In Exchange of the Promising Practice Conference

       I was not able to make the Promising Practice Conference. I was also not able to find another conference to attend. So, instead of this I decided to write about the movie that we watched in class on different students who are mentally disabled going to California Public Schools. I wanted to write about this movie anyways because it made me open my eyes to see what is really going. It has allowed me to see all of the problems and other thins parents have to do to make sure their child gets the same type of schooling as any other child. In the movie Going to School "Ir a la Escuela". In this movie it talks about five different students that mentall challenged, or mentally disabled, and they all have IEP's.
        All of the students in this movie reminded me of many different articles. The one that kept sticking out to me the most is Kliewer's article on students that are special, or have down syndrome. He states many different resons why they should be in normal classroms, and have the same chances as other students. This is what this movie talked about. It talked about five different students Richard, Sally, Ana, Cynthia, and Aaron. All of them were either mentally challenged and mentally disabled. But, they were able to participate and learn in a normal classorm just like all of the other students. They may have had to do this in a different matter, but in the end they accomplished everything that a normal sutdent was accomplishing and sometimes better. Also, some of these students parents that were in this movie were in a group that helped these students get the right care and the best oppurtunites. For example, there was one student named Richard. He was in a wheelchair, because he was born premature, and had multiple disablites. His mother had to go to his classes with him for 3 years because he was not given an aid. Other students would be in normal classrooms, but they would jsut be placed in the back of the room and not given the right help to learn.
       All of these were problems that the students faced that did have disabilites. The parents formed a group to not only get them individual help, but place them in the correct classes, and allow for them to have certain needs. This was a great movie and it showed how hard it was until all of the laws and programs came to be. It was hard when they did have certain things to help them. I think the country has come a long way in the teaching of students with disabilites. There are many more opportunites now, and it allows for the students to learn in different calssrooms with different students each day. This will eventually help them to pursue their goal in life, and just by doing that I tihnk is a great accomplishment.

End Of Semester

It is almost the end of the semester, and the end of FNED 346 with Dr. Bogad. This calss has taught me so many different things about schooling and teaching. In the beginning I thought when am I ever going to use these techniques. Also, in the beginning with all of the different articles, I was would think why do we need to read these? We will never use them in our classrooms, or relate it to our styles of teaching. Well, now that I am looking back on it I realized how wrong I was and how much I came to appreciate tthis class, and how much I have taken out if it.
        Starting off working and helping out in school, I had no idea what to expect. I did not know what the students were going to be like, or if they would even like me. Now that it is over, I realized that I did helpt the kids out and had a strong relationship with every student in Mrs. Pinksaw's kindergarten class at Robert F. Kennedy. Not only do I hope I taught the students different things, but I know that they had a huge impact on my life and helped me elarn different styles of teaching that I will take with me for the rest of my life. Everyday I was at the school I learned something new. I also tied everything back to an article we read that week or in the past.
        I just feel like wherever I go now, all I think about are all of the different authors, and how much it is actually portrayed in real life. Overall FNED 346 helped me learn a lot of new different styles of teaching. It also gave me a great prospective of what I can expect in life as I start my career of teaching. Dr. Bogad made me realize all of this and I am very appreciative of having this class and learning everything from her and my classmates.