Tim: /* sped licensure */

2007-06-22T20:51:15Z

sped licensure

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==sped licensure==
===Personal Statement of Timothy McKenna===

My interest in the Special Education Licensure Program stems from an abiding curiosity about how the mind works. The past two years spent teaching Humanities to 12th graders as well as Algebra and Geometry to ninth graders have provided me with an an enormous amount of data on how young people think. Every time you ask them to do something you get data, data from which you can derive your next move as a teacher.

Some of that data is a record of every educational paradigm that has been introduced since these students first entered school. I can see in it the "main idea initiative", the "paraphrasing training", elaborate schemes for scanning the text, universal phrases like "getting the reader's attention". From worksheets to graphical organizers the most impressive thing you see is how well the kids adapt to whatever we put in front of them. Some of these initiatives have been incorporated into the process of making meaning from text, finding your voice as a writer and understanding the relationships between things. Other initiatives have allowed students to sidestep that process. Students are always trying to adapt to me, to find the energy minima; I am always trying to keep them a little off balance.

From other data one can observe the differences between these young thinkers. Molded by their individual experiences and modified by their current, particular neural patterns, no two students are alike. Some subgroup of students might tend to do anything you ask; that makes me as a teacher feel lulled into a kind of complacency. I'm not so sure that is a good thing. Luckily there is a large subgroup who don't comply with my every wish. And it is through them that I really define myself as a teacher. Every day when I walk into that classroom, I know I have to make a case for why they should care about what I want them to do that day. In making that case I need to consider what it takes to reach each of the kids. To do the job requires an enormous amount of energy, if you don't bring it, they don't reach the threshold of engagement, they might not even notice what we are doing.

I need this certification in order to be able to teach a broad range of the student population. Under current regulations students with IEP's can opt out of my class since I'm not certified. I don't want to lose these kids. I think I have something to offer them.

All of the required professional development in my school has focused on topics in special education. To be honest, I haven't been impressed, have hardly been engaged. I am critical of the process and think the documents available to teachers are, bye and large, worthless, eclipsed in every way by a five minute conversation with a good teacher who has worked with the student. Much of the PD has been a repackaging of ed school promotion for the latest paradigm, a restatement of something I read before in a Research for Better Teaching publication. As a member of the Instructional Leadership Team in my school, I am advocating a move away from this kind of professional development.

I feel we have to tackle the job of instilling an academic culture in our school. No amount differentiated instruction will bridge the gap that forms if school is merely a warehouse for test prep that effectively ends at a tenth (really eighth) grade level of mediocrity. Unless we can shine a light on a rich array of possibilities, unless we can inspire a will to work hard, to risk failure, to have the skills to recover from setbacks, we will continue to have a students who spend enormous amounts of energy in protecting themselves from educational challenges. Students lack confidence, avoid risk, comfort themselves in the acceptance of failure. This cultural void plays out in different ways for different students. The high achievers enter high school test-saturated enough to know that they will pass the the MCAS. They, therefore, don't really need to do much and can rest on their laurels being sure not to expose their knowledge and skill gaps. The middle tier can rest after passing; knowing that we rate our high schools on MCAS pass rates + dropout rates, they might as well stay home whenever they don't want to get up. The rest get what may be our worst efforts, they get all the tricks to get by, like finding the main idea; they may never actually learn to read, or be asked to write anything but the MCAS personal statement about what some character means to you.

For me to "bring it" every day I need to be excited about the ideas, love the stories, express the challenges in a way that each student can buy into. I search for that kind of professional development, I want to hear that from those who teach me, feel their love for what they are teaching. I already accept that all kids can learn, I don't want to be beat over the head with it. Help me unlock the puzzle of how these young minds work.

===cover letter===

5/10/7

Sandy Andersen 
Institute for Professional Development and Graduate Studies in Education 
www.spcs.neu.edu/pdp 
617-373-8272 
sandy@neu.edu 

Dear Ms. Andersen,

I am excited about the program for special education licensure. I have spoken to Micky Cokeley regarding the additional coursework to move my license from preliminary to initial.

I spoke to you on the phone a couple of weeks ago about my conflict with prior plans to see my sons from July 1 to July 14. I hope that something falls into place with a program at some other site that I can substitute for the initial sessions. (I am out of town at an AVID training from the 6/25-29 and away the week of 7/28-8/5)

Sincerely,

Timothy S. McKenna 
Parkway Academy of Technology and Health 
1251 VFW Parkway 
Boston, MA 02132 
tim@sitebuilt.net 
http://www.sitebuilt.net/path/hum12wiki 
(857)498-2574 (mobile) 
(617)524-0938 (home)

{{:resume}}

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Tim: /* sped licensure */