Hello all! I know you're all a very helpful bunch, and I hope you could grant me some. I'm a substitute and I'll be spending the next week (maybe two, depending on how things go) in a middle school VE class. Here's everything I know: the teacher has lesson plans for me ready, the students aren't isloated (there's new kids every hour), and there's no "behavior" kids. I know VE means "varying exceptionalities", and these kids are also SLD, "specific learning disabled". Can anyone give me some examples of what that exactly means? Has anyone worked in a similar setting? I'm kind of intimiated, because of a horrible experience I had in a behavior unit with 9th graders. I know they're not like that, but I'm not totally confident in my ESE skills. Any advice?
I have never heard of VE before this! My first guess would be that the students can function adequately in the regular classroom, but need special help in other areas. Maybe some can handle language arts, science, social studies - but need assistance with math. Does that sound reasonable?
I believe that this type of classroom calls for varying lesson plans or modifications for all of the kids... You may have multiple reading, math, ss and science groups within each class. Hope your day went well, let us know.
Yesterday was awesome. Today, not so. I found out that VE means the students are not up to grade level in that subject (the classes are VE English and VE Social Studies) because of a variety of LDs. I'm not privy to their IEPs or individual accomidations as of now (as I'm only in for two weeks), but I can kind of figure some of them out based on personal experience. (Lots of very low readers, some dislexia, a handful of former behavior units, more than a few ADHD, and a majority that just needs more time and instruction than I would normally give. From what I heard, everyone is 504.) Yesterday was great, except for the class with a high number of ADHD kids (which also happens to be the largest class). They could not seem to stop chatting through the whole instruction. The strange thing is to me that the period before is the same group, and this class adds only a handful more kids. (It doesn't double the class size, and it's not just those few acting up...) Today was very bad because there was standardized testing going on. They were working out of schedual, and the majority seemed like they had never been given a standardized writing test before. ("What's a prompt?" "What's a planning area?" "What am I supposed to do?" *Showing me two sentences as a response that should be five paragraphs* "Is this enough?") They were *so* talkative the entire time; I had to call in administration because I felt like I could do nothing to make them quiet. After two hours of testing, we had passing time, during which there was a fight in my room. The next group didn't start well either. I couldn't eat my lunch; I felt like crying! Then they came back, and they were good. And the next group was good. And the last was... normal. I'm sure they were just acting out because of all the stress of change they're under. (They all just started having this teacher on Monday, which they haven't met yet because she's been out and I'm there as a sub and they have to take a test they don't understand and don't know what it's for and it's too cold in the room and the sub can't fix it and most didn't even know there was a test today... Poor dolls; I'd be stressed out too.)
