Woolfolk 4-8

One of the readings talked about IDEA. "At the most general level, the law now requires states to provide a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students with disabilities who participate in special education" (p. 141). As part of this plan, "IDEA requires states to develop procedures for education each child in the least restrictive environment (LRE), a setting that is as close to the general education class setting as possible" (p. 142). IDEA helps not just the students, but also the student's families. Parents do have a right to see what is happening in their student's education. They get told about any placement change, in their native language, about their child before it happens (p. 143). As a music teacher, I do believe in the inclusion of everybody. I do understand the purpose behind IDEA. The point of the program is to protect students with different kinds of disabilities. The program helps students to be more included within the school. As a future educator, I want all students to feel included. I want my students to know they are capable. They are important. It does not matter what their academic challenges might be. I will make sure that the students do understand the right they have under this law. I will advocate for my students and their families. All I know is if you are a teacher who has a student with a disability, you become their advocates.

I do see this inclusion everywhere I go. For the school I work at, we have Adaptive Physical Education. During this class, my students participate with general education students. These students help them with anything my students need. They also ask my students how is their day going and how was their weekend. They look beyond their disabilities. Sometimes my students go to general education classrooms, like woods or cooking. Some of the students do half and half. Half of an adaptive classroom, and half of a general education classroom. We also do have the Best Buddies program. This program one of my students gets partnered up with a general education student. The Best Buddles program has a meeting once a month. When they are not meeting up, the partners hang out together outside of school. This could either be going out to dinner or going to see a movie. We are always finding ways to include my students within the school.

During chapter six, Woolfolk talked about gender bias. Gender bias is "Different views of males and females often favoring one gender over the other" (P. 242). When asking a question the teacher asks the boy more than the girl. The girl tends to be the one who will get a lesser amount of the teacher's attention (p. 424-425). As a teacher, I never really understand why teachers have this bias. I do not understand it. I want all of my students to feel equal in my class. If you separate students into groups based on gender, it will be more difficult and you run the risk of gender stereotyping (p. 243). I want my students to feel like they are getting my attention equally. They are not getting left out. If you do have a gender bias, you are not a good teacher. You are not treating your students equally. The student may not achieve if they do feel like you are not paying attention to them. This will then lead, your students, to not want to be at school. They will get into their heads, their teacher does not care so I will not care. This is what everyone should try to avoid. I do also feel like there are times where a teacher has a gender bias view and does not even realize it. This is why I do believe in the gift of a teacher observing another teacher. This teacher could pinpoint this. Realizing this will help someone to become an even better teacher.

While going to school, I did see this a lot. When my brothers were growing up they had this teacher. This teacher did not like them. The reason for this was because she had mostly girls. She did not know how to handle boys at all. This leads her to look down at my brothers all of the time. Another example is there was once this student teacher. She would not equally talk to the girls. She mostly asked the boys questions which lead to the girls not to participate at all. With my job, we always want to have every single student participate so they can practice that life skill. We also like our students to participate so we get a better understanding of what they know. If they are not participating, we do not know what they need to work on. If we do not know what they need to work on than we cannot help the student to succeed. The cooperating teacher had to tell her this a few times.

In chapter eight, Woolfolk talks about automated basic skills. Automated basic skills are known as skills we do automatically without thinking about it (p. 331). Woolfolk goes on to talk about the three stages which are the cognitive stage, associative stage, and autonomous stage (p.331). For a music teacher, this could be seen as the student first has a checklist on how to read music. In the cognitive stage, the students would first write in the counts of the piece. Then they will clap the rhythm. They will next write in the notes. Then play the piece of music. In the associative stage, they would first count and clap the rhythm. They will next write in the notes and play the music. The rhythm is one chunk, and the notes will be in another chunk. The autonomous stage will be they can play the music without the notes being written in and the counts. This does show that all of the stages could be broken down until all kinds of different subjects. A good teacher could make some, not all, but some stuff an automated basic skill. When students can make different techniques become are a more automated basic skill, this will lead them to success. This will also make the student feel more interested in the class. They will not feel like they are wasting time if you allow them to be able to do the skill without having them do all of the little steps beforehand.

For my students, we are still teaching them how to make certain skills an automated basic skill. My student is learning to tie their shoes, we first have them do it in sequence (left ear, then right ear, then put it through the hole, and then pull them together).  Then the associative stage, we chunk the ears and then the hole and pull together. Then they after a few tries, my students can do it without thinking about the sequences. The same thing goes for worksheets. We have a sequence of how to do the worksheet, and where the students should put the worksheet. In the morning for the freshmen, we have a sequence of who to unpack. Usually, they can get to the autonomous stage by the end of the year. We always have to start at the cognitive stage with some of the schools, and then we can get to the autonomous stage by the end of the year.