EBD Blog

In her blog called “bex in the city,” Rebecca sometimes reports about her experiences as a teacher. She is new to the role, having only last May signed on for the New York City Teaching Fellows. In posts over the summer she reported on the preparation she recieved for her new career. Apparently at the last minute this school year, she took a position as a teacher in a middle school.

Over the past couple of weeks, she’s posted about how spent she feels, how grueling the position has been. Yesterday (17 September) she let the cat out of the bag:

I suppose I should take some time and tell you a little more about my class, as you will be hearing about it a lot over the next nine months. I can’t remember if I’d mentioned it or not, but I’m teaching Special Ed. But my kids aren’t autistic or retarded or anything like that, they have severe behavioral problems, emotional disturbances, and a few have learning disabilities. In District 75 (the citywide Special Ed district that I teach in), these kids are usually in a 12:1:1 class. That means 12 kids, 1 teacher, 1 paraprofessional (assistant), a pretty restrictive environment. However, my class is 8:1:1, because these kids are so bad that they need an even more restrictive environment. Through some kink in the system, I ended up with 9 kids. Not only that, but two of my kids have their own 1:1 paras, supposedly for their behavior problems. So my class has 9 disruptive kids, and 4 adults. Not all of my kids are that bad, a few of them just have sever learning disabilities. On top of that, my class ranges in ability from kindergarten to 9th grade. Technically I teach 6th, 7th and 8th. Same kids, all day. It makes no sense to have all of these kids learning in the same room from the same teacher.

Rebecca goes on to describe each student in her class and promises to discuss the paraprofessionals. Her descriptions are subjective and she bars no holds. Even though it is difficult to get a behavioral fix on what she needs to teach each student, it’s clear that she has a challenging group.

Middle-school, special-education teacher…I can think of no more difficult row to hoe. I wonder how often first-year teachers are put in this sort of position.

Link to the entry in Rebecca’s blog about her class. (Note: There’s much more than teaching here; Rebecca posts about her personal life, including relationships, running, drinking, and more.) Link for those who want to learn more about NYC’s Teaching Fellows program (WARNING: Windows-centric Web design).