, I couldn't help but smile when I realized that my children with special needs were proudly coming to Ms. Bennett's class for advanced skills each day. May they never know any differently.
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