Showing posts with label learning disabilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning disabilities. Show all posts

Saturday 21 July 2012

Literacy, Numeracy, and The Knowledge of God

I'm getting ready to transition from my summer job at a tutoring center for students with learning disabilities to my 10-months-of-the year-job as a teacher's assistant at a school for kids with learning disabilities. Yea, verily, I am an educator.
Because of this, I thought it time to review my educational philosophy and goals for the next school year.

Here they are, in perhaps, no particular order:
Goals for 2012-2013
  • Teach explicitly by modeling and thinking aloud. Help students generate their own questions.
  • Put into practice the words of Mother Theresa's daily prayer. Pray this prayer daily. http://aproposadelaide.blogspot.com/2012/05/mother-teresas-daily-prayer-its.html
  • Continue to use effective strategies to meet the needs of all students while adding others to my "instructional toolbox".
  •  Teach according to the principles of distributive review and practice.
  • Learn more about the principles and practices of behavior management.
  • Learn more about the principles of assessment, familiarize myself with more assessments, learn how to read the scores.
  • Remember that literacy, and all types of learning, occurs on a continuum, and that every day each of my students is moving up and down this ladder.
  • Enjoy making small talk with parents.
  • Teach according to the principles learned in my college Philosophy of Ed. class:  
Anthropology
man and his telos
teaching and learning
Theology
revelation, transformation, and ascent
theological theology
Philosophy
truth and knowledge

I'm too tired to write out detailed information about each of these categories, but once I wrote a paper about it, which you can read if you truly want to know more. 

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Icons of the Real, pt. 2

I'm still mulling over the Mother Theresa prayer:

"Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: 'Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.'"

Seeing Jesus in the faces of others is not, perhaps, a panacea to making you more loving toward them. At least, not yet.

I've been trying, these last few weeks, to see Jesus in the faces of people who try my patience. But, I've discovered a PROBLEM: people sin. Jesus didn't. How does one see Jesus in the face of a child throwing a tantrum, for example? Or in the face of some creep who drives slowly beside you, offering you a ride as you walk home?

I've been trying this out at work. I think the principle is that a Jesus-follower strives to treat Jesus with all the glory, love, and attention He deserves. Therefore, if I see Jesus in the faces of roommates, family members, or the displaced, I will treat them with loving esteem and attentiveness. But, it's sort of easy to esteem Jesus. He doesn't annoy me, he doesn't smell bad, he doesn't talk back, he cleans up after himself. How can I honor Jesus through a person who sins, or who sins toward me?

I don't know.

But, goodness, think of how holy I'd be if I could do that! I'd be like God. Isn't that just what God does? He looks at my ugly sinfulness and sees Jesus. On that basis, we're friends. How does God do it? It seems impossible.

". . .All the other Distance/He hath traversed first—/No New Mile remaineth—/Far as Paradise—. . ."

Did Jesus look at "tax collectors and sinners" and see his own face?

Thursday 17 May 2012

Icons of The Real

To see Jesus in other people you have to first see Jesus in himself, I think. If you would treat a person with reverence and kindness because you see Jesus in them, you first have to become a person who treats Jesus with kindness and reverence.

To see Jesus in the faces of the sick, means that to see Jesus in the face of God is already meaningful.

What would you do if Jesus was physically present at your workplace? In your home? Maybe the answer to these questions is not as straightforward as I used to think.

I can ignore him while invisible, so why am I certain I'd pay attention to him if he was close enough to poke in the arm?

I want to treat Jesus with love and hospitality, and then I want to see Jesus in the students I work with.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Mother Teresa's Daily Prayer, Its Relevance

Dearest Lord, 
May I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you.
Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, 
may I still recognize you, and say: "Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you."
Lord, give me this seeing faith, then my work will never be monotonous. 
I will ever find joy in humoring the fancies and gratifying the wishes of all poor sufferers.
O beloved sick, how doubly dear you are to me, when you personify Christ; and what a privilege is mine to be allowed to tend you.
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
And O God, while you are Jesus my patient, deign also to be to me a patient Jesus, 
bearing with my faults, looking only to my intention, which is to love and serve you 
in the person of each one of your sick.
Lord, increase my faith, bless my efforts and work, now and for evermore, 
Amen.