The Beginning Part 2

Specifically in my classroom, I have 12 students. These 12 students are some of the brightest students I have worked with, but they are in this classroom because they face some sort of cognitive difference. Every student is at a different level: some students need more time, some students can’t focus for the ten minutes, and others just simply stare out into space. Day in and day out, my team, consisting of myself, a facilitator, and four Para educators, walk in and work hard to teach literacy to these twelve students. Some days are harder than others, but every day there is some sort of a breakthrough. Together, we work with our students. Together, we reach for the stars.

Part two of this journey will not be easier than the 1^st. In fact, it may just prove to be more difficult. Last semester I had a group of journalism that loved their class and were eager to enter their classroom. Now, down the hall, I have 12 students that many believe to be unreachable. However, this is what teaching is all about. Teaching is striving for change, leveling the playing field, ensuring that every student is treated as an individual. Every blog will not this be long, but it will provide access into my work into reaching the “unreachable”. This blog will serve as a journal, a place for plans, a place for student work. Hopefully, post after post will show my progress, ensure that I keep challenging my students and challenging myself.

The Beginning Part 1

This blog will follow my second part of my year long journey towards understanding the Edge concept. The Edge Academy is not like other classrooms or teams. For the purposes of this thorough analysis, the Edge Academy must be discussed as a separate entity, not part of the Essex Middle School, rather a school-within-a school. If this classification is not made, one would not be able to discuss the special support and community has to offer that, in essence, creates the Edge’s pure desire to the implementation of a holistic education. Unfortunately, the Edge is still a new program, a new school. Many are not sure of its accomplishments or its possibilities, so, in a flight or fight mode, many onlookers decided to cast original thought and cast the effectiveness of Edge aside. Essex Middle School educators, from what I have witnessed, have not shown any assistance or support to their fellow educators in the Edge, the same happens with students of Essex and Edge. However, in spite of the adversity, the Edge Academy has developed and nourished an alternative learning environment that is committed to constructivist teaching methods, the development of a strong and fruitful community, and an environment that promotes equality among all students.

Students of the Edge learn a curriculum much different from their peers down the hall in “traditional” classrooms as part of the Essex Middle School. This type of classroom is ruled by a curriculum that “marches students through textbook pages, workbook activities and lists of decontextualized skills and bits of knowledge, punctuated periodically by tests.” Instead of teachers taking the time to plan out a customary curriculum, they hand the job over to the students. The Edge Academy serves the town of Essex as that establishes an environment where students who feel they can succeed better in a community based classroom rather than in a traditional classroom, have a place to learn and to achieve their goals.  This non-traditional theory of teaching is an inclusive theory, no one is left behind and no one is discriminated against because of sex, race, creed, etc. The Edge is exactly what it sets out to be – on the edge of educational practices.