Dr. Alex C. Pan

Lately I’ve been reading many different resources about class management, working with AD/HDs & OCD’s, and parenting the strong-willed kids. To put things on the practical perspectives, I was reminded of many incidents of failed cases of managing kids. To help kids do better, both parents and teachers will try their best to model and modify kids. However, it is very challenging sometimes to connect with kids and get them to listen.

In fact, it takes good intention and good strategies to work. Adults will need good communication skills, compelling speech, and good opportunities to reach out and affect the kids they want to modify. It’s art to take control. Here’s what I have learned:

• When you cannot control the child, you can control yourself. If you cannot change the child, you should think about ways to change yourself first.
• You cannot control the child, however, you can control the relationship with the child. You can control your child’s access to you, your understanding of the child, and your expectations about the child.
• Sometimes your child may have attitudes, as a result of mood and feelings. You might not be able to control the child’s feelings. Giving time, you can wait until the child’s mood and feelings get settled. Hopefully you can work to modify the child’s behavior.
• Oftentimes you cannot easily control the child’s behavior problems. However, you can control the consequences of the kid’s behavior. Send a message to your child that you are serious and you demand no negotiations but good results.

Many adults are too easy on their child(ren). They would use time-out as their last resort for discipline. In fact, time-out works only for those kids who are already behaving. For most spoiled, strong-willed kids, you need to consider more serious and effective disciplines and consequences. As a teacher or a parent, you will need to be firm and fair. At times you will need to make unpopular decisions. You should not try to play politicians, who always want to make popular decisions. You should not try to please your child all the time. Don’t give in.

What kind of students falls on the top priority list when teachers plan for teaching? What is our primary goal for teaching students? In the highest priority, do we want to produce the high-caliber super smart students, attend to the needs of the majority average students, or help the slower students to catch up or keep up with the majority students?

If you are a teacher, with limited time and resources to support 20 some children in your class, would you first attend to the needs of the slower students, the average majority, or the smart ones? That is a good question.

Anyway, teaching in general is quite different from the training imposed on a football team, where coaches intend to develop the best players to perform highly to win. In education, there is a mission to serve all students with the free and appropriate public education (FAPE). By mentioning the word “appropriate”, the general public education really focuses on the average education. Although some teachers like to pick their favorite students to teach or tend to be ambitious to develop the top best students, the teachers’ priority should be the majority average students.

Although American schools spends plenty of funds and resources to help students with special needs to receive adequately needed education, there is a very clear rule to guide the process about being “appropriate.” To illustrate this, let’s examine the case of Amy Rowley.

Amy Rowley was a deaf student in New York. When she began first grade, she was able to perform above average. Her parents would hope to maximize her potential to achieve higher and asked the school to provide a qualified sign-language interpreter in her classes. The school refused on the grounds that Amy was achieving “educationally, academically, and socially” without such assistance. Amy’s parents appealed to the U.S. District Court and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied Amy Rowley’s parents’ request for a sign-language interpreter. The Court determined that Amy was receiving an “adequate” education, with personalized instruction and related services that met her educational needs.

This is the reality,if parents want their child to be outstanding, they may have to invest and maybe pay for the development out of their own pocket. Another choice might be the private schools.

Heard in the news the following stories. I am wondering about the liability issues.

A baker refuses to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple because he doesn’t believe in gay marriage. He was threatened to be sued. Another baker refuses to bake a cake for a woman to celebrate her divorce. For the similar reason, he was threatened to be sued.

Do these threats have merits? Should these bakers be liable for not honoring all their customers’ requests? Can their customers file lawsuits based on a discriminatory ground? What rights do the bakers have?

I also wonder if we can extend the scenarios to different situations. What if we are dealing with people with evil intentions, wishing others to fail, to die, or to get ill? Do we have the right to turn down their requests to be part of it?

As a teacher, do we have the right not to honor some parents’ demands to make their children the top of the class? Some says, ” Yes, we do, but you might piss off the parents and get into trouble.” What do you think?

Professor (P): “Now you have started teaching lessons and working with students; let me ask you which learning theories you truly believe in.”

Student Teacher (ST): “Hmmm…. I’ll need to think about the learning theories a little further.”

P: “Check your own practice and see which learning theories you are following.”

ST: “Well. I’m really not sure. ”

P: “When you teach, your goal is to help students understand essential knowledge, and develop literacy and skills, and so on. Right?”

ST: “Exactly. Originally, I would think about the cognitive aspects of learning, affective domain, and behavioral theories. However, when I teach, I’ll have to factor in the time constraints, school schedule, curriculum demands, and other considerations…. Currently we are under a lot of stress of student assessments. Teaching and learning today are mostly test-oriented.”

P: Hmmm….

The Portfolio, especially electronic portfolio has been popular while the Web development tools advanced and became readily available for the general public. In our program, we always encourage students to develop good portfolios for their future careers. Here are some thoughts on portfolio development:

• The portfolio should not be treated as just an assignment to be completed. It is a tool to reflect one’s ideas of growth, maturity, and success.
• The portfolio should not be a one-time task. It’s work in progress. Once you started a portfolio, you are going to continue building it. It should show the process, improvements, and growth.
• The portfolio assignment should not dictate what to be included in the portfolio. Rather, it should provide clear guidelines and great degree of flexibility. The assignment should not confine students by limiting them with rigid layouts or categories. The content of the portfolio should not be the garbage collections. The portfolio owners should pick and choose the pieces that can best represent their candidacy. Thus, the portfolio should be highly selective. Less is more.
• The portfolio can tell many great stories. One should package one’s portfolio with pieces of evidences and organize the presentations with visuals, writings, or even artifacts. The best way of using the portfolio is to integrate it in the job interview process

I have gathered a few students’ e-portfolio examples from my ACB students as well as Dr. Conte’s students. You can find different styles and presentations. Students can always learn to improve their own portfolios by looking at other people’s portfolios. Hope you’ll enjoy watching them:

http://portfolio.project.tcnj.edu/ACB/2013/

During this past semester, I required my students to work in small teams to generate bi-weekly newsletters for our class. The newsletters are at least four pages long. Students became creative to explore possible contents, including what they had learned and what was going on both on campus and in the field. They designed nice layouts and filled the newsletters with important content and interesting snippets. They relied on each other to provide good ideas and activities/events/occurrences in each individual classroom. The finished newsletters, amazingly informative and attractive, were disseminated among the classmates.

Although the task of producing newsletters can be a daunting hassle at first, they managed it well without complaining. There are actually many merits in this exercise. Students learned how to plan and how to work collaboratively with each other. They also realized that this exercise forced them to formulate strategies to manage a major task. Some students even recognized the value of newsletters as a good communication tool that they may use it to reach out to parents and other people. I learned that they became closely bonding with each other and were very proud of their work. The newsletter assignment created a big learning community/ support group among them. Their newsletters also highlighted various aspects in the junior practicum. They worked hard and kept busy. They have accomplished a lot.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Please read their newsletters.

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