Jarred Altfillisch

Weekly Journal When I meet a person for the first time, the first thing I notice is their mood. I notice if they are grumpy or in a good mood. A person who uses a wheelchair is just as capable as a person who is not in a wheelchair. If I received a severe spinal cord injury in an accident, I would try to continue living the life that I do now. I would honestly feel like less of a person even though I know that I am the same person. Students should be able to get the same experiences and opportunities that students that are not disabled get. I think that students with disabilities should be able to experience the importance of activity the same way students without a disability. Finally I believe that students with disabilities should get the chance to prove that they are able to do everything that they set their mind to do. I am kind of nervous about working with students with a disability because it is still relatively new to me. I hope to get to know more about how to teach students with disabilities and get more comfortable teaching them. A positive mental attitude is having the attitude saying that I can do anything that I set my mind to and nothing is going to stop me. It makes all the difference if you are successful in what you are trying to do or not. I think that I have a positive mental attitude. I demonstrate my attitude by staying positive, smiling, making people happy, cheering people up if they are having a bad day. I tend to smile a lot which it seems to make other people smile and then they are in a better mood. I think that by helping out in the practicum setting I will give the students a new perspective. In class you may get sick of your normal teacher but if someone else comes in you might pay attention more. If I have a negative attitude the students and the teachers will be able to see that you are not interested and that will affect how welcoming they are to you and that will affect your experience.

Jarred Altfillisch

Journal Entry 2 I attended my pre-student teaching at Shullsburg on February 6th and 7th so far for a total of three and a half hours. The first day that I was there we played ship wrecked, and I helped collect the flags from the students that got out and then held onto them until the start of the next game. Then with the high school kids we played prison ball and the teacher and I both participated and helped out on opposite teams. The next day was the students free day so they got to choose what activity they did. I ended up returning balls if they went out of bounds and also talked with Bethany about what had happened the day before. On the 6th I was with a sub and I had several surprising experiences. His classroom management skills were terrible and he seemed not to care, also I noticed that he had no respect because that is where he graduated school from and he is coaching there. This experience was very hard for me because he seemed to just let kids do whatever they want, I wanted to yell at them or get them back on track because I know that is how Mrs. Fick would like things to run but I stopped myself because I dont teach there and didnt want to step on any toes. I did yell at the students once though when they were running and slamming into the mats at the end of the basketball court. What is the right way to handle all of this? On the 7th I was again with a sub but this time I was with Bethany Kolman and it was very clear that the kids had a lot of respect for her. They did what she said and we did not have any of the experiences that we had the day before. Like I said in the first paragraph during the first day I held on to the flags until the start of the next game and then handed them out again. Then I also got to play a game with the students and make the teams a little more even. On the second day I helped retrieve balls for the students and also helped one of the teams get back into the game because they were down by a lot. On the first day I learned that I was a better teacher than the sub that they had there. I had way better classroom management skills and I also could talk to the students more and get them to calm down way better than he could. On the second day I learned that while I thought that I was a really good teacher the day before, I still have a lot to learn. As I was talking with Bethany she really taught me a lot about the students and how things were ran there. I am definitely looking forward to my time in Shullsburg.

Jarred Altfillisch

I learned that if you do not have good classroom management it will be very hard to stay a teacher for very long. If my students acted that way all of the time I would definitely not be able to teach for very long. This was a huge eye opener and I will definitely do more in this next semester to make myself more prepared. On the second day I learned that teaching can be very easy if you establish a respect right away and let them know that you will not tolerate poor behavior. The student definitely respected Bethany and that made her job a lot easier. Journal Entry 3 I went to Shullsburg and did my pre-student teaching three more times since my last entry. The dates were 2/13, 2/14, and 2/20. With these hours I have accumulated a total of 9.5 hours so far in the last 3 weeks. On the 13th and 14th we did a lot with hula hoops. We did a lot of different tricks with them and a little bit with the students spinning them on their bodies. On the 20th we went to the weight room and did different lifts to help work on muscle strength. After lifting the weights we went back into the gym to play a little bit of fire and ice tag. Then 8th hour came in and we played cone ball. This is a new game for me so it was very interesting for me to learn. My trip down on Friday the 21st was canceled due to poor weather. During my trips the last two weeks I could definitely see how students react when it is their actual teacher there with them besides a substitute. They behave so much differently when they know that the person in charge is actually there. I also observed that they amount of effort that is put forward by students can completely dictate the amount of effort that is put forward by all of the other students. There was one group during cone ball that was not into it at all so of course the other group didnt get into it very much either. When the groups finally switched the group that came into that court was very into the game and the group that wasnt very into it the first time played a lot better and they were very into it. I also noticed if a group doesnt like a member of their group they will not include them in the game and will not try as hard. Specifically what I did was demonstrate to the students how to do some of the tricks with the hula hoops. I also walked around the whole class and gave positive feedback to students as they were participating and correcting students so that they could be safer. When in the weight room I helped demonstrate and I was also the line leader back to the gym and made the students stay in line and be quiet. During fire and ice I noticed that students were jumping up on top of

