Chapter+1

I had my first real learning experience with a student last year, as a first year teacher. I was working at Thornton Middle School as a Co-teacher for seventh and eighth grade Science. My Principal had a strong belief in our biggest responsibility as teachers was to try to form some type of relationship with each of our students, helping to build their self esteems to achieve success. Thornton is in a low socio-economic area, therefore he felt this was extremely important because many of them were not receiving this at home. He felt that if we did not accomplish this, they would completley shut down from us and not learn anything all year long.

One of my students had autism. He was on the higher end of the spectrum but had serious issues with socialization, ect... He would require an escort from class to class because he would sometimes throw himself down on the floor and wabble like a fish to create reactions from the other students. Everyday I would come to class, he would have his head on the table and be completely asleep. At least, he was extremely good at making us believe that. I automatically created a negative impression in my mind because I could not ever get him to do anything, which I found extremely frusterating. One day, I came in and he was up and paying attention to the teacher. We were having a quiz that day, which he took and scored a 100. I could not believe it! After that day, I started trying to build a relationship with him. I soon realized that was the big piece I was missing. He started to do his work for me everyday, and he had an A in the class. All of his other Co-teachers were still having tremendous problems with him and could not get him to do anything. He soon started to tell me that he would only do his work for me and another paraprofessional he had an ICS class with because he liked us. I started to realize that my Principal was right. We must try and build relationships with students no matter how strong the challenge. The piece I feel was missing in our student/teacher relationship was trust.

In Chapter one, I fell that Notbhom