Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Dillemma #2

I am currently having a hard time trying to talk my mentor teacher into differentiating her classroom. She has said, "Differentiation is not necessary in a mathematics classroom". There are two students who should be considered ESOL students in her third period class. They have yet to be placed into an ESOL classroom by the school and it is already towards the end of February. They are both "new" students, but they have both been at the school since September. They both cannot read English at all. They can read a little bit of Spanish. My mentor teacher just chooses to leave them behind and not worry about them while she is carrying out her lessons. They were failing every assignment they were given, because they could not do it independently. I decided to work with them individually, and read the assignments out loud to them. They are both smart students, and they are capable of succeeding with a little bit of extra attention. The textbook the students use offers vocabulary terms and certain assignments in Spanish. I printed them off for the students, and they thanked me profusely. I do not understand why my mentor teacher has not offered theses items to the students before. I worry about their education and preparation for the CRCTs once I leave her classroom. How can I make her understand the importance of differentiation, even in a mathematics classroom?

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