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Following that, I went with the same Para to an 8th grade English class, where I looked on as she went around and helped the traditional students with their work. Quickly it became time to leave. I had her initial my time sheet and then went to the office to check out. Although I learned a little from the Para, I do not feel as if working with her was conducive to understanding disabled/diverse students.

Day 2 Thursday October 23rd, 2003

Today�s adventure was more observation, yet that was because Cherie was there and we had to get acquainted and organize things. I went to the IRC to meet with her to explain to her in detail about the project. We agreed that for today I would observe once again and that at the end of my time, choose one student to work with for the next week.

The day was similar to last week. Starting out in the IRC and then going to the 6th grade science class. Donny and Rick were there as well as another student named Ashley. During the class I helped Ashley follow along in the out-loud reading the class was doing. Despite that she is disabled; Ashley seemed to fit in very well. She was able to follow social cues very, almost astonishingly well. In fact, on the way to lunch Ashley sat at a table with some of the regular students, rather than sitting with those that were more like her as far as being disabled goes. This was surprising to me, as I had the thought that, traditionally those kids in special Ed stuck together due to lack of acceptance. I was actually very surprised at how accepted Ashley and the others were. It was nice to see that the regular kids accepted and in some cases helped take care of the special Ed students.

While the students ate their lunch, Cherie and I returned to her office to talk more about the students and how she taught and worked with them. I learned that Rick is only mildly mentally retarded but that he is very creative and very much the auditory learner. An interesting thing I learned about him was that his mother doesn�t know he is labeled as MR. I was told that the school told her that he was learning disabled so as to not hurt her feelings. Apparently, doing so would have had negative consequences. I can understand why it was done that way, yet in some ways I don�t agree with it. I suppose you could go either way on what to tell the parent(s) or guardian(s), although I would venture to say that it should depend more on a case-by-case basis. Rick is 11 years old and has an IQ of 55. Yet, his IQ does not seem to interfere in anyway with his level of creativity. I would even say that his creativeness could be considered almost gifted (though that is a personal opinion).

Donny is a sweet little guy who is 13 years old. He is severely mentally and physically handicapped. He has trouble grasping things, walking, and his limb control is rather erratic. Donny cannot speak like other kids do, yet he is still very vocal in what sometimes sounds like words, but you can tell easily that they aren�t words at all. He did though, understand what we said and would do what he was told to do.
I particularly like Donny because he is a really sweet boy. Although I can�t understand him and I don�t know how to teach him anything or work with him, I always found myself with a smile when he would see me. Every time that I would come he�d get this big smile on his face and wave at me, with that little slightly deformed hand. Even though I didn�t work with him, it felt good that he remembered me each time and always wanted me to get involved.

At the end of my time I had decided to work with Ashley next week and proceeded to learn more about her. Ashley is a very unique girl and fits very well into being not only disabled, but diverse as well. She is a 12-year-old black girl that is mentally retarded, has an IQ of 56 and has what is called William�s Syndrome. Although she is in 6th grade she has a mental and emotional age similar to that of a 1st grader. Ashley can do some basic math skills but doesn�t function well with them. She can also read and write; yet her writing is at a kindergarten level and her reading is only at a 1st grade level.

Day 3 Thursday October 30th, 2003

I had left today, looking forward to seeing Donny and working with Ashley. When I arrived at the school however, I was told by Cherie that Ashley had gone on a field trip with some of the other students. Due to a few of the other special Ed students being gone as well, I worked with a 13 year old girl by the name of Taylor.

Taylor is what used to be called trainable mentally retarded. She has many areas in which she needs to improve. They include social skills, math, reading, motivation, and attention span.

Before heading off to class, I worked with Taylor on a couple of math worksheets dealing with patterns. She appeared to understand fairly well what we were talking about, but her motivation was really low and she didn�t seem to care much at all. An attitude of indifference, you might say. We were able to complete two worksheets and since she worked pretty hard for what would be her ability, I drew big smiley faces on the worksheets to show her I thought she did a good job. I also gave her verbal praise and encouragement throughout our work.

Next up for Taylor was English class and there wasn�t much that I could help her with in this class. I was told that she needed to work on her stuff independently and that I should just make sure she stayed on task. Taylor worked on the computer to learn about antonyms. As I watched her and helped her keep on track, I noticed that again she didn�t really seem to care or have much motivation. She also guessed a lot rather than trying to think things through and find the right answer. I think perhaps she really didn�t care, and that was kind of upsetting to me.

While the students were all at lunch, Cherie and I sat down to talk about the students and she even showed me a real IEP. She told me how they filled them out and what meant what and why it had to be there. It was very interesting and I�m glad that she did that, because the whole concept of what exactly an IEP was, was a little confusing to me. She did caution me though that IEPs� will vary in format and content to an extent from district to district.