I never noticed before...

I have a project in the pipeline that has turned out to be a very interesting journey!

One of the ways I recieve extra work in schools is by specializing in Special Development and intervention level literacy.  Over the years I've developed my own set of activities, systems and ethics about approaching the students and their education.  It's been a very interesting journey to put it down on paper!  My husband just keeps telling me "You're just a natural born teacher, stop thinking about it because all that makes you do is stress out.  Just walk in and do it and you'll get it right, you always have".  And he's kind of right because I've always taken the CRT approach, used my CRT skillset and modified my methods on the fly to suit particular students.  Of course he looks at me through rose coloured glasses and sort of ignores all those times I come home complaining that I think i made a mess of things and could have done better.  I knew there was a reason I married him ;).

It's actually where many of my activities come from.  When I get stuck, and I do, I scan the room for simple stuff I can grab without the classroom's regular teacher getting upset with me.  Then I have the student help me quickly make something out of the stuff I found that does what the student needs it to do in order to come to grips with the concept at hand.  Then I refine and add to it over time until it works for just about all of my students (nothing works for everyone is one lesson I've learned over the years!)

This is where I'm comfortable, when I've been thrown in the deep end.  Analyzing it or writing it all down?  Not so much.

I've never studied my methods or tried to figure out why they work so well.  They just do and in the end working out why was always kind of like just making more work for myself.  Recently comments have turned from "I don't know what you're doing but just keep on doing it!" to more in-depth questions on the how and why.  Suddenly there's a point to knowing those things.

So these holidays I set about putting it all down on paper and...  I'm kind of astonished.

It reads like it's from someone who has a much larger pool of knowledge and experience than I cognitively realize I have.  I've always known the knowledge was there, under the surface, ready to be thrown at me by my subconscious when my students need it.  I've been content up until now to let it work that way too.  Now though I'm forced to take a real look at exactly what's locked up in that little vault and also forced to realize that vault isn't as small as I thought it was.

It still surprises me sometimes how a learning experience meant for someone else, a student or a colleague, still winds up being a learning experience for me too.

You know what?

I just love being a teacher and I love the fact that being a CRT allows me the time to do the things I do and brings me the opportunities to feel like I do right now!

Regards,

Mel.