Extra attention to students who need it brings education rewards

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Samantha Greenbaum-----In a classroom of over 20 students with different learning styles, teachers must decide when and which children need additional attention, and it can be quite a challenge. Most teachers do their best to provide additional instruction. When they cannot, a school district will sometimes implement programs to help. But what types of students need the extra attention and how do teachers and schools provide it?

Learning Disabilities

Children with learning disabilities may require extra attention to fully understand or complete an assignment. There are several categories of learning disabilities that involve difficulties with motor skills, understanding or producing spoken language and processing information.

These students need extra time and attention to process and complete assignments. Teachers can provide students with learning disabilities extra help and attention both in the classroom and out. Marcee M. Steele with the University of Missouri advises teachers to “implement basic modifications to their lectures, class time, textbook readings, homework assignments and assignments.” The school can provide extra support in smaller groups from special education teachers. Parents can help, too, by building confidence and preparing the child for new situations.

Emotional Disturbances

Emotionally disturbed students will naturally have difficulties learning. These students can have conduct, eating, mood and psychiatric disorders, as well as anxiety and depression, requiring extra attention from teachers in the classroom. The National Dissemination for Children with Disabilities claims, “emotional disturbances can affect many different aspects central to student learning, including (but not limited to): concentration, stamina, handling time pressures and multiple tasks, interacting with others, responding to feedback, responding to change and remaining calm under stress.”

The first step in giving these students the attention they need is to understand and identify the student's particular problem. After assessing the situation, teachers can learn more about the student's strengths and weaknesses, praising accomplishments and minimizing failures, eventually building confidence and security. In addition to classroom attention, students can receive help from the school counselor or private counseling.

Behavior Disorders

Any teacher would be frustrated teaching students with behavior disorders (BD). Students diagnosed with BD are perhaps the most difficult to teach and the easiest to identify. According to Healthychildren.org, common symptoms of behavior disorders that can be readily identified by observation include “temper tantrums, physical aggression such as attacking other children, excessive argumentativeness, stealing and other forms of defiance or resistance to authority.”

However, teachers can minimize these behaviors by setting rules and enforcing those rules, increasing classroom supervision and offering alternatives to the behavior. Teachers can provide extra attention outside of class time, discussing the behavior privately. Positive reinforcement for good behavior and a “please” or a “thank you” also help correct negative behaviors.

Accelerated Students

Highly praised and often overlooked is the high-achieving or accelerated student. Because these students perform so well, teachers often neglect to provide them with the extra attention they require. The National Association for Gifted Children warns teachers to recognize and respond to the “educational needs [of gifted students] before their abilities diminish or become less recognizable.”

Accelerated students need a stimulating classroom environment. Teachers can prepare additional activities for gifted students to complete and offer a wide range of learning materials. They can also help accelerated students advance their talents by encouraging original thinking and discovery.

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This article was provided by Samantha Greenbaum, education-oriented mother of two and homework helper. 

We Need Gardens Everywhere

Bob Ewing --Every school needs a garden. Many of the subjects on the curriculum can be taught in a garden whether that garden is indoors or out. We posses the technology to create indoor teaching gardens at a reasonable price. The garden, to be an effective learning tool, does not have to be large; it just needs to be accessible.

Community centres, government buildings, churches, and recreation centres are also good garden sites. In addition to the potential learning the garden will provide fresh food for local food programs, for example.

Across North America, many schools have incorporated gardens and many cities have community garden programs. Now it is the time to expand these programs towards creating community food security and environmental stewardship.



[caption id="attachment_15355" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Thunder Bay: Regent St Community Garden"][/caption]

What can gardening teach us; perhaps, the most important lesson we learn when we garden is patience. Plants do grow instantly, even radishes, which are fairly quick growing and an ideal plant for a child’s garden take some time; most varieties of radish mature in 28 days, fairly quick as vegetable grow.
Responsibility is another lesson the garden offers. Gardens demand care and attention, if this is not provided the plants will suffer and eventually die,
Both biology and botany lessons can be provided as the gardeners plant the seed, nurture it watch it grow, and harvest flowers, food and seed. The cycle of life is taking place right in front of us as we garden.
If we want we can learn some Latin as the plants’ official names are all in Latin. This can be useful when you want to be sure that you are getting the correct plant, using the Latin name will make this easier.

We can learn math and the value of measuring as we determine how many plants will fit in a row that is six feet long and each seed is plated six inches apart.

History is another lesson that we can experience in our gardens; roses for example have been around for many, many years and the story of how they traveled from China, for example, to North America can be a valuable history lesson.

We can learn how to grow, some or all of our own food and develop our ability to take care of ourselves and our families. This helps us move towards self-reliance and independence.

We begin to understand the complexity of the ecosystem that we inhabit as our understanding of how we are not alone when we garden but that we have many helpers working with us each minute, birds, bees, butterflies and millions of many very tiny beings who make our soil fertile and help the plants thrive.

Gardening enables us to put life into perspective as we begin to realize that we play a vital role in keeping our home, the Earth, vibrant through our gardens. We bring nature and civilization together and create a place where cooperation makes all beings prosper.

We can broaden and deepen our educational experience by setting up gardens at our schools, our vacant lots and our own homes. It is time to get back to the garden.

It is time to get back to the garden

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Bob Ewing - Do you still marvel when you see a butterfly drifting from flower to flower? I do, while my reaction is not as intense as a child’s when he or she spots that first butterfly, I still stop and marvel at Nature’s design.

The look on the child’s face is how I would define awe, an emotion of respectful wonder and desire. Not to own the butterfly but to connect with it and understand what it is.

Education needs to inspire similar reactions in people; learning is exciting, intense and a library a place full of wonder and dreams.

Unfortunately, formal schooling seems to remove the wonder from the process and reduce it to rote, repetition, right and wrong. Learning demands experimentation and experiments are attempts to discover something.

Experiments involve observation and process, paying careful attention so you can note what took place. It is not a matter of right or wrong but doing, observing, recoding, analyzing, and starting over again.

If we are afraid to do, then we sit in our seats, heads down and education becomes an enemy, something to be endured rather than embraced.

Gardening can be the ideal learning experience. The gardener is in direct contact with Nature and works with her to make the garden grow. In a garden, not all efforts turn out the way we hoped they would. However, if we keep a journal and observe what is going on, carefully jotting down what is witnessed, learning will take place.

People learn by doing and in the garden there is always something to do. When theory and practice are brought together, which is what happens when gardening, a deep understanding forms, and while it may take time to be able to articulate what was learned, this experience provides an opportunity for self-expression, that is relating the experience in a poem, short story, essay, or a painting for example. It is not necessary to get it right but to bring the actions to life so they can be shared.

Schools need gardens and classes must be held outdoors, in the garden, as often as possible. Children in kindergarten through to grade 12 can benefit from spending time outdoors in the school garden, watching, interacting and recording. This activity will keep the brain fertile and provide a healthy foundation for knowledge to sprout and mature.

The garden is an ideal classroom and we need to return to it, as such, as soon as possible.