an observation after volunteering yester
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| Tue, 11-21-2006 - 7:53am |
I volunteered yesterday at the elementary school in Martha's grade. She's in 2nd grade and every year they have a whole day of "colonial day". They rotate from classroom to classroom w/ parent volunteers while the teachers and other volunteers do colonial activities with all the kids. I took my wool carders and drop spindles and demonstrated spinning to the kids. They had a great time and I had lots of hands on and neat things to work with. While it's a VERY COOL experience for most of the kids, for a few of the kids (I don't know that they're all ASD but they certainly were having very ASD stimmy behaviors!) it was NOT a fun cool day. BUT, this is a school that "doesn't do shadows or aides". There were NOT enough volunteers to really keep an eye on all the kids and even when they were spilt into smaller groups (about8-10) it was WAY too much confusion for these kids. AND they were getting into trouble and very stimmy. I wish the spec ed administration could actually observe on this kind of day (this school does several of these days a year per grade level in addition to field trips because some children learn better w/ handson activities), but they of course were nowhere to be found. The teachers these children are most comfortable with were not with them as well, instead they're left w/ volunteer parents who have no training and no idea that there are certain ways to handle these kids, they are not being naughty, they're COPING the best they know how.
sigh.
Betsy

Betsy, that would concern me too.