Jarred Altfillisch

some mats that were stacked in the corner so I went over and made the students get down and then I stood by the mats to that no other students would get up there and possibly fall and get hurt. I learned that I am not as terrible with classroom management that I thought that I was. I was very quick to pick up on the poor behavior and tried my best to fix that behavior. I also learned that sometimes you do have to look away from a student. There was one student that would fake an injury to get attention and if you pay attention and look right at him then he breaks down and throws a fit. However, if you kind of pretend like you did not see it he will start playing the game right away after he knows that you didnt see what happened. I learned that teaching is hard when you know some of the students in the class on a personal level. It is very important to set boundaries when you are in that situation. I have a cousin and a nephew that are in the classes that I am helping teach so trying to get them to leave me alone long enough to teach and let them learn something was interesting at first. Then after setting some rules and yelling at both of them several times they finally realized that I was not there as their cousin or uncle, I was there as their teacher and they needed to respect me. I have not had any other problems since we met this understanding. Journal Entry 4 This week I went to Shullsburg three different times. I was down on February 27th and 28th. I was also down there on March 5. On the first day I was teaching lessons with Mrs. Fick, then at the end of the day I taught my own lesson without any help to the students. On the other two days I got more comfortable with the students and I helped run the classes. I am more comfortable with all of the students now and I am capable of taking over and taking the lead more. What I noticed during my time this week is that students do not respect you until you earn that respect. There were some very rambunctious students in the first two classes that we taught together. In the third class, which is the one I taught, the students were very crazy at first. Then once they knew that they couldnt get away with anything with me they really straightened out and respected me. To be honest that ended up being the best behaved class of the day. During the first day I helped Mrs. Fick teach the lesson that she had prepared for the day. During the last class of the day I taught my lesson that I created for that day. The other two days I helped teach

Jarred Altfillisch

the lessons but I also helped here keep the class in line. There were several times were I had to jump in and correct a bad behavior if Mrs. Fick was busy doing something else. Most of the time students would stop right away. The high school class tried to test me a little bit but once I stuck to my guns and didnt back down they realized I was serious and they began to respect me. During the time that I spent in Shullsburg throughout the last two weeks I learned two very important things about myself. The first thing that I learned was that I can be a very successful teacher when given the opportunity. I know that I messed up once or twice during my lesson but when you are just starting out I believe that can be expected. Mrs. Fick seemed to be very happy about the lesson that I taught and she seemed to enjoy seeing a new game being enjoyed so much. The other thing that I learned about myself is that I can recognize what I do not know. I also know that I am able to do some research and find out what I do not already know. During my time with Mrs. Fick this week I noticed something that she had all planned out and it was something I had never thought of but I was able to research and now I feel confident when it comes to that part of teaching. I learned a little something about teaching today as well. I learned that it is important that you do your own research into what needs to happen in the school. During my time teaching this week I got to actually see how Mrs. Fick has made some major changes in the physical education department. I think that it is very important that we have change in teaching but I thought that it was very impressive what Mrs. Fick has been working on. They never used to do any testing but she made some big improvements and now they test at least once a quarter. I thought that this was amazing and I know that this is something that I am going to have to work with in the future. If you do not make changes then you are falling behind and I think I have found some good ideas that I want to take with me for my future jobs. Case Study 14 1. What is the primary issue in this case? The main issue in this case is that Mrs. Thom wants her son to be able to participate in the aquatics unit. Some of the teachers are very excited about this while others really do not want it to happen, it seems like they think it is just one big waste of time and resources.

Jarred Altfillisch

2. What are some of the factors that contributed positively and negatively to this case? A positive is that many of the teachers came together and offered different ways in which they can make this happen. A negative would be that one of the teachers didnt want this to take place. Another negative is that they are considering canceling the program already as it is. 3. How was Mitchs disability a problem? Was Mitchs disability the main issue of concern in this case? From Whose perspective? It was a problem because he would need one on one time in the pool and at the time they did not have enough people to offer that kind of service. Another way it was a problem is the fact that it was a huge liability. I think that the disability was the main issue of the majority of the IEP members. I do, however, think that Mr. Jones was thinking only about himself and at this point did not seem to care about Mitch. 4. What contributed to Mitchs involvement in the aquatics unit? Who was influential? Ms. Angie, Ms. Thom, Ms. Bennett, Mr. Rob, Ms. Chan, Mr. Pang and Mr. Farrell all seem to be very involved in making this happen. They all were influential in their own way and I think without any one of them this would not have been possible. 5. Do you agree or disagree with the manner in which Mr. Jones reacted. Was it appropriate? Do you think that Ms. Thom and the other IEP team embers handled his reactions appropriately? I completely disagree with the manner which Mr. Jones reacted. It was not appropriate because if they are trying to shut it down in the first place then they need to do that but if they are going to keep it going they cannot just deny certain kids just because it is too likely that they will get hurt. I think that Ms. Thom could have been a little calmer about the whole situation. I think that if she would have went in with a level head then they would not have had half of the problem. I do think that the other members of the IEP team handled the situation very well